Livestock production degrades environment

I must take issue with your Nov. 1 editorial, "Right policies can reverse ag decline." I do not disagree with your position on the ag land inventory or tax policies. However, you are dead wrong about the livestock issue.

You bemoan the decline in the number of livestock operations in Hawai'i, expressing fears about isolation and not having basic levels of foodstuffs. Please consider the following:

• A single dairy cow produces about 120 pounds of wet manure daily, equivalent to the waste produced by 20 to 40 people.

• Millions of gallons of liquefied feces and urine have seeped into the environment from collapsed, leaking or overflowing manure storage "lagoons" and contaminated wetlands and groundwater.

• Hundreds of manure spills have killed millions of fish in the United states.

• Some other environmental problems caused by industrial livestock production are decreased biodiversity through habitat loss and ecosystem damage, aquifer depletion, heavy metal contamination of soil and soil erosion, and greenhouse gas production.

Does this sound good for Hawai'i?

Please, be responsible in your reporting to the people of Hawai'i. Start educating people about the environmental degradation caused by livestock production and provide facts. Twenty people could eat a healthy vegetarian diet using the resources consumed by one person eating a meat-based diet.

We hear a lot about "sustainability" but nothing about the unsustainability of the livestock industry. Is the money generated by this industry more important than our environment and the health of our people?

Redeeming bottle bill fees aren't worth effort

The new bottle bill has all the appearance of just another way of extracting money from the people to fund a new state bureaucracy.

People should recycle because it is the right thing to do. Far better to educate people in the non-monetary rewards of recycling such as a clean environment and smaller landfills than to try to reduce everything to dollars and cents.

Who in his right mind is going to take the time and spend the gas to return a bunch of stinking old beer cans for a lousy nickel each? First, you have to rinse them and store them for a time till you have a decent load and then take them to wherever you take old cans to get your nickel back. Looking at the situation in a logical way, one would have to return 130 cans to get $6.50 back. That $6.50 is minimum wage for an hour's work in Hawai'i. Few people I know are so destitute that they would work for so small a sum.

The state stands to get a huge windfall from the unreturned bottles and cans.

If the people are not disposed to do the right thing, five cents will do little to change their thinking.

Hawaiians must help us stop development

There are many thousands of people of Hawaiian ancestry living here in these Islands. Those in the Lahaina area tell me that, according to their culture, Kaua'ula Valley is the most sacred place in the state; it's even sacred to women. Due to the archaeological significance of the valley, a state commission recommended (but cannot enforce) a 300-yard setback for development on both sides of the riverbed (which the Pu'unoa developers are choosing to ignore, thereby revealing their real level of respect for Hawaiian culture).

You would think that Hawaiians from all over would be jamming the Maui council meetings to speak up against Pu'unoa's encroachment into this valley. Why are the few families living there the only ones speaking up? Where is everybody? Couldn't the Office of Hawaiian Affairs buy out the developers?

We Hawaiiana lovers are doing our very best to block Pu'unoa from the angles of too much traffic and the loss of ag lands, but the real issue, of cultural and kapu concerns, can be put forward only by Native Hawaiians. Please speak up! Auwe — I can only cry for her, but you can act.

Cartoonist needs to wake up to reality

Dick Adair has outdone himself (Editorial cartoon, Tuesday), comparing the U.S.-Iraqi attempt to quell the barbarism emanating from Fallujah with the torching of villages in Vietnam. This on the same day when the front page was filled with Marines tearfully mourning the deaths of Kane'ohe comrades from the same unit that is going into Fallujah.

Adair seems to be stuck in a late-1960s anti-war time warp. To him, any war at any time for any reason is apparently the wrong war at the wrong time for the wrong reason. Someone should wake him up to the new reality of suicide bombers, beheadings and general savagery.

Hannemann's focus will serve us well

I have known and worked with Mufi Hannemann since he was the director of the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism in the early 1990s. I was working on the NFL Pro Bowl game being based in Hawai'i and realized we were about to lose future games to Florida. We met with Mufi and he quickly came up with ideas and plans to ensure that this important game would keep Honolulu as its home. Many people were talking about the need to keep this game here in Hawai'i, but it was actually Mufi who set a plan in motion to save the game.

This same enthusiasm will help Mufi in his new role as mayor.

With his positive attitude and ability to unite people, there are more solutions than problems in our future. His sense of humor and people skills will allow Mufi to bring a solid group of talent with him to City Hall.

We look forward to a positive future for O'ahu and Honolulu.

4 Wheeler cleanup just another in many efforts

I would like to thank James Gonser for his fair and unbiased story on the O'ahu 4 Wheeler cleanup at Ka'ena Point ("Off-roaders clean Ka'ena," Nov. 10).

Four-wheelers have been organizing cleanups of Ka'ena and other areas for years, but often their good deeds went unrecognized or even punished sometimes as we were often misunderstood. The four-wheel-drive community realizes this is not our fathers' island anymore. It now belongs to our children.

I cannot understand how Life of the Land would allow itself to be quoted as approving of our cleanup, yet against our "destruction" of the area. The mentality of these self-proclaimed "environmentalist" anti-access groups is to have more gates. By keeping Ka'ena open to the public, we removed almost 100 percent of all the rubbish along 2.5 miles of coastline in just three hours.

Along the Mokule'ia coastline, one beach is more abused than any other, Army Beach, adjacent to Dillingham Airport. Army Beach is easily accessed by anyone in regular passenger cars and minivans and is in horrible shape. Broken glass, nails and other hazards litter the sand. Once you reach the end of the pavement and enter the unimproved rougher terrain, the trash and damage drop off significantly.

This is the same area used and cared for by four-wheelers, fishermen, hikers and bikers, and is mostly inaccessible to those in the general public who have trashed Army Beach. Many of our members use their four-wheel drives to access primitive areas because their legs and backs no longer can take the strain of walking, let alone wear a heavy pack. Others have young children or heavy fishing gear, and there is no better pack mule than a sturdy Jeep, SUV or pickup truck.

The four-wheel-drive community knows where our kuleana is, and we are organizing. We already have the support of several environmental groups on O'ahu that amazingly agree with our efforts: Na Ala Hele, ONC and the Windward Ahupua'a Alliance. Hawaiian Trail Riders and Holo Lea Off Road are two other environmentally sensitive four-wheel-drive owner groups that were not mentioned in Mr. Gonser's story but helped out in the cleanup. Mahalo.

Water conservation project a boon

With oil around $50 per barrel, recent years of water shortages and landfill space reaching its limits, it makes greater sense for businesses to conserve.

The Green Business Program, started in 2002 as a collaboration among Hawai'i's Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, the Department of Health and the Chamber of Commerce, encourages companies to implement conservation measures. The program initially concentrated on the hotel industry, where small measures can yield significant savings.

As an example, the program started a Water Conservation Card Project for Hawai'i hotels. The project drew support from the hotel industry, Hawaiian Electric Co., the water department for each county and numerous government agencies. The project asks hoteliers to put a card in guest rooms, asking guests to reuse towels and linens rather than have them replaced and laundered daily. This step is timely, given the recent years of water shortages.

When a 313-room hotel in California used water conservation cards to give guests the option of not washing their linens daily, the hotel saved over a year 2 million gallons of water, 10,000 pounds of detergent and energy for 31 households.

In 2003, letters were sent to hotels offering free generic water cards. To date, 78 hotels have ordered about 50,670 of the recyclable water cards. "The project is a good start to our conservation efforts. We encouraged hotels to participate because it saved them money and helps stretch our limited natural resources," says Murray Towill, president of the Hawaii Hotel & Lodging Association.

Having the hotels participate in conservation is a big help for the Maui Department of Water, says administrative officer Jacky Takakura. "The hotels are large users and the potential for reduction in water use is substantial." According to Wanda Yamane, information officer for the Honolulu Board of Water Supply, "the hotels are conveying an important message to residents and tourists that the protection of our resources is a partnership among all users."

Potential annual savings for the water card project are on the order of 100 million gallons of water, 250 tons of detergent and energy to run over 1,500 homes.

Due to the water, energy and detergent savings, the Maui Department of Water, the Honolulu Board of Water Supply and HECO helped to sponsor the project.