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Honolulu Civil Beat •

Hawaii's Love Affair With Cesspools Is Ruining Its Reefs

A coral reef at the base of a Big Island lava field is one of Hawaii’s healthiest — and most at risk.


It’s located off Milolii, considered the state’s last fishing village and home to Native Hawaiians since the first millennium. Their descendants fought to create a state-protected fishing reserve there just two years ago, making it the largest locally managed marine refuge in the main Hawaiian islands.


New threats to the reef’s rich biodiversity loom just uphill from Milolii’s weatherworn...
Honolulu Civil Beat •

Half Of All Coral Reefs Are Dead. A Maui 'Super Reef' Offers Hope.

Maui artist Michiko Smith grew up in Lahaina. After a deadly wildfire leveled much of her coastal town, Smith took stock and decided to reprioritize her life.


The 30-year-old continues to make art from marine debris, mainly “ghost nets” cast adrift from fishing vessels. But making her beloved West Maui more resilient to climate-fueled disasters has become Smith’s obsession.


After enrolling in a marine studies program at University of Hawaii Maui College, she discovered the Super Reefs proj...
Honolulu Civil Beat •

This Buddhist Temple Is Collapsing Into The Sea Off Maui

A Zen Buddhist graveyard on Maui’s north shore is supposed to be a place of eternal rest. Instead, the cemetery is battling an ever-encroaching sea.


Pounded by relentless surf, an alluvial bluff supporting the cemetery has eroded to the point that waves have washed away dozens of graves containing human remains.


Just down the beach, Paia Mantokuji Soto Mission faces a similar fate. Built in 1906 to serve Japanese immigrant laborers, the seaside temple and associated buildings are perched p...
Honolulu Civil Beat •

Researchers Fear A Disturbing Pattern Of Health Problems Is Emerging After The Maui Fires

They were both napping on the afternoon of Aug. 8. But Filikitonga-Lukela’s barking dogs alerted her to the fast-approaching inferno.


“There was black smoke everywhere,” she said. “Then I felt the heat, and I thought, ‘Oh my God. It’s a fire.'”


Filikitonga-Lukela and her mother escaped death because one of her daughters rushed home and piled them into her car as neighbors jumped into the ocean.


After staying in a government-funded hotel room, the Lahaina family found a rental in Central...
Honolulu Civil Beat •

This Developer Wants Public Money To Build Maui's Future. Has He Come Clean About His Own Past?

As Maui County officials struggle to find housing for thousands of displaced people who survived the deadly Aug. 8 wildfire, a Texas real estate developer is offering to build hundreds of affordable homes just north of Lahaina.


In exchange for developing the Pulelehua subdivision near the Kapalua Airport, Paul Sau-Ki Cheng wants $50 million from Maui County, on top of $18 million he’s already received.


Cheng and his project have many supporters in Maui and the developer cites a decades-lo...
Honolulu Civil Beat •

Puna Is The Fastest Growing Place In Hawaii. But It Comes With A Catch

PAHOA, Big Island — Gary Pickler grew up in a military family in California, the son of a naval officer and a homemaker who urged him to become “rich and famous.”
He shunned his parents’ path and took up tarot card and palm reading instead, supplementing his income with henna tattooing, astrology and massage therapy.
“I became a hippie and a rebel and earned money in unusual ways,” said Pickler, 75.
 
Pickler spent years reading palms and tarot cards on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco and in...
Honolulu Civil Beat •

Out-Of-Bounds? NBA Star Kevin Johnson Pushes Hard As Point Man For Hawaii Energy Project

Jennifer Potter was settling into a new job at the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission when a high-profile visitor paid her an unannounced call.
It was August 2018 and Hawaii’s governor had appointed Potter as a commissioner on the PUC. An influential quasi-judicial body, the three-person commission regulates powerful industries including telecom, energy and transportation.
One month into her job, Potter was at her desk when an administrative assistant buzzed her line. A Kevin Johnson was there t...
Honolulu Civil Beat •

Hawaii Is The Only State Not Seeking Federal Buyouts To Move Residents Away From Floods

In the ensuing years, the beach has drastically shrunk. The sea is now threatening to swallow Mowat’s home in Kapa‘akea on Molokai’s south shore, a structure built on Hawaiian Home Lands where her in-laws once lived. She said her family secured the lease to the homestead in the late 1930s, and five generations currently live on the six-acre property that was once used to raise cattle.
“The sand is going out. The land is being taken away. We have coconut trees in the water,” said Mowat, or Aunty...