Ka‘ū News Briefs, Sunday, February 9, 2020

TRANSFERRING STATE PASTURE LANDS from the Department of Land & Natural Resources to the Department of Agriculture has support from ranchers in Kaʻū and around the state. Senate Bill 2812 passed Senate committees on Friday and is expected to go to the House of Representatives for consideration. Among ranches affected in Kaʻū are those with long histories of operation by the Galimbas, Wally Andrade, Jerry Egami, and Randy Cabral who lease their pastures from the DLNR.
     Testimony from the 34,000 acre Kapāpala Ranch between Pāhala and Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park notes that its pastures have supported food production for 160 years. "Today the Ranch provides beef in the equivalence of 3.4 million school lunches per year," writes Kapāpala partner Lani Cran Petrie in her testimony. She testifies that one reason for favoring Department of Agriculture holding pasture leases is that it likely would be able to give more reasonable rents for land producing food than would the DLNR where rents are based on "highest and best use."

Kapāpala Ranch has produced food for 160 years, supporting the aim of food self-sufficiency. Photo by Julia Neal

     According to her testimony, the DLNR recently proposed to increase Kapāpala Ranch rent by 1,000 percent, "which would have put anyone operating an agricultural enterprise out of business." Two years of negotiations, mediation, and binding arbitration to settle the rent with the DLNR cost the Ranch the equivalent of three years of rent, she says. In the end, a University of Hawaiʻi Agricultural Extension Service range specialist and an agricultural land appraiser assessed the value of the ranch lands and the fair market rent based on pasture value was set by an arbitrator.
     The Kapāpala Ranch testimony states that last year, staff from DLNR and its Department of Forestry & Wildlife visited the Ranch and outlined its vision, which "would diminish the Ranch to one-fifth of its current capacity." Kapāpala Ranch would be included in a single "landscape scale conservation area." The state, federal, and Nature Conservancy conservation lands "would encompass Hawaiʻi Volcano's National Park at Kīlauea and fan the eastern flank of Mauna Loa from the summit continuing south to the Kahuku Unit of HVNP and back north over the Kaʻū and Kapāpala Forest Reserves." She wrote that DLNR staff members emphasized their desire to expand the conservation land in Kaʻū to be 'big, protected, and connected.'"

Kapāpala and other ranches on state land are asking for leases to go through the state Department of Agriculture. Photo by Julia Neal

     She cautioned that the Ranch also has a role in conservation by supporting and protecting the surrounding forest land through managing fire risk. "In my time here, there have been three major fires around the Ranch, two in the National Park at the Mauna Loa Strip and one in the Kapāpala Forest Reserve. Each fire blazed over several thousand acres. The Ranch in each case provided a buffer from the fires spreading from one conservation area to another."
     During the August 2018 fire, Kapāpala Ranch provided water to the state Department of Forestry & Wildlife and Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park fire crews to fill their pump trucks. The Kapāpala testimony notes that the "Ranch's bulldozer on the fifth day was actually able to stop the front of the fire. As a viable ranching enterprise we have built, repaired and maintain an elaborate water system which has nearly 100 mile of pipelines covering 34,000 acres (equal in size to Kahoʻolawe) with three reservoirs storing a total of 10 million gallons of water. Our reservoirs also provide water habitat to the threatened Nēnē goose while the miles of pipelines delivering water also enhance game bird and other wildlife populations."

Lani Petrie testified about the ranch's assistance in fire protection and conserving forests around  its pastures. Photo from Paniolo Hall of Fame

     The testimony states that in another cooperative effort with DFW, in 1990 Kapāpala Ranch "willingly gave up 1,250 acres of pasture that was better suited for native forest."
     In addition, says the testimony, the "Ranch also manages public access to the Forest Reserves through three entry points. Currently there are about 300 requests per month which our answering service handles and another 25 per month handled directly by us. Along with public access to the Reserves, we also open the Ranch during Game Bird Season for three months for the hunting public."
     According to Petrie, all of these cooperative efforts could continue, while improving food production under a lease from the  Department of Agriculture. See other testimony in Monday's Kaʻū News Briefs.

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COMPOSTING FOR FOOD AND GREEN WASTE is promoted in legislation that will be heard by the Committee on Agriculture and Environment tomorrow, Monday, Feb., 10. Senate Bill 3121, co-introduced by Kaʻū's senators Dru Kanhua and Russell Ruderman, would require the Department of Health to periodically update its co-composting rules, and establish a multi-tiered registration and permitting system for composting facilities. If the bill passes, composting and co-composting would be allowed in agricultural districts. Companion legislation is House Bill 2407.

     According to ZeroWasteBigIsland, "Outdated stringent DOH regulations make it difficult for small sized composting operations to operate legally. Did you know if your local public school wanted to divert food and green waste from the landfill by composting, they would have to fill out the same rigorous 200-page DOH application that an industrial commercial composting facility would fill out? And current regulations require the school to compost on a concrete pad and have a leachate (liquid runoff) collection system installed, which costs in the ballpark of $30,000.

     "SB3121 remedies this issue by requiring the DOH to establish a multi‑tiered registration and permitting system for composting facilities. If you are a small-scale composter, the permits and regulations would be easier and more lenient. Large-scale composters, with higher risks of pathogens and fires, would require more stringent permits and regulations. Overall, SB3121 would allow small-scale composting operations to have a more realistic path to legal permitting."
     Read the bill here. Written testimony is closed, but if submitted before the hearing, may still be considered.