In August, when the fire that scorched almost 7,000 acres of Waialua agricultural and conservation land was extinguished, residents, farmers and government officials talked of the need to move quickly to revegetate the land.

Many hoped the land could be seeded with fire-tolerant native plants rather that allowing opportunistic weeds to take over. There was also concern that heavy rain would wash away soil and soot from barren land.

Four months later, guinea grass, which when dry will fuel a fire, has regrown over much of the affected area and there has been some soil erosion in still-barren areas from in the recent rains, says Jacob Ng, who lives in Waialua and is a North Shore Neighborhood Board member.

Residents were disappointed to learn that replacing the grass is not covered under the Natural Resources Conservation Service's Emergency Watershed Protection Program, to which the city had applied.

Certainly, Waialua residents are not the only people on this island needing assistance from government, but the clock is ticking and in a few short months winter rains will turn to hot, dry conditions.

The people of Waialua will have been failed by government if six months from now no progress has been made on true mitigation efforts. If there is another program that will cover the reseeding, surely there is a city office or environmental group that can step to the fore and see that it is done sooner rather than later.

Editorials represent the opinion of the newspaper, whose Editorial Board consists of: Dick Adair, Stephen J. Downes, Anne Harpham, Jeanne Mariani-Belding, Mark Platte, Vicki Viotti and Lee P. Webber.

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