On the waterfront
The defense of Irwin Park, that oasis of mature monkey-pod trees that shades the old parking lot in front of Aloha Tower Marketplace and Pier 10, is headed to trial.
A coalition of "preservation partners" — Scenic Hawai‘i, Historic Hawai‘i, Life of the Land, Hawai‘i’s Thousand Friends and The Outdoor Circle — will face off against the state’s Aloha Tower Development Corporation (ATDC) in a trial now scheduled for October.
ATDC is in charge of developing the area surrounding Aloha Tower, including the marketplace. The agency, under pressure from merchants to increase parking, has sued to remove existing legal restrictions on use of the state-owned park.
"The whole thing seems in some ways like another case of paving over paradise for more parking, but it’s more than that," said John P. Whalen, the city’s former chief planning officer and now a private planner.
"We’re always encouraging donations of private land for wildlife preserves, parks and other public uses," Whalen argued, "but it’s going to be hard to convince people to donate if the state can come in and expunge a restrictive covenant on a gift of land to the public trust."
"It’s a very dangerous situation," agreed Outdoor Circle CEO Mary Steiner.
The area called Irwin Park was donated to the Territory of Hawai‘i for park use in 1930 by Helen Irwin Fagan as a memorial to her father, William G. Irwin, a leader in Hawai‘i’s early sugar industry. The deed requires that the parcel be returned to Irwin’s heirs if it is no longer used as a park.
Although Irwin Park’s canopy of trees has shared the grounds with a parking lot since World War II, when the military invoked emergency powers to take over the park, a restrictive covenant in the original deed has prevented ATDC from pursuing a multilevel parking garage on the site.
Following a June 17 hearing, Land Court Judge Gary Chang rejected a request by Fagan’s grandchildren to dismiss the state’s lawsuit and leave the deed restriction in place. Chang had earlier denied a state request to rule in its favor without a trial. The result is that both sides now must prepare for costly litigation.
The state’s legal attack on Irwin Park has already burned deep into taxpayers’ pockets. ATDC paid attorney Andrew Beaman a total of $180,643 between January 2000 and March of this year, according to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by The Outdoor Circle; and a trial could easily double that figure. Meanwhile, preservation groups are scrambling to fund their side of the case from private contributions.
In a separate legal action, ATDC has challenged the 1999 decision by another state agency to place Irwin Park on the Hawai‘i Register of Historic Places. A contested case hearing in that matter is also set to begin in October.
ATDC executive director Ron Hirano downplayed the fight, saying his agency has no current plan to demolish Irwin Park.
"I guess it’s just a matter of them not believing when we say we don’t have any plans for the area," Hirano said.
Whalen responded, "If they have no interest, then why are they taking such extraordinary efforts to lift the restrictions and challenge the historic designation?"
Donations to the Save Irwin Park Fund can be sent c/o Scenic Hawai‘i Inc., PO Box 10501, Honolulu, HI 96816.
—Ian Lind
On the waterfront, II
Governor Cayetano’s plan for privatizing the Ala Wai Small Boat Marina (and, eventually, all state harbors) is in jeopardy, say several stakeholders opposing the plan. But Gil Coloma-Agaran, director of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources and chair of the Land Board, was guarded: "I think we expect to do everything we legally need to do before the term is over. Whether a private operator at the Ala Wai in place is still in question, but we are moving forward."
Organized opposition to privatization from boaters at the Ala Wai and Ke‘ehi Lagoon, as well as from a surfer hui called Kaiser’s For All, has slowed the state’s efforts. A slate of bills that would have spurred boat-harbor privatization was defeated in the last legislative session.
"The administration will have its hands full trying to get privatization done between now and December," said Bruce Middleton, a member of the boaters’ group, the Ala Wai Marina Board. "With a new governor, all bets are off."
A longtime Ke‘ehi resident said of the current governor’s vision, "Most boaters have simply wanted the money generated by slip fees to clean up and maintain the harbors, but the state has badly mismanaged this for years." He said he wants the state to do its job.
An advisory committee formed by the Land Board submits its final report this week, but Middleton and others stress that it does not take a position on privatization, although the report was commissioned based on that assumption.
Several of the report’s recommendations will not be compatible with the exclusivity of a private marina — if the private, fenced-off marina at Ko Olina is any indication. For example, most committee members want to preserve free pubic parking at and near the old heliport site — and/or to develop a park there. "The group recognized that the area provides one of the few free parking areas with access to the ocean in Waikïkï," the report states. It calls the public-access beachfront "a public treasure."
Serious dissent from some committee members (who include hotel representatives, ocean-recreation users and DLNR officials) is incorporated in the report. Some want a landscaped pedestrian promenade linking the Hilton Hawaiian Village to Ala Moana Beach Park; others want a park; while still others want some combination of the above, which may limit public parking and access. There was also disagreement on what to call the marina and beach park — the Waikïkï Marina for the former, Duke Kahanamoku or ‘Änuenue for the latter.
The Land Board is scheduled to conduct an on-site inspection of the site Thursday, July 11, at 5 p.m. and to consider, on the following Friday, whether to incorporate the report in its Request For Proposals to private parties interested in leasing the harbor.
—Chad Blair
On the waterfront, III
Hawaiians call it Kalama; the U.S. military — and most geographers and cartographers — know it as Johnston Atoll. Either way, it’s an unincorporated territory of the United States, 820 miles southwest of Honolulu.
In 1934, the U.S. Navy took possession of the atoll. In 1962, during nuclear weapons testing, several accidents occurred resulting in surface contamination across the island and its lagoon by plutonium and other byproducts. Cleanup efforts included bulldozing much of the radioactive debris into the lagoon and dumping an undisclosed number of 50-gallon drums containing more debris into the sea.
The Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) is now proposing to construct on Johnston Island itself concrete-capped, unlined landfills to bury the remaining plutonium-contaminated materials.
"Irresponsible," the proposal was called at a July 4 press conference organized by the American Friends Service Committee, the ‘Ohana Koa/Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific and Hui Ho‘oulu (a Känaka Maoli youth organization).
Kyle Kajihiro, program director of the AFSC, acknowledged that DTRA’s proposal reverses the earlier drum-dumping policy but pointed out that DTRA admits that within 30 to 50 years, Johnston Island’s man-made sea wall could breach and, six weeks to 12 months after that event, the buried radioactive materials will be released into the ocean. (It’s estimated that it will take as long as 100,000 years for the radioactivity to dissipate.)
"Kalama is really close to Hawai‘i and that stuff is dangerous for a long time," Kajihiro said. "It can contaminate fish and other sea life. … Just to have this stuff floating around in the environment is irresponsible. They could at least go with the longer lasting option."
Rejected options laid out by the DTRA include shipping the debris to Nevada or Utah; encasing the debris in 2-foot-thick concrete vaults; or immobilizing it in a molten glass matrix, then burying it.
"When you look at DTRA’s risk-assessment methodology, cost is weighted equally to long-term effectiveness. Because of the nature of plutonium and the long-term hazard, effectiveness should be the priority," Kajihiro said.
—Anne Keala Kelly