More Hawaii Superferry issues

September 12th, 2007

Surprise, there’s more issues with the Hawaii Superferry…or at least the intent of some passengers. Three O’ahu men decided they’d float on over to Maui, pilfer through the ‘Iao Valley stream and load up their 3 pickup trucks with 900 river rocks and tote them back to O’ahu!!! (Allegedly…mmm hmm) The only reason they got busted is because of the August 27th injunction that stranded them on Maui and the DLNR was notified. Articles keep reiterating that these rocks are the kind used for heating imus (underground ovens). What exactly were they planning on cooking…King Kong??

My local friends on neighbor islands are not happy about the Superferry for reasons exactly like this. You get some lolo coming over thinking they can come over and rummage through your island like a bargain basement sale, pack up and float back over to O’ahu. They’re also afraid that all of these trucks and cars are going to overwhelm the local fishing and camping areas and load up on all kinds of fish in coolers and tote them right back. These worries don’t include the environmental assessments that they are now saying need to be done…you know, after they’ve spent millions to get this thing up and running.

Then you have the protesters on neighbor islands that don’t want it there. Kauai went so far as to have a line of reportedly 60 surfers who all made a chain and wouldn’t let the ferry into the harbor. (Go Kauai!) But where were they when this thing was in the PLANNING stages?? Were there meetings held and people turned out in droves saying they didn’t want the ferry and they were ignored? Or were there only a few select people that showed up to meetings and the rest who now are passionately against it didn’t voice their opinions until they saw it on the horizon about to drift into their harbor?

Regardless of why this thing is becoming such a fiasco, the point is its built now…millions have been spent to build it so they’re obviously not going to have spent that much to do sunset cruises around O’ahu so where do we go from here? Why were environmental concerns not taken into consideration before this money was spent? Why were neighbor islanders seemingly not given a say when it’s their islands that are being directly affected? Most importantly, what kind of resolution is going to be best for all of Hawaii so that everyone doesn’t suffer because of a potentially good idea gone bad?

Comments

1 Comment so far

Colby on January 31, 2008 4:24 pm
Aloha,
my name is colby vaivai. I attend the kamehameha schools maui campus, as a junior. I am doing my senior project thesis and paper on the Superferry. I just wanted you to know that i am against it 100%, and i just wanted to ask if anyone was on the same boat as me and could give me some information on the topic! Thanks!