Friends of Maha‘ulepu won the battle
No Moo Poo in Maha‘ulepu! Sound familiar? That was the slogan — more like a battle cry — of Friends of Maha‘ulepu. On Friday, Feb. 1, 2019, The Garden Island ran a headline, in huge, bold type, proclaiming NO DAIRY FARM.
For 4 ½ years Friends of Maha‘ulepu, an all-volunteer, nonprofit organization, waged a brilliant, tireless, tenacious, all-encompassing campaign whose goal was to eliminate the possibility that Hawaii Dairy Farms would install, own and operate a 2,000-cow industrial dairy located in the pristine Maha‘ulepu Valley.
On Jan. 31, 2019, that goal came to fruition, as Hawaii Dairy Farms announced plans to leave the island.
This event is certainly worthy of having been included in TGI’s Jan. 1, 2020 article, “Top Stories of 2019.”
Judith Rachap, Koloa
Please read and learn from ‘Surviving a rogue wave’
Today’s article (TGI, Jan. 31) “Surviving a rogue wave,” should be required reading for all individuals before they hike into Hanakapi‘ai. The hikers thought they were safe on higher ground and, much to their chagrin, found out otherwise. Thank goodness no one lost their life or was severely injured.
Wendy Akita, Lihue
All good points about the dairy effort. Bridget Hammerquist deserves a lion’s share of the credit for her tireless dedication and guidance. She is truly amazing. A monumental misfit of a plan (to put it kindly) backed by a couple of billionaires was stymied by a slightly more than equally monumental effort on the part of ordinary citizens, supported by some amazing generosity on the part of a few, and lots contributions and hours from many others.
As a surfer for over 55 years, I think I have a good understanding of the ocean. Unfortunately, non-water people simply don’t understand the ocean. Hence, drownings, near-drownings and injuries occur all too often here on Kauai. I don’t know what a “rogue” wave is and have never seen one. We have sets of waves that come in various time intervals depending on the prevailing swells in the water, some larger than others. There is always a range in the size or these waves, but you will never have a 30 foot wave on a day where the swell is 2 foot unless there’s a tsunami. This was probably a large set consisting of one or more large waves, since the swell was very big on that day coming from the NW. This could easily have been prevented if these folks had paid attention. Despite the best efforts of lifeguards and others who advise caution to these non-water people, they never listen and we will continue to see these types of accidents or near-accidents.
Mahalo to Friends of Maha’ulepu for protecting our water. Had it not been for them the Christmas rain event would have put tons of fecal bacteria from the dairy into the Waiopili stream contaminating our beautiful ocean from Maha’ulepu to our Keiki swimming area at Poipu Beach. FOM also, protected our drinking water as the entire dairy would of sat on top of our aquifer with the ground water being only two feet below the surface soil. Not to mention the disease vector that the massive amount of flies hatching from the droppings of 2,000 dairy cows.