Gov raises becoming unbearable
Well, it’s front and center how much the state of Hawaii cares for its residents. No funding for rat lungworm or other important health and/or humanitarian aid, even our county share of the TAT, because the state needs to pay for its government employee raises!
When is the government administration and the rest of the voting population going to realize that pretty soon there will be no money left for anything but the government employees raises and retirements? Every year they increase exponentially compared to the actual budget.
No money for school, no money to provide even barely decent mass transit, no money for poor folks feeding programs, only money to pay yourselves. I don’t have a Harvard degree in economics, but even I can see this government is gonna just eat us up till it dies.
The way the state does things is not sustainable without all residents, so please re-evaluate your greed quotient, cut down on paying yourselves (the rest of us are all losing, too) and spread the love to your constituents.
Sara Steiner
Pahoa
Weather hurt farmers’ crops
The May 2 storm story in WHT neglected to mention many farmers’ losses. High Kona winds are often a problem in spring but this storm couldn’t have come at a worse time for growers.
It caused the loss of many thousands of young lychee, avocados and mango fruits. In some cases’ as much as 60 percent of individual crops were lost. Farmers have a hard enough time trying to compete with cheap imports and now, more than ever, it’s important for the community to support them at farmers markets and support stores that feature local produce.
Ken Love
Executive director
Hawaii Tropical Fruit Growers
DU article left experts out
In your article “Tests find no DU threat” you reported that traces of DU (depleted uranium) were found at Waikii Ranch, miles from Pohakuloa. But you also quoted Jeff Eckerd, state Department of Health radiological branch manager, saying any DU “aerosolized through use of high explosives” “would likely only travel a couple hundred yards.”
Which is correct?
You didn’t report that wind-borne uranium aerosols can travel 26 miles, according to Leonard Dietz, a physicist with 28 years’ work experience at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory. You didn’t report that Dr. Lorrin Pang reviewed the study done at Waikii, and did not say there was no threat. Instead, he said if “the reading is 1 percent DU with a measurement error of 1 percent then it might really be 2 percent.”
Dr. Pang, M.D., M.P.H., is a longtime consultant to the World Health Organization, former Army doctor, and head of Maui Department of Health (but speaking on DU as a private citizen). He was listed several times with “America’s Best Doctors.” You didn’t report that Dr. Marshall Blann said for Pohakuloa Training Area, helicopters may have blown away the contaminated dust they were searching for.
Dr. Blann, PhD, is a physicist and former consultant to Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. You didn’t report that Dr. Mike Reimer concluded the latest Army DU plan “is designed to specifically avoid finding DU migration.”
Dr. Reimer, PhD in geology, was involved with the American Nuclear Society and International Atomic Energy Agency, and was a guest editor for the Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry.
You didn’t report that Pang, Blann, and Reimer raised numerous other concerns about several Hawaii DU studies. All these items that you didn’t report (except Dietz’s background) were in my statement sent to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and to you.
Martha “Cory” Harden
Hilo