Posted on: Monday, June 27, 2005
HAWAI'I BRIEFS
Two rescued after fall down slope
Advertiser Staff
Firefighters last night rescued two men who fell about 100 feet down a steep slope while rappelling with a group near Camp Erdman, an official said.
The men were taken to The Queen's Medical Center for treatment of multiple injuries, said Fire Battalion Chief Thomas Perkins.
The Fire Department's helicopter left the brushfire near Mililani Memorial Park at 6 p.m. and took firefighters to an area just mauka of Camp Erdman. The injured men, who had been with an experienced group of rappellers, had fallen and rolled off a steep slope, Perkins said.
Waimanalo Public and School Library will remain open while it undergoes two months of Americans with Disabilities Act renovations beginning today.
The project includes repaving handicapped-accessible parking stalls and renovating the accessible restrooms. Library staff parking stalls will be used as temporary handicapped-accessible stalls. However, the library stalls will be inaccessible for two or three weeks.
Signs will be posted when the renovation dates are scheduled.
Divers across Hawai'i will participate during July in the 2005 Great Annual Fish Count, and organizers on Maui have set up a series of free fish identification workshops for anyone interested in participating.
The first workshop is 6 p.m. tomorrow at the Maui Ocean Center. It will cover the identification of Hawaiian reef fishes and how to conduct fish surveys. No scientific training is needed. There are also advanced training sessions.
Several dive companies will offer discounts to those who take the training. Trilogy Excursions, Ed Robinson's Diving Adventures and Mike Severns Diving will hold REEF field surveys from their boats. But fish count surveys can also be done by snorkelers from shore.
Fish Count started in California in 1992 as a tool to educate the public about marine resources. Surveys in recent years in Hawai'i have tallied more than 200 different species of fish.
The count is sponsored by the Reef Environmental Education Foundation. For details, call Project S.E.A.-Link at 669-9062 or e-mail Lfoote@maui.net. Detailed information on the fish count, training and fish counting expeditions in Hawai'i is at www.fishcount.org/events/hawaii.html.
About 3,500 owners of debit and credit cards issued by major Hawai'i financial institutions are at high risk of having their names, card numbers and security codes stolen.
The problems arose with a breach of security Mastercard International revealed earlier this month.
Mastercard said information on more than 40 million credit and debit cards may have been stolen after thieves captured credit data that should have been discarded. Instead, it was kept in an unencrypted form by Atlanta-based processor CardSystems Solutions.
Locally, bank officials have not reported any fraudulent charges being made to the accounts in question.
However, they have identified some cards as being at "high risk." First Hawaiian Bank officials said 0.5 percent of its issued cards, or 2,500 cards, were in the high-risk category.
With a group of pets and pet lovers looking on at the State Capitol, Gov. Linda Lingle on Friday signed two bills that will benefit animals in Hawai'i.
One bill allows pet owners to provide for the future care of their domestic pets by allowing them to establish a trust on behalf of the animals. The second bill authorizes the state Board of Agriculture to lease a portion of the animal quarantine facilities in Halawa and use the money to defray costs of the animal quarantine program.
"I think it is a wonderful day for pets in Hawai'i," said Pam Burns, president of the Hawaiian Humane Society. "The two bills ... signed today will further protect animals in Hawai'i."
Library open during repairs
Training offered for fish surveys
Stolen data puts card users at risk
Animal bills signed into law
