Protect your goose
I am a tourist SCUBA diver. I have made 60 guided dives out of Honokohau Harbor or Keauhou Bay. That’s 30 trips at about $150 per trip. That’s $4500 spent to observe and photograph Hawaiian fish. This activity is my largest dollar activity expenditure each year when I come to Hawaii. The aquarium collectors have every potential to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.
Mark Proctor
Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
100% reuse project is needed
The recent press on the Kealakekua Wastewater Treatment Plant upgrade costs glossed over one very important distinction. As former chairman of the county’s Environmental Management Commission and the Kona Coast Waterkeeper, I am keenly aware of the plans and the many stumbles along the way.
For over 25 years, the wastewater from the plant flows into a sump 0.7 mile from Honokohau Harbor. Constituents of wastewater can be routinely found in the harbor water where the groundwater enters it. The highest levels of the sweetener Splenda anywhere on our coast were found there.
The design plan was for 100% disposal after treatment to remove nutrients. That included the wetlands and the so-called Soil Aquifer Treatment Ponds. The R1 sanitation of the water was for water that was reused for irrigation. Thus there was no incentive for reuse. The combined cost was $160 million.
We advocate a 100% reuse project as such there is no requirement for disposal and only a water storage system. Such storage is key for successful irrigation management during dry and wet periods. The cost of this system will be far less. The reuse of water will be a source of revenue to the county and to agriculture.
In our future, there is no water to waste so let’s act like it now.
Rick Bennett
Waimea
Minimum pay rationale off
I read the My Turn in West Hawaii Today’s Wednesday edition that was written by Sol Auerbach, and felt a compulsion to respond. I wonder where he came from? With his rationale, why not set the minimum pay at $30 an hour. By doing so, everyone can live happily ever after. (Maybe.)
I started working at age 11, after my father died. The man offered me 25 cents for three hours work after school. Months later, another guy offered me 25 cents an hour and I took that job. In high school, I had a job making 40 cents an hour. After high school, I got a full-time job making $1.10 an hour. Then, the Tracking Station at So. Point opened and I got a full-time job there making $2 an hour. I saved my money and went to college in California after which time I returned home and got a job that paid a living wage at that time.
The point here is: minimum pay is good for those who are just beginning to learn how to work for a paycheck. They learn work ethics and responsibility. It also stimulates them to seek a better education so as to be able to find a better paying job. There are those who are limited by other disability developments and may not be able to perform responsibilities that require a higher pay scale. For these people, there are other government programs to help them.
For the majority of responsible people, they work harder at getting a better paying job by getting a better education or by working harder to earn their worth. Then there are opportunities to save money by investing in something where the value of the thing grows instead of spending every penny earned on alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, or fancy cars that depreciate overnight.
Imagine going to McDonald’s for a fast meal and having to pay $20 for a sandwich because the part-time student employee needs to be paid a living wage.
The writer obviously has never been to a homeless camp as he claims a minimum wage of $15 an hour will have an immediate impact on homelessness. However, he may be right in that if the minimum pay was set at $15 an hour, the impact would be that less people will be able to afford a meal. Is that what he was referring to?
Leningrad Elarionoff
Waimea
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