Ho'opili -- taking our future survival
Ho’opili – taking our future survival
By Kioni Dudley
Some day in July of this year, a regular day we get the kids ready for school, fight the traffic, do our best at work for eight hours, and fight the traffic home, too busy, too harried, and too tired to know what is going on in government, we all may well lose the 1555 acres of farmland that could mean the difference for future survival for us and our descendants on this island. Unbelievable. But absolutely true.
Ho’opili is the project that will cover that farmland with 12,000 homes. DRHorton, a Delaware Company, is the developer. The State Land Use Commission is the body that will, or will not, give our future away. It will all be done while you are at work, unless you do something about it.
They will base much of their decision on the “Agricultural Impact Analysis” in the Ho’opili Final Environmental Impact Statement. That Analysis does everything but lay out the truth.
So what is the truth? Why are these lands so precious?
First, they are the highest producing farmlands in the islands. They have “prime” agricultural soils, classified as A and B by the UH Land Study. Four Hawaiian islands, including the Big Island, have no A soils at all. Four islands, including Molokai, have no B soils.
This acreage is called the Golden Triangle. It is a low lying area, with plenty of sun and gentle winds, and it has an abundance of clean, cheap water. While one might assume that higher lands that get more rain would be better for farming, what crops really need in order to grow is sunlight. Farmers far prefer to regulate the water through irrigation, giving crops just what they need.
Farms with frequent cloud cover and lots of rainfall have major problems with insects that love the wet conditions. They must use insecticides, polluting the ground, and often have to trim their crops before sending them to market, cutting into their profits. Only one insect is observed in the Golden Triangle, and it doesn’t require pesticides.
The Triangle also has excellent drainage which prevents root rot. And unlike higher elevation lands, its soils have near-perfect 6.5 ph levels, requiring no soil remediation for alkalinity or acidity.
The Golden Triangle is truly our breadbasket. It produces four crops a year, compared to three on the north shore and in the central highlands, and two in Waimanalo. And these lands are close to markets.
These are not small advantages. We’ve always heard that costs are too high to produce our food locally. These are the reasons local producers can produce fresh high quality fruits and vegetables at a competitive price.
The Environmental Impact Statement ignores these facts and blithely recommends that the Triangle farms be moved to the higher Kunia lands in Central or to the lands on the North Shore below Wahiawa—with all of the costs borne by the farmer.
But what the EIS neglects to mention – its unspoken little secret – is that there are no lands to move to. There’s actually nowhere for the farms to go.
There are 1555 acres of farmland to move. All of Kunia is sold except 400 acres which have all of the highland problems mentioned above.
The North Shore is relatively empty, but that land is irrigated by water from Lake Wilson. After years of sewage from Wahiawa and Schofield Barracks being emptied into the lake, state and federal regulations will not allow edible crops that touch the ground to be grown on any land irrigated with that water. Almost all of the crops grown in the Golden Triangle come under that prohibition. We need that land for biofuels.
All of the other arable land on the Oahu is already being farmed by others. There’s nowhere to go.
There is plenty of land on other islands, but transportation adds so much to the cost that farmers can’t compete.
The secret is that the farms in the Triangle cannot be moved. They will simply close, and we will lose one of our greatest treasures. Once it’s gone, it can never be reclaimed. Our future survival for a few bucks to each Horton stockholder.
Will Pearl Harbor never happen again? Will we never be surrounded and cut off? We have a million people to feed on this island.
The recent spike in oil prices raised transportation costs so high that we stopped importing many foods. Does anyone think this won’t happen again? We only grow 15% of our fresh produce. That is irresponsible enough in itself. Can we really afford to lose the Golden Triangle? Is it fair to future generations?
We can’t eat houses.
Send your concerns to the Land Use Commission. For more information, to sign our petition, or to become involved, check out www.stophoopili.com.
Dr. Kioni Dudley, as president of the Friends of Makakilo, is an intervenor before the Land Use Commission for people affected by the project.
Post script #1 The worst part of this is that the precious prime soil has high clay content that expands and contracts – fantastic for growing, but a major problem for builders because it causes foundations to crack. So they will be excavating the Level A soil before building their houses and other buildings. In the past, this prime farm soil has been taken to the dump. So they are going to close down our highest producing farms, excavate the rich soil, take it to the dump, fill the holes with coral and red dirt, and build houses, many of which will be bought by people who don’t live here, so that a developer in Delaware can profit.
Post script #2 Two hundred farm jobs will be lost in this project. Most of these workers have no other skills. Why are construction jobs more precious than farm jobs?
By Kioni Dudley
Some day in July of this year, a regular day we get the kids ready for school, fight the traffic, do our best at work for eight hours, and fight the traffic home, too busy, too harried, and too tired to know what is going on in government, we all may well lose the 1555 acres of farmland that could mean the difference for future survival for us and our descendants on this island. Unbelievable. But absolutely true.
Ho’opili is the project that will cover that farmland with 12,000 homes. DRHorton, a Delaware Company, is the developer. The State Land Use Commission is the body that will, or will not, give our future away. It will all be done while you are at work, unless you do something about it.
They will base much of their decision on the “Agricultural Impact Analysis” in the Ho’opili Final Environmental Impact Statement. That Analysis does everything but lay out the truth.
So what is the truth? Why are these lands so precious?
First, they are the highest producing farmlands in the islands. They have “prime” agricultural soils, classified as A and B by the UH Land Study. Four Hawaiian islands, including the Big Island, have no A soils at all. Four islands, including Molokai, have no B soils.
This acreage is called the Golden Triangle. It is a low lying area, with plenty of sun and gentle winds, and it has an abundance of clean, cheap water. While one might assume that higher lands that get more rain would be better for farming, what crops really need in order to grow is sunlight. Farmers far prefer to regulate the water through irrigation, giving crops just what they need.
Farms with frequent cloud cover and lots of rainfall have major problems with insects that love the wet conditions. They must use insecticides, polluting the ground, and often have to trim their crops before sending them to market, cutting into their profits. Only one insect is observed in the Golden Triangle, and it doesn’t require pesticides.
The Triangle also has excellent drainage which prevents root rot. And unlike higher elevation lands, its soils have near-perfect 6.5 ph levels, requiring no soil remediation for alkalinity or acidity.
The Golden Triangle is truly our breadbasket. It produces four crops a year, compared to three on the north shore and in the central highlands, and two in Waimanalo. And these lands are close to markets.
These are not small advantages. We’ve always heard that costs are too high to produce our food locally. These are the reasons local producers can produce fresh high quality fruits and vegetables at a competitive price.
The Environmental Impact Statement ignores these facts and blithely recommends that the Triangle farms be moved to the higher Kunia lands in Central or to the lands on the North Shore below Wahiawa—with all of the costs borne by the farmer.
But what the EIS neglects to mention – its unspoken little secret – is that there are no lands to move to. There’s actually nowhere for the farms to go.
There are 1555 acres of farmland to move. All of Kunia is sold except 400 acres which have all of the highland problems mentioned above.
The North Shore is relatively empty, but that land is irrigated by water from Lake Wilson. After years of sewage from Wahiawa and Schofield Barracks being emptied into the lake, state and federal regulations will not allow edible crops that touch the ground to be grown on any land irrigated with that water. Almost all of the crops grown in the Golden Triangle come under that prohibition. We need that land for biofuels.
All of the other arable land on the Oahu is already being farmed by others. There’s nowhere to go.
There is plenty of land on other islands, but transportation adds so much to the cost that farmers can’t compete.
The secret is that the farms in the Triangle cannot be moved. They will simply close, and we will lose one of our greatest treasures. Once it’s gone, it can never be reclaimed. Our future survival for a few bucks to each Horton stockholder.
Will Pearl Harbor never happen again? Will we never be surrounded and cut off? We have a million people to feed on this island.
The recent spike in oil prices raised transportation costs so high that we stopped importing many foods. Does anyone think this won’t happen again? We only grow 15% of our fresh produce. That is irresponsible enough in itself. Can we really afford to lose the Golden Triangle? Is it fair to future generations?
We can’t eat houses.
Send your concerns to the Land Use Commission. For more information, to sign our petition, or to become involved, check out www.stophoopili.com.
Dr. Kioni Dudley, as president of the Friends of Makakilo, is an intervenor before the Land Use Commission for people affected by the project.
Post script #1 The worst part of this is that the precious prime soil has high clay content that expands and contracts – fantastic for growing, but a major problem for builders because it causes foundations to crack. So they will be excavating the Level A soil before building their houses and other buildings. In the past, this prime farm soil has been taken to the dump. So they are going to close down our highest producing farms, excavate the rich soil, take it to the dump, fill the holes with coral and red dirt, and build houses, many of which will be bought by people who don’t live here, so that a developer in Delaware can profit.
Post script #2 Two hundred farm jobs will be lost in this project. Most of these workers have no other skills. Why are construction jobs more precious than farm jobs?
