Ka`u News Briefs Monday, Feb. 13, 2017

There is no sign of a lava delta rebuilding as lava continues to spill into the ocean from the 61g lava flow near Kamokuna. Today, a new bill was introduced to the U.S. Senate to improve early warning and monitoring capabilities at volcano observatories around the  country, including the first in the nation, Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. See Story below. Photo from USGS

A CALL TO ACTION CAMPAIGN CONCERNING THE IMPACT OF DRUGS, DOMESTIC ABUSE AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE is the headline of Ka`u Rural Health Community Association's 19th Annual Rural Health Conference set for Friday, March 17 at Pahala Community Center.
     KRHCAI's founder Jessie Marques said today that the meeting has drawn sponsorships and presentations by the state Department of Health Maternal & Child Health Branch;  the Sexual Prevention Program of the Family Health Services Division; the Office of Primary Care & Rural Health; Hawai`i Medical Services Association and Hawai`i Island Rural Health Association.
     All Ka`u residents are invited. Preregister by calling 928-0101 by Monday March 6.

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VOLCANO VILLAGE GUN CONROL ADVOCATE Ross Rammelmeyer is asking people to weigh in on legislation before the U.S. Senate on Tuesday that would roll back a rule that keeps guns out of the hands of mentally ill people who have been deemed by the Social Security Administration as unable to take care of their own affairs.
     Rammelmeyer points to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence which calls on people to email Senators "and tell them to vote No on Senate Joint Resolution 14 and keep  guns out of the hands of people who are a danger to themselves or others! Don't let the gun lobby's influence rollback life-saving measures of the Brady background checks that protect all Americans."
  "Between 6,000 and 18,000 persons with mental illness kill themselves with guns every year. Approximately half of all mass murders are people with mental illness. And those are just the fatalities. Many more are injured. The Senate resolution takes 75,000 seriously mentally ill who would likely be put in the NICS gun background check system out of it by fiat," writes  DJ Jaffee, Executive Director of Mental Ilness Policy Org., a non-partisan think tank.
     He points out that Pres. Donald Trump's policy platform states, “Too many states are failing to put criminal and mental health records into the (gun background check) system — and it should go without saying that a system’s only going to be as effective as the records that are put into it. What we need to do is fix the system we have and make it work as intended.”

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EARLY WARNING AND VOLCANO MONITORING improvements are the goals of a new bill in congress, introduced today by Ka`u's Sen. Mazie Hirono, Washington state Sen. Maria Cantwell and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski. The three said in their announcement that the aim is to better develop "warning capabilities that help keep communities and travelers safe.

Lava hitting the ocean is causing fist-sized spatter to be thrown back on land, creating danger to viewers. Photo from USGS

     Said Hirono, “For the past 34 years, we have experienced first-hand the threat of volcanic activity to our daily lives with the ongoing eruption at Kilauea. As recently as 2014, we had evacuations and damage to critical infrastructure and residences. This bipartisan bill is important as it updates and unifies the five volcano observatories across the nation and creates a grant program that will support critical monitoring research and technology development that will be used to save lives.”
     The bill, S. 346, would strengthen existing volcano monitoring systems, which include the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, Alaska Volcano Observatory, and the Cascades Volcano Observatory, and would unify them into a single connected system called the National Volcano Early Warning System. These observatories monitor, warn, and help protect citizens and travelers from volcanic activity, particularly from high-threat volcanoes. The bill would also create a Volcano Watch Office that would operate 24-hours a day, seven days a week, to provide continuous situational awareness of all active volcanoes in the U.S. and its territories.
     The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory located on the rim of Kilauea was the first volcano observatory in the United States and has been monitoring volcanoes, including the two most active, Kilauea and Mauna Loa, for more than a century. Additional and modern monitoring and science is needed to help protect communities living near these volcanoes, said Hirono.

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