Omigosh! Not only can you bring guns and ammo on the Superferry but you can also bring fireworks. No way am I going on this death-trap! Read more
I wonder if the "Terrorism Training" is postponed also? Drivers observed many paddy wagons being staged at the National Guard armory. Paddy wagons for terrorism training? How odd. How many Al Queda are they expecting?
Lingle Admin breaks promise to protect Maui from Varrao mites. 25% of Mainland bees have died off and this mite could be implicated. Maui is free of the mite and Lingle's ag department was supposed to insure that mites had been erradicated near the superferry dock. An infected swarm was just discovered.
While millions of dollars are spent to protect the Superferry from unarmed and peaceful citizen resisters, Karen Anderson finds out that any yahoo can bring an arsenal of guns aboard the Superferry. Huh? Perhaps the Coast Guard really is closing the harbor for our protection...I'd hate to see a bunch of armed anti-Mauians on the deck of the Superferry taking pot shots at us...although the resulting lawsuit against Superferry's lax standards would certainly end its business.
Superferry's clout with Bush/Lingle got the Feds could shut down the entire Kahului Harbor for an hour prior to Superferry arrival to 10 minutes after it leaves. Information is that the CG was forced into this action by the politicians who support Lingle and Superferry chair, Lehman.
Lingle, Bush & Cheney ordered us banned from our own harbor even though there was not one hint that anyone was planning to commit civil disobedience.
In fact we were all working with Law Enforcement to be sure that the Rally For Maui was law abiding.
So this is Maui's reward for following the rules - to be deprived of the use of our harbor. Our fishermen cannot use the small boat ramp, our canoes cannot go outside one small area, our surfers cannot surf a popular winter break.
We are expected to give up our harbor for the arrogant Superferry. And give it up for even longer when the planned second, third, fourth and fifth ferries arrive.
We warned law enforcement that we could not keep a lid on civil resistance if they closed the harbor to us.
We are reminded of 114 years ago when our Queen, believing in the rule of law, did not resist the illegal takeover of the greedy American businessmen backed by the military. She trusted the U.S. government to right that wrong.
The U.S. Government betrayed her.
And here it is again. We on Maui worked through the system. And then even when the Governor and Legislature passed an illegal law, still we said, "We'll play be the rules." We will trust that this wrong will be righted.
And the U.S. Government betrayed us.
Mistaking our law-abiding behavior for lack of resolve, the U.S. government has escalated its unlawful acts against Maui.
The Superferry will try to land on Maui Thursday December 6th. We'll be there at 9am.
Ku'e.
More Evidence Superferry Should Have Done an Environmental Study
For the third time Superferry barge has broken loose. HSF is cancelling its Tuesday visit. If they had done a study, they would have found that the barge location was bad for a number of reasons including the surge and the danger to other ships because it impacts the turning basin which is already too tight.
Actually, the Army Corps of Engineers warned them about this, saying they could be prevented from docking up to a month every year. But Barry Fukanaga (Former DOT head lawbreaker and now Lingle's Chief of Staff, replacing accused bribery and whoremaster, Awana) just ignores those pesky, inconvenient facts.
I'm not sure whether we are moving up or down the criminal ladder with Lingle's new Chief of Staff. Admittedly bribery and supplying women on Lingle's overseas junkets is criminal and nasty, but in the long run, isn't flouting environmental law and saddling the Hawai'i taxpayers with debt for $40 million dollar white elephants of barges worse?
Really Bad News
Under the guidance of the 196th Infantry Brigade from Fort Shafter, several National Guard units will be deployed to Maui to assist local agencies with a terrorism training exercise. This exercise just so happens to be scheduled simultaneously with the Superferry arrival. Well, I guess when the Chairman of the Board (John F Lehman) is a neocon friend of VP Cheney, you have a lot of resources on call. Odd that this terrorism training on Kaua'i coincided with Lingle's Operation Unified Command meeting there. Hmmmmm.....
Good News Bad News
Maui on the verge of successfully eradicating coqui frogs.
Now the bad news: All their hard-earned efforts will be for naught when coqui-infested cars from the Big Island start arriving in Maui every day via Superferry in 2009 when the 2nd ferry comes on line.
Good News, Good News
Coast Guard will not be closing off Kahului Harbor when Superferry comes on Tuesday er...Wednesday for a trial run. They will however, have lots of Coast Guard boats out practicing to defend HSF against the unarmed surfers who are so pissed off at it. There is growing feeling everywhere that this is a terrible waste of money and resources.
Bad News
Holy mackeral! You are allowed to take hand guns and rifles on the Superferry in your car!!!! Good grief! Ferries are way bigger terrorist targets than airplanes. This is insane! They've got military maneuvers (just happening to occur during Superferry's first trip), 10 Coast Guard boats, a Coast Guard cutter, Sheriffs from 'Oahu, FBI agents, Homeland Security agents, military intelligence agents...but any yahoo can drive on to the Superferry with hand guns and rifles????!!!!!
There is much behind the scenes debate going on about how slow one can go and still be obeying the law. Attorney Lanny Sinkin points out that the vehicle code demands a slower speed when there are hazards such as pedestrians etc. and adds:
So if there are lots of people around singing songs and carrying signs or lots of police and military around trying to learn the songs and understand the thought behind the signs, drive extra carefully.
(It is so sad that the anti-environment people seem to have lost their senses of humor and can't tell when we are joking!)
SaveKahuluiHarbor and other Maui organizations have been organizing a legal, land-based protest for the first date of HSF operation by liasing with the police and county.
In comes Lingle with her heavy hand and closes off the entire Kahului Bay, including the surf spot, the small boat harbor, the highschool paddling program and the fishermen from 8:30 to 11:45 every day.
Thanks a million, Lingle! You think that is going to prevent a water protest by taking our harbor away from us? We had everything under control until you and your Unified Command came stomping in pissing everyone off.
At the time of this writing (11:30am) the webcam shows one 6-man canoe, some OC-1 and surfers all using the harbor. You think people are going to meekly let you give over our entire harbor to your pet business?
Why are you escalating an already tense situation?
The Maui News has some good advice for us. It's their contention that the Superferry will go bankrupt on its own. No sense anyone go to jail for 10 years when HSF will be gone before the year is out.
"[The Superferry] will also change the dynamics of nonunion trades," Mr. Wright said. "Now, it's more expensive to get work like roofing or plumbing done in the neighbor islands. But with the Superferry, Oahu tradesmen will be able to take their trucks on the ferry and undercut the locals."
The Superferry will also carry S.U.V.'s and trailered boats, allowing Oahu fishermen frustrated by the island's depleted waters to gain access to the richer grounds of Maui and Kauai - to the discontent of local fisherman. Those boats might also involuntarily carry bits of Eucheuma seaweed, which is devastating Oahu's biggest bay, to the neighboring islands. Read more from the NY Times.
This 340 foot by 80 foot wide ship will carry 200 cars plus 15 trucks as well as 900 passengers and take about 3 hours to get from Maui to Oahu. SuperFerry says the rates will be "half the airlines", however they have not actually set a rate and filed it with the PUC so this estimate is not to be relied on. See photo.
Superferry has $140 million in Federal Loan Guarantees and $40 million in State facility funding. This money is supposed to be paid back over the decades that the ferry is assumed to operate.
Terry White, one of the three Superferry executives, was VP of marine operations for American Hawaii Cruises which also borrowed under the Federal Maritime Loan Guarantee program and defaulted on $366.9 million in loans which taxpayers had to cover.
The Super Ferry had comprised 17% of the dock space driving the Kahului Harbor Expansion. In order to minimize impact, Super Ferry has revised their plan and will not notch the pier.
However, Harbors still intends to put them out at the end of Pier 2 which will heavily impact Young Brother's freight operations and create an unacceptable safety risk to passengers.
We suggest co-locating the SuperFerry with the Cruise ships so as to keep passenger operations in one place. The cruise ships need to shorten their visits from 35 hours to 10 hours (like the other large ships that visit) in order to leave a 2 hour window for the SuperFerry. Our docks are for working ships -- not a cheap alternative to a land-based hotel.
Many Maui residents want a ferry since Hawaiian and Aloha airlines have almost doubled their rates in the last few years. We are starting to see small commuter airlines come in around $39 one-way and this may provide relief. But many residents have pinned their hopes on the Superferry.
However, what most people don't realize is that they will not be able to travel to any island except Oahu from the neighbor islands. Traveling from Maui to Big Island would mean paying double the fare (more than air) and spending the night on Oahu.
Superferry has now turned its focus to Maui Pine (an investor) and the military for its main business. Thus the people of Hawaii will be paying their tax dollars to support a primarily military and private business transport system. Once it begins transporting military convoys we can expect greatly increased security measures with associated impacts on small boating and other harbor users.
The State is going to build or modify docks for the Superferry on Oahu, Kaua'i, Maui, and the Big Island by 2007 when the first ferry is ready. The State is scrambling to make this deadline and bypassing an EIS which would prevent unintended side effects and spell out mitigation measures.
Our organization advocates solving the problems before we irrevocably ruin Maui by poor planning and lack of solutions. We can do this (and do it in time) if DOT is willing. [This was first written in Nov. of 2004 - and still no EIS has been done. The EIS could have been finished by now] In February of 2007 SB1276 was introduced to require an EIS by the SuperFerry.
The ferry could load 250 cars and offload 250 cars onto Pu'unene one block from the Ka'ahumanu intersection with no other outlet - the cars MUST go through this choke point. (Superferry is predicting they won't operate at full capacity estimating about 107 cars off and on each visit plus vehicles dropping off and picking up passengers.)
This congested intersection feeds traffic from Kihei/Wailea and Lahaina into (and out of) Kahului as well as
acting as a choke point between Hana/Haiku/Paia/Upcountry and Kahului/Wailuku. The ferry may visit twice a day. Superferry tells us they have scheduled for 11am and 7pm - deliberately trying to avoid rush hour. Their solution of changing light timing is will not help since Puunene and Kaahumanu will exceed their carrying capacity.
Since ferries are a key terrorist target (a Philippine ferry was already attacked with explosives) there will need to be a perimeter fence around the 2 acre staging area for the vehicles and each vehicle will need to be searched.
So the Ferry not only needs dock space, but it needs 2 acres to store and line up the vehicles exiting and entering. Small ferry users have said there should be a large parking lot but Superferry says that most people using their type of ferry take their vehicles, so they do not anticipate large numbers of people leaving their vehicles over night.
First Superferry and Harbors decided to notch Pier 2. Then they decided to locate a barge at the end of the pier. Now they have finally paid attention to the pilots who have been saying (since 2004) that that will impact the turning basin safety.
The Harbors Draft Environmental Assessment doesn't say where the staging area will be but Harbors has announced that they will place a barge at the end of Pier 2 and take 25% of Young Brothers' area.
Subsequently YB announced that it would stop Less than container load service. This service is vital to Molokai and Lana'i and enables our smaller businesses to stay competitive with the "Big Box" stores who ship by containerload.
When the Kauai, Maui and Big Island County Councils passed resolutions for a Superferry EIS and there were demonstrations and protests, Lingle stepped in an brokered a deal with YB to continue Less than Containerload shipping through 2009. After that, there is no guarantee that YB will continue. YB has already applied for rate increases.
Now the harbor pilots say the barge at the end of Pier 2 will impact the turning basin - exactly what they said in a 2004 meeting with harbor users and Glen Soma of the Division of Harbors. The State has already paid for the barge and may not be able to locate it at the end of Pier 2. An EIS would have prevented this snafu.
Ironic Composite from Juan Wilson's Island Breath Website
If Harbors notches a football-sized chunk of Pier 2 (80x280 feet) and the Superferry fails, we will be left with an unusable pier. The floating barge will be useless. It makes more sense to build a new docking place for the Superferry where they can load and unload vehicles without clogging downtown Kahlului traffic -- a strong argument for a second harbor on Maui. Could we then get Federal highway or maritime funds for this?
Regardless, Oahu needs to provide help to Maui on this clogged road situation - either alternate ferry docking location, a new road allowing residents an alternate commute route that won't be clogged by ferry traffic, or some improvements of Ka'ahumanu and Pu'unene that allows the extra traffic to be accommodated. Changing stoplight timing is not enough. Adding parallel feeder roads or relocating the outlet is necessary.
Right now, we have some nasty alien pests (insects, frogs, weeds) on other islands that haven't infested Maui. Many travel in mud splashed under cars. We need ag inspection and a method of removing these before the vehicles spread these plagues to Maui. (see alien species)
Our officials were shown the Spirit of Ontario to pump them up for our ferry. But after only 80 days (and $36 million in taxpayer money) the Spirit of Ontario has halted business (see story).
Experience with our previous ferry show that after one 3-hour trip across the rough inter-island channels, few want to take a second trip. Superferry is to be a smoother ride. Yet we still need to make sure we don't end up subsidizing a private business that might not stay in business long enough to repay the estimated $180 million State and Federal investment.
The ferries of Washington State travel only half the distance of the Superferry (thus incurring half the cost) and gross about the same in (projected) fares. Washington ferries require a 50% subsidy because they operate at a loss. How can the Superferry - with double the fuel and staff costs - possibly be profitable. (See article.)
Our guess is that the owners wanted to get it up and running and "flip" it before the buyer realized its impracticality. Alternatively, they may think that after investing $40 million in State funds, Hawaii, like Rochester, will be dumb enough to take over the failing enterprise or subsidize it. Or perhaps the Stryker Brigade is its intended use after all, and they are just duping us into giving our State funds to it. In any event, there is more here than meets the eye.
Wouldn't it be sad if we spent $40 million in State and $140 million in Federal money to build docks, terminals, parking lots and finance the ships, -- and the ferry failed just like our other one did, just like a similar one did in Florida, just like a similar one did in New York?
Instead, let's plan carefully so that our tax money is spent wisely.
