WAILUKU — Maui residents are calling for Maui’s last sugar cane plantation to stop burning fields, claiming the smoke is causing adverse health effects.
KHON-TV reports (http://bit.ly/1ARnDjY ) that the Department of Health is in charge of telling the plantation, HC & S, whether or not it can burn its sugarcane fields based on weather conditions, but members of a group called Stop Cane Burning are calling for no cane burnings until the Department of Health can figure out a more scientific way for calling no-burn days.
Karen Chun, leader of the group, says her doctor attributed a lung disease diagnosis to exposure to cane burning.
A Department of Health spokesman says the department is investigating the high levels of smoke and is working on a better way to determine burn days.