Posted on: Saturday, April 14, 2001

New census figures highlight lack of services in Puna

By Hugh Clark
Advertiser Big Island Bureau

HILO, Hawai'i — Puna advocates say recent U.S. Census figures showing their community is the fastest-growing on the Big Island validate claims that they have been long neglected when it comes to public services.

The 2000 census reported a 51 percent growth in Puna's population over the last decade, making the community, with 31,446 residents, the fastest-growing district on the island and now the second most populated.

Hawai'i County Mayor Harry Kim knows the impact of that growth personally.

He was raised in a rustic Kea'au home in Puna as the ninth child in an immigrant family so poor they had a dirt floor. He had no shoes until he entered high school.

Kim has watched as the area began experiencing growth in the 1960s and 1970s as Mainland retirees bought lots for a few thousand dollars, Hawaiians who once lived there returned, and newcomers found affordable living in its subdivisions.

The area also became home to commuters working in Hilo or Kona, and even Honolulu.

The mayor said the "Puna problem" of unmet needs from roads and water to police and fire protection has been "clearly obvious" for more than 15 years.

Only the Department of Education has responded to the growth, Kim said, opening Kea'au High School and nearby Kea'au Elementary School in recent years.

As Civil Defense administrator, Kim was one of the first to begin asking for a relief or escape road from Puna to Hilo after wild fires in the 1980s left residents stranded.

Hawai'i County Council member Gary Safarik calculates that about half of Puna's residents live on private, substandard roads and have to catch their own water or haul it in. As subdivisions are more densely built, many fear that the risk of being trapped by fire, volcanic eruption or earthquake will grow.