Estate fined for logging koa trees

By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Big Island Bureau

The Samuel M. Damon Estate was fined more than $480,000 yesterday for failing to obtain a state permit to log and bulldoze 712 koa and other native trees on estate land in Ka'u, Hawai'i.

Peter Young, chairman of the state Board of Land and Natural Resources, said his staff told him the fine may be the largest ever levied by the board. "The overall fine, we feel, sends a message that the natural resources are important," Young said.

The estate can avoid paying most of the fine if it pays for a state-approved reforestation program.

Damon Estate officials hired a contractor to handle the logging on its Kahuku Ranch lands from 1992 to 2001, and the estate and the contractor have said they believed the work was being done on agricultural lands. In fact, the logging was done on 500 acres of protected conservation land.

The logging on estate land allegedly spilled over onto adjoining state land, and the logging of 200 trees on the public land is being investigated separately.

Young said the fine was $650 per tree, along with a $2,000 fine for building a logging road with no permit, and a $2,000 fine for establishing a sawmill on the site. The board also imposed a fine of more than $13,500 to cover the state's costs of investigating and documenting the illegal logging.

The chief operating officer for the Damon Estate is Timothy Johns, who is also a member of the Board of Land and Natural Resources. Johns recused himself from the case, and left yesterday's meeting before it came up.

Other estate officials could not be reached for comment.