Plague of Hawaii
August 27, 2007
Between the Hawaii Superferry and the military Hawaii has its hands full.
The Superferry is this ridiculous boat that will take you and your car to a neighbor island. It is not your typical open-air ferry but instead is some kind of luxury boat complete with a restaurant, tvs, and a bar. Having priced a Maui to Honolulu journey it appears that it will cost about $270 for an adult for the roundtrip including your car. One of the most irresponsible aspects of this is that they have a bar where you can drink and then get in your car and drive drunk off of the boat. The boat ride between Maui and Honolulu would take about three hours. The average interisland flight costs about $39 one way (and often only $19 because of special fares). To fly from Maui to Honolulu you are in the air for less than 20 minutes. I heard that on the inaugural journey that people got seasick. Given that people got seasick during the summer I can only imagine what would happen in December when the swells are huge and often times over 20 feet. If the price, sea sickness, and long voyage were not bad enough it only makes it worse that they will be wasting a ton of fuel, dumping sewage in the ocean, disturbing marine life, and overall creating an ecological problem in Hawaii. I hope the Superferry fails.
The military located off Saddle Road on the Big Island has been found to have Depleted Uranium which they have long denied having - this same thing has occurred on Oahu as well. Many of the feral cats on Mauna Kea have a type of feline leukemia - gee, I wonder why? Fortunately, this is all coming out at the same time that the military wants to increase training exercises around all islands (read: dump more toxic materials into the ocean, frighten people and wildlife, kill endangered species, pollute the air). Fortunately, they are having a public hearing on this issue on Wednesday. I think I will go to hear what people are saying.
*Update*
I was reading on surfingthetao.com this bit about the SuperFerry - makes for interesting reading, I think:
“Most interesting is – no surprise here – the military finds them quite useful. In fact this article points out that there are far more fuel efficient and less environmentally dangerous vessels in existence, but they weren’t chosen for Hawaii. Why? They can’t carry Stryker Brigades, hummers, helicopters, and other equipment (which could even become contaminated with depleted uranium). The article goes on to point out that the Chair of the Superferry board is John Lehman, a former Navy Undersecretary during the Reagan years and member of the 9/11 Commission, and claim, “The Superferry was foisted on Hawai‘i to meet a new mission for the US military. That mission: To have civilian looking high-speed military transport, manned by subcontractors, available at short notice to deliver assault troops and equipment, anywhere in the Pacific.â€
Surprise, surprise.
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