Posted on: Thursday, May 23, 2002

Kaua'i rejects ocean tests

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Kaua'i Bureau

PUHI, Kaua'i — A deeply skeptical crowd last night shouted down a proposal to pump carbon dioxide into deep ocean water off Kaua'i.

"You should take your experiment back to the fishtank," said Robert Pa, who described himself as a native Hawaiian who depends on the ocean for food.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency held hearings last night on Kaua'i and Tuesday on O'ahu on the proposal of the Pacific Center for High Technology Research to conduct an experiment supported by an international consortium.

The experiment, seen as groundwork for a possible way to combat global warming, is designed to study how carbon dioxide disperses in the deep ocean. It calls for pumping about 5,000 gallons of liquefied food-grade carbon dioxide over two weeks into the ocean four miles off Nawiliwili Harbor, at a depth of nearly 3,000 feet.

EPA environmental scientist Allan Ota said that the agency would be required under existing laws to reject any proposal for a larger, operational test of the concept.

The public at the Kaua'i hearing rejected even the small-scale experiment.

"Our sense of the science is that it's not needed, it's not benign and it's not prudent," said Ken Stokes, a community networker, who said he has researched the project and held community meetings on it.

Retired fisherman Valentine Ako said the ocean current studies on which the project is partly based are incorrect.

"That's full of baloney," he said. People who fish regularly off east Kaua'i know the ocean currents intimately, but nobody asked them, Ako said.