(Saturday Special) THE LUNATIC IS IN MY HEAD

THE LUNATIC IS IN MY HEAD: Ever since Thursday we've had a nagging feeling we were missing something after reading the article in the local newspaper about Tuesday's Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) board meeting where it was announced that they were going to essentially ignore the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) ruling dismissing of two of KIUC's eight preliminary hydropower permits and throwing the rest into question.

So on Thursday, when we couldn't quite put our finger on it, we decided to rehash the story of the apparently sleazy way KIUC's deal with Free Flow Power (FFP) went down.

But last night it all became clear after we read a Facebook posting by board member Ben Sullivan.

Sullivan for some reason has taken it upon himself to be the spokesperson for the board's insistence that they are not going to abandon the FERC permits or process in favor of what the FERC called the state's "long history of authorizing and regulating hydropower projects."

Last night, in a seemingly tone-deaf statement accompanying a notice for this week's three meetings regarding KIUC's remaining FERC hydroelectric projects, he wrote "I think our approach is a good one, we just have to make sure there is ample communication and that we work together during the evaluation."

"What approach?" we thought. "What communication? The insistence that the FERC process is the right one no matter what anyone says?"

All of a sudden it hit us. Part of the FERC ruling said essentially that they would no longer issue any more permits for the state of Hawai`i. And that makes KIUC's whole stated reason for using FERC in the first place no longer valid.

KIUC has repeatedly said that they had to use FERC because they were afraid someone else would take out preliminary permits and by doing so, under FERC rules, obtain sole rights to develop those projects. That, they said, would have put KIUC over a barrel of having to negotiate with whomever got the permit and buy the power- possibly at an inflated price- denying the coop actual ownership of the facilities.

But now that no one can get one of those preliminary (or final for that matter) permits, nobody can do that anymore so there's no reason that KIUC even needs a FERC permit anymore.

It's that simple.

But there was also one more claim made by Sullivan that flies in the face of KIUC's previous statements regarding the state regulatory process.

It has been a matter of some ambiguity as to whether there is or is not a state "process for approval" of hydropower in Hawai`i. But according to the FERC ruling “Hawai‘i has a long history of authorizing and regulating hydropower projects at the state level,” and has approved 13 projects throughout the state citing a recent one in Wailuku, Maui.

The whole problem with the FERC process, according to Don Heacock and Adam Asqueth- the two aquatic biologists who have been challenging the use of FERC's federal oversight- is that, due to a US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruling, the feds apparently have the power to usurp the state's excellent water use laws which protect whole watersheds and ecosystems, regulating stream flow, water distribution and use as well as other essential matters.

KIUC has maintained over and over that they will follow all state regulation and standards in using the FERC process for public participation and decision making, even pointing to a different SCOTUS ruling that they claim may rule out the usurping of state law.

But seemingly contradicting this is another statement made by Sullivan in Thursday’s article.

Sullivan said there are certain advantages to using FERC for permitting.

“One of the them is the cumbersome nature of the state process —and perhaps even the non-existence of a state process — and that’s an important issue we’ve discussed,” he said. “There’s high cost involved in a process that has no timeline for ending, and it’s difficult to know whether it’s in the members’ interest to even engage in such a process. The FERC avenue offers an alternate to that, potentially. It also lays out a process that we can limit, as you have suggested, and I think that it’s something that the staff is constantly working with the state to do.”

So in other words KIUC does NOT necessarily intend to honor all of the state's water laws as they pledged when state water authorities came out against the use of the FERC permitting.

There is apparently some honest- to-god, double-talking bullcrap going on with KIUC (what else is new). If you care, show up for one or all of this week's meetings and tell them to stop the prevarications and misrepresentations, abandon the FERC process and follow the state law... as they pledged they would.

The meetings are scheduled for Tuesday at Waimea Theater, Wednesday at Hanalei School cafeteria and Thursday at Kapa‘a Middle School cafeteria all from 6 to 7:30 p.m.

DARE I SAY IT?

DARE I SAY IT?: The stereotypical mad scientist of science fiction from Dr. Frankenstein to Dr’s No and Strangelove has always been an almost comic-bookish aberration.

Perhaps that’s why, no matter how much real scientists try to invoke the precautionary principle, the more insanely oriented researchers blithely make decisions that carry the seeds (pun intended) of calamity.

Today’s announcement that the

(t)he state Department of Agriculture is expected to release an environmental assessment today... seeking approval to release a Brazilian scale insect into Hawaii forests to control the spread of the popular but environmentally needy strawberry guava tree


casts Art Medeiros, a research biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, in the insane “don’t confuse me with the facts” researcher who seemingly has never heard of species mutating.

In the case of the Brazilian scale, although presently it infects only the admittedly invasive strawberry guava, the plant is in the same family as the `ohia lehua an endemic and significant part of local forests.

Of course should the introduction of the scale actually make the guava scarce it doesn’t take a genius to envision a slight evolutionary genetic change that would enable it to decimate the `ohia.

It all pales in comparison with the unknowns of generically modified organisms (GMOs) being cranked out to allow companies like Monsanto to control our food supply- assuming they don’t eventually wipe it out.

But there is hope.

This week the first GMO case reached the Supreme Court and while the court didn’t rule specifically on the dangers of widespread GMO crops it did note that they- as a Center for Food Safety news release (thanks to Joan Conrow for the pointer) says-

recognized that the threat of transgenic contamination is harmful and onerous to organic and conventional farmers and that the injury allows them to challenge future biotech crop commercializations in court.

What’s interesting in reading the whole opinion is that it seems almost a given that irreparable harm can come from GMOs with statements throughout the opinion seeming to indicate that there is no doubt about it with nary a challenge to the contention.

It’s hard to put our hopes on a supreme court whose concept of justice is warped by corporate subservience but it may just be that they can recognize junk science when they see it.