KAILUA-KONA — A state purchase of 8,000 acres at Kapua Bay may still get to move ahead sooner rather than later.
In a rare move, the Senate Committee on Water, Land and Agriculture has agreed to resurrect a bill directing the Department of Land and Natural Resources to lay the groundwork for purchase of the pristine and historically significant stretch of South Kona makai lands. A week after the original version of Senate Bill 3071 lay dead owing to a dispute over language, the committee will take up the provision — watered down and packaged as a resolution — at 11 a.m. today, the day before the legislative session officially winds up.
The resolution encourages DLNR to determine the current assessed value of the land and whether the owners, The Resort Group, are willing sellers, said Sen. Kai Kahele, who fought to have the essential provisions of the bill brought back. The resolution lacks the $500,000 appropriation originally requested by DLNR to get the ball rolling, and it is non-binding.
But it keeps the process moving ahead, Kahele said.
“This is not just for my dad, but for generations of keiki,” said Kai Kahele, who was appointed to the seat vacated by his father Gilbert Kahele, who died in January, and worked with Senate President Ron Kouchi and Water and Lands Chairman Mike Gabbard to bring the resolution together.
In testimony, DLNR Chairwoman Suzanne Case said the county’s assessed market fair value for the four parcels is $9.6 million, and that the department is updating a 2007 appraisal of its own that pegged the fee value of the parcels at $13.9 million.
“The Kapua makai area contains significant historical, archaeological, and cultural resources, including a holua slide, ancient coastal trail and village sites, and superb biological resources including native dryland forest and associated common and rare native Hawaiian plants,” Case wrote.
The late Sen. Gilbert Kahele tried since the 1980s to gain protections for Kapua. Hours before he died in late January, he introduced the legislation that he hoped would finally protect the area.
The entire Senate signed the bill, and it moved through the process and crossed over to the House with almost unprecedented speed, Kai Kahele said. On the House side, the bill ran into trouble. It stalled, was amended and revived. It was finally assigned to conference but was never scheduled a hearing.
The land, designated agricultural and conservation, has been degraded by feral animal grazing, inappropriate human use and lack of proper management, said Case, who had requested $1.6 million for fencing, improved access and enforcement, and another $500,000 a year over 10 years for management of “treasured historical, archaeological, cultural and biological resources in the area.”
Funding would also have been used to determine if any of the parcels contain unexploded ordnance which could exist around the Manuka Natural Area Reserve, Case said.
The House felt the $500,000 cost of the due diligence was too high, Kahele said. He offered to strip out the funding, but failed to get the bill moving.
“I wasn’t about to let the bill die,” Kahele said. “Luckily I had the support of the Senate president and the chair of Water and Land. They said, let’s do it for Gil.”
Kapua was an ancestral home to the Kahele ohana.
“Arguably, it has some of the best archaeological sites in the state,” Kahele said.
But those ties aren’t the ones that have brought the entire process under fire. Last month, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported that Kouchi had a history of significant financial ties to one of the land’s owners, Kevin Showe, with investments in one of Showe’s companies. Kouchi also worked in public relations for Showe for a number of years.
Kouchi, who represents Kauai, told The Garden Island newspaper that he has sold his interest in the company owned by Showe, and that there was no conflict of interest.
Kahele said the whole thing was politics.
“Kouchi reorganized the Senate, and the other side will do anything they have to, to take it back,” Kahele said. “It pisses me off they used my dad’s bill to do it.”
To accomplish the objective, the committee will “gut and replace” the contents of another resolution which made it all the way to Water and Land but then died there on Friday.
Puna Sen. Russell Ruderman is on the Water and Land committee but said he won’t be attending the Honolulu hearing because it was scheduled at the last minute and conflicted with another engagement on Hawaii Island. He declined to speak to the controversy surrounding the legislation, but said he is always in support of open space.
“This is a fallback measure to express support and keep (the proposed purchase) alive,” Ruderman said.
The lands are adjacent to the South Kona Wilderness Area created in 2011, and would become part of the wilderness once a purchase is completed.
The Trust for Public Land is also backing the purchase.
“It’s a fabulous property,” said Lea Hong, director of the trust. “The coastal area especially has just amazing cultural sites and there is a white sand pocket beach, a cool portion of the Ala Kahakai Trail and a holua slide in really good condition that is on the National Register of Historic Places.”
