• Aloha Garden • Met without compromise • Demand responsible behavior Aloha Garden In a letter titled “Mayor’s Aloha Garden: salad campaign” that was published on Aug. 29, Mr. Rolf Bieber explains how the garden is a direct reflection of
• Aloha Garden • Met without compromise • Demand responsible
behavior
Aloha Garden
In a letter titled “Mayor’s Aloha Garden: salad campaign” that was published on Aug. 29, Mr. Rolf Bieber explains how the garden is a direct reflection of the mayor’s focus on propagandizing programs and how he’s using it as a campaign tool. However, Mr. Bieber’s view is skewed and requires clarification on the truth behind the Mayor’s Garden.
First of all, the garden is maintained by students, not by the mayor. This past school year, Sheldon Chu and Tyler Navarro were the main caretakers of the garden. They have since graduated and passed on the role of maintaining the garden to Peter Nguyen, Travis Navarro, and me. Peter and I are seniors, and Travis is a junior. Barbara Bennett, leader and founder of the Kaua‘i Agricultural Initiative, assists us by providing suggestions and securing donations for gardening materials, but otherwise, the decisions made in the garden are left entirely to the students.
In addition, we are currently redoing the Mayor’s Garden and just recently pulled out all overgrown produce, so of course it’s going to look like a “partially abandoned plot of marigolds and flowered basil”. Within the past few weeks, we tilled most of the plot and sowed fresh new crops, and our crops take time to grow. We have put many hours into reworking the garden to provide more produce to the community, and to read such negative comments is an insult to me and all of the garden’s volunteers.
Also, it may look like our garden “might supply two or three family’s intermittent salads”, but as I’ve said before, our new crops have just taken seed. Once our crops have grown, we’ll be able to continue our regular donations to the Food Bank and the Salvation Army. Within the garden’s first year, over 400 pounds of produce was donated, and this year, we hope to exceed that amount.
Finally, the purpose of the garden is not to campaign for the mayor. The garden has served to advocate community gardening, stimulating over 14 community gardens across Kaua‘i. The garden has also served as an educational resource as well as a project for students in the Kaua‘i High School Key Club to participate in. More importantly, the Mayor’s Garden has and will continue to provide a regular stream of produce to organizations like the Food Bank and Salvation Army.
You may have your opinions about our current mayor, but hold back your negative comments about the Mayor’s Aloha Garden. Your letter has offended many people who have been influenced by the garden.
David Ochoco, Lawa‘i
Met without compromise
With regard to the shrimp farm project on the Mana plains, the appropriate systems that will address the ways in which ocean contamination can be successfully and persistently monitored and regulated must be in place.
As has been pointed out, one of the options is to restore the wetlands that were once there in Mana and design the proper rooting system of plants as a natural and effective way in which waste water remediation can take place.
All other procedures need to be scrutinized, as well, in search of what may be considered to address the ways in which wastewater treatment procedures are implemented.
If the appropriate safeguards are in place, the shrimp farms would be a welcomed asset as an environmentally conscientious industry and one that will have favorable support because of its economic impact by providing employment opportunities, marketing techniques and distribution systems to our island residents. Having an export item extolling “shrimp from Kaua‘i” can also be another big plus factor.
What wonders may be conjured in the minds of those who cannot resist the delectable and succulent shrimp “teasing their taste buds” in quest for more? Imagine the demand for that distribution being worldwide!
In the process, however, we must remember that “malama ‘aina” standards must be met without compromise.
Jose Bulatao Jr., Kekaha
Demand responsible behavior
I appreciate Ms. Monasevitch’s concern for the health of our oceans (“Make your voice heard,” Letters, Sept. 13). I have to wonder, however, whether she is focusing on the correct or even the most important part of the problem.
She starts out by stating “Science documents that chemicals and pollution create pathogen-friendly environments for such diseases to flourish.” She then claims that military practices are part of the problem.
This is OK, however, when she speaks of specific military issues, none of them have to do with chemical pollution causing pathogen-friendly environments. The focus appears to be on noise pollution.
While I don’t disagree this is a problem, the way it is introduced feels a bit disingenuous, much like a bait-and-switch.
Chemical pollution is the primary problem — a manmade problem shared by all of us. We should focus on correcting the irresponsible behaviors of ordinary citizens. The magnitude of the problem is on display for you to see on a daily basis.
As you drive around the island, how often do you see 1) trash blowing around in the back of flatbed trucks, 2) cigarette butts being callously thrown out of cars, 3) junked cars, mattresses, etc. along the roads? In your own neighborhood, what is your neighbor who prides himself on changing his own oil doing with the used oil? Are people recycling plastics? Decreasing their use of plastics?
Start asking yourself this very simple question: When I discard something, particularly when I do so incorrectly, what happens to it?
Demand responsible behavior from everyone.
Michael Mann, Lihu‘e
