Environmental Perspective

August 2018

The Hamakua Group Environmental Perspective –

Environmental activism as practiced by Greenpeace on the high seas and elsewhere is perhaps one of the most daring forms of principled protest. We admire their grit. The form of activism practiced at Hamakua Group is more subtle, though with no less commitment. What it lacks in drama, it provides in potential. Rather than being in direct confrontation with destructive ecological practices we instead leverage the earliest application of concepts proven to lead to more ecologically sound solutions.

We apply the term “ESE” to represent this function of an “ecologically stabilized economy”. In practice ESE gives ecology, on which we all depend, its justified place at the table alongside market concerns. If we ignore either, both fail. Long term infrastructure decisions need to be guided by economic forecasts, but also to minimize the effects of the ecological externalities we once found so easy to ignore. This duel accountability will in time pay its own way. California’s example ESE, and Vermont’s.

As our population numbers increase so mount the pressures on our home’s singular ecology. Support for a growing  population requires unfortunately an expanding physical infrastructure. As those demands on our environment swell our elected individuals have an increasing responsibility to implement mitigating environmental practices in planning and management of our public works. This is where Hamakua Group might have some influence.

Hamakua Group Proposals provide both remediative and proactive methods to ensure a healthier biosphere for Kailua and in particular for our adjacent Hamakua Marsh.

a) The Proposal’s use of a filtering rain garden at the Hamakua Drive Safeway loading dock and the more extensive installations of similar rain gardens along the Hamakua Drive curb lines provides collection and bio-filtration of pavement runoff prior to its entering Hamakua Marsh.

b) No electrical power generation will be required for traffic signage or control along Hamakua Drive within the bounds of the Proposal. Only street lighting is required for the proposed roundabouts. It will be provided with low wattage LED fixtures sourced from independent solar integrated generation and storage. Likewise, the modest demands of the project’s signage lighting and drip irrigation systems will be provided with solar sourced power. Vehicle charging stations are included in the project.

c) The upgrade to a Roundabout Culture along Hamakua Drive provides further advantages which lead to a healthier environment. Roundabouts provide a documented reduction in traffic accidents, their severity and costs. The esthetic appeal of many more green plants and trees replaces a sterile hardscape with natural function. Roundabouts lead to a decrease in number and duration of vehicle stops and delays resulting in reduced fuel consumption, noise and air pollution. All Project designed surfaces are specified to be water permeable to reduce pavement runoff. Post consumer waste (recycled and recyclable) building materials are to be used as approved.

The personal choices many of us have made to individually drive a hybrid or electric vehicle, install solar panels, use low wattage light bulbs, low-flow shower heads, etc., all indicate public awareness is trending in a hopeful direction. Those actions are certainly part of the solution to help limit energy use and the excess production of greenhouse gases. As important, they are credible to the retail marketplace.

But until many more of the public follow this path the cumulative effect of these efforts, though personally gratifying, may be too little and too late. These household choices to influence a national/global solution are only the first and easiest actions we can take. Whether their impact alone will be great enough we fear is doubtful.

Timely solutions instead need to be on the scale of heedful infrastructure upgrades. Our municipalities, with continuing state and national support, have the opportunity to develop designs and upgrades to our public works which include dedicated improvements to now outdated systems. Among others, an outdated electrical grid, traffic management and safety, and stormwater treatment.

Populations grow and technologies advance. SOME manner of infrastructure WILL inevitably be built in response. As the examples above attest Hamakua Group’s role is to help ensure our future infrastructure will be of ecologically sound design.

MahaloThe Hamakua Group