Wetland conservation is the answer
Thanks to the Garden Island for Jessica Else’s article: The wonder of wetlands.
Although the plantations destroyed most of our major wetlands for agriculture, we are fortunate on Kauai to still have many wetland areas left. In states like California, they have lost over 90% of their historic wetlands. On the west side, we see folks hire bulldozers and fill wetlands with impunity, not realizing that federal law requires a Clean Water Act permit to fill a wetland. Wetlands have often been called the “kidneys of the sea.”
Not only are they nurseries for birds, fish and other wildlife, but they also serve to clean water and filter streams before they flow into the ocean. Bacteria counts at Pakala Bay skyrocketed when a nearby wetland was bulldozed over. Restoring wetlands could clean our polluted streams and clean up our polluted beaches. Whether you call them a swamp, a billabong, a bog, bottomlands, a marsh, a mire, a moor, a peatland, prairie potholes, riparian, a slough or just a chronically muddy area, wetland restoration can be a solution to a lot of our environmental and conservation problems.
Gordon LaBedz, Kekaha
It’s not always what it looks like
I am the “odd” Waimea woman who has been referenced in two recent letters to the editor. I don’t know who Mr. Ed Simmons is, who wrote the first letter about me on Feb. 22, 2019. But I would like to cut through the innuendo and set the record straight.
One of my best friends here killed herself Feb. 23, 2016 at the age of 50. I then “adopted” her teenage son as my hanai son, and he was here after school several times a week for two years. I have a Master’s Degree from Brandeis University and taught my “son” about the world. I bought him books, I put up a world map and every week I taught him something he didn’t know from his lessons at Waimea High School. We formed a very close bond. Last spring he turned to harder drugs. It was then that he stole marijuana and jewelry from me. I was forced to report him to the police, and he has been banned from my house, and my wisdom, until such time as he turns a corner in his life. I moved to Waimea five years ago as I am completely disabled with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME). I have a legal medical marijuana card. Without a little bit of pakalolo daily, my fibromyalgia and other severe pain would be unbearable.
So I am not an odd lady who invites strangers into her home. I am a kind and gentle soul who only tried to help a lost boy. Ms. Straight’s letter of Feb. 25, 2019 is right on in saying that hard drugs, not marijuana, are the scourge of this island.
Thank you for allowing me to correct the inaccurate picture that has been painted of me.
Jeannette Kinzer, Waimea
Brave of you to come forward Jeannette. Hopefully Mr. Ed will garner the facts about someone or something before he speaks up next time, and that the rest of the neighbors will have some compassion for your situation rather than fear you, and your guests.
I’d also like to apologize for anything negative said in my response to his letter. You’re obviously not the “oddest lady” that he portrayed you to be.
And, I’m sure your friend would be grateful for the help you offered her son, hopefully he will be too someday > if he cleans up his life and lives long enough to see that day.
Thank you SO MUCH for your kind words. It means the world to me. Living alone with my disability and my cat, it’s hard to share Aloha with my little community, so many people have their heads happily in the sand. Many mahalos.