Posted on: Tuesday, July 2, 2002

Statewide work program closing down

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Science Writer

A statewide environmental work program, established after Sept. 11, has closed up shop after a mission that tackled dengue fever, pulled alien weeds such as miconia, built wildfire breaks and fought invasive ant colonies.

Only one of its missions will be kept alive: Maui County is committing $100,000 to keep a dengue fever control program open at least through the end of the year.

The Hana-based group 'Ohana Makamae will keep nine people working, controlling the mosquitoes that can spread the disease. Dengue is also known as breakbone fever for the severe aches that can accompany it.

The rest of the Emergency Environmental Work Force effort will be carried on by other organizations with other financing, if at all.

The work force program was akin to the Depression-era government work programs designed to provide jobs for the unemployed. The Legislature in a special session, noting the drop in visitor arrivals and the associated unemployment in a number of related industries, appropriated $1.5 million and instructed the Research Corporation of the University of Hawai'i and the Pacific Cooperative Studies Unit of the University's Botany Department to launch the program.

The program showed that normal folks could do the kind of critically needed environmental work that faces all islands, said David Duffy, professor and head of the university's Pacific Cooperative Studies Unit.

Emergency Environmental Work Force hired out-of-work bellhops, cooks and others on several islands. Eventually, 225 people worked in the program on O'ahu, Kaua'i, Maui and the Big Island. They cleared weeds from roadsides and native forests, collected old tires and junk able to hold water that could breed mosquitoes during the dengue outbreaks, chased down the tiny coqui frog, controlled fire ants and more.