LIHUE — Ulupono Initiative representatives said at the end of the 2018 they’re reconsidering the plan for a dairy on Kauai, but that’s about all they’re saying when it comes to the ongoing project of installing a dairy at Maha’ulepu.
More information and a decision on how to move forward with the dairy “is expected this month,” according to Keith DeMello, a spokesman for the organization.
Ulupono spokeswoman Amy Hennessey said in a Dec. 12 Civil Beat article, the organization is considering whether the Kauai dairy would be a good investment — and that’s after years of investment and study going into the project,
DeMello didn’t answer questions about what factors are being considered in the upcoming decision and didn’t provide a status on the second environmental impact statement, one that was required by the Department of Health before receiving permits needed to move forward.
Community concerns about runoff and other environmental impacts to the ocean, Mahaulepu Valley and the surrounding areas, as well as lawsuits have slowed progress on the project, and Bridget Hammerquist, president of Friends of Mahaulepu, has been heavily involved in the issue.
She points out that while Pam and Pierre Omidyar, of Ulupono, likely thought they were helping Kauai and the state by proposing an industrial dairy on the island, the topography of the land is more suited for crops like breadfruit or hemp that could contribute to the same goal of self-sustainability.
“Breadfruit is great to eat and it’s drought-resistant,” Hammerquist said. “And with the bio-solid dump site up there (that was discontinued in 2014), it might help.”
Researchers are studying hemp’s role in bioremediation at places like Colorado State University, University of Virginia and at the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR) at the University of Hawaii.
In addition to soil improvement, researchers at CTHAR say hemp is useful for weed suppression and pollen isolation, soil aeration and for lessening the need to use pesticides. It can also be used for fuel, animal feed, personal hygiene and industrial products, building materials, paper and things like clothing and rope.
The National Tropical Botanical Garden’s Breadfruit Institute has been studying the uses of breadfruit as it relates to global food security issues — finding the long-lived tree produces abundant food in a variety of tropical areas.
These types of crops wouldn’t change the composition of the soil, largely clay, as much as they would accomplish the goal of increasing fresh, local foods for Kauai’s people and potentially help clean the chronically contaminated water in the Waiopili Stream by remediating the soil.
Hennessey said Ulupono was reconsidering the Kauai dairy after the announcement in November that Big Island Dairy would be closing. That happened after millions of gallons of wastewater polluted the streams and subsequently ran through the Ookala community on the way to the ocean.
“It was going off the property and into the streams and then straight into the ocean, much like it would do here,” Hammerquist said. “It’s an almost identical situation. Our topography is not a good design for a concentrated animal population (in Mahaulepu). ”
•••
Jessica Else, environment reporter, can be reached at 245-0452 or jelse@thegardenisland.com.
Local politicians listen up. You completely lost any ability to say “who knew this dairy would release millions of gallons of manure effluent when we get a hard rain?” once this started happening on Big Island. They’re having to close because they’ve had so many uncontrolled effluent spills into the ocean. So if you are mayor or a council member who supports this folly, read up on the situation over there and then realize that the exact same thing will happen here. Plus maybe Mr Omidyar is seeing what we need is no dairy.
Aloha Kakou,
…besides the fact that 80% of the protein in all dairy products is Casein, and found in milk, cheese, yoghurt, ice cream, etc., Casein triggers our cells into cancer cells. Perhaps this is another one of the reasons that with so much dairy foods and drinks available at grocery stores that there is also an increase in so many new types and numbers of cancer, and even the need for a specialized Cancer Treatment Center on our tiny island…that means a lot of cancer; even cancers we’ve never seen or heard of before.
And while cancer usually takes 3 decades to detect, a slow accumulation of cancer cells daily adding onto the tumor(s), even tumor growth itself is being accelerated by the growth hormones given to the cattle in the beef industry, which these same growth hormones are passed onto and into people who eat meat, it is thought by scientists that those cattle (bovine) growth hormones then speed up the growth of the cancer tumors in people. After all, they are Growth Hormones…!
And who often gets the most milk, well certainly it’s at least those children with bald heads from their cancer treatment, appearing on advertisements seen on TV, telling us we just have to “fight the disease”.
But you can’t “fight” cancer because cancer is a process, and you can’t fight a process. To “win” against any disease PROCESS, you must determine the CAUSE, and eliminate that cause, and then by ongoing self driven human processes, one of which is the innate (inborn) process of the human body to always keep functioning in order to be normal and healthy, except that function fails to self perpetuate health in the presence of overwhelming external toxic factors put into and onto our bodies, such as the protein in dairy, and other factors toxic and cancer causing like Glyphosate and Chlorpyrifos and other agricultural poisons used on our foods and even by some in their own backyards bringing poisons right to their own homes, which is one of the definitions of stupidity; and let’s not forget the toxicity of drugs and medicines you are taking right now. Statistics show 55% of you are taking at least 4 medications daily, some to counter the prior drugs side effects.
That’s not the same as going into the grocery store and buying an apple and getting 2 more for free; that’s called going to the doctor with a disease and with drug treatment getting 2 more diseases for free. More poisonous petrochemicals and more money…is that such a deal you want to go back for? NOT…!
Medical Disease Care (HELLth Care) invests its $4 Trillion Dollars a year in itself, and not a penny on the Causes of Diseases. The money that Medical Diseas Care spends is greater than the $350 Billion spent on our National Defense, and the $4 Trillion makes America #1 in the world in the cost of our medical system…yet 37th in the world as to Quality of Health Care.
And while the Dairy Industry advertises, and would have us beleive, that milk, and that would include all dairy products, helps to build strong bodies in 12 ways. But scientists say the calcium in milk, dairy, is bound up with other factors in milk and dairy and does not contribute to bone growth or strength. It would be nice to see more written about that. But scientists do say that the protein in milk and dairy does build tumors. Yikes.
For the Omydiars wanting a dairy on Kaua’i, or anywhere, an exceptional alternative offered in today’s article above, as suggested being ULU (Breadfruit), is a food from a tree that requires only annual trimming of the tree to keep the food down low for easy picking. The tree needs no fertilizers or agricultural poisons, like Glyphosate or Chlorpyrifos, or any pesticides, herbicides, or insecticides; it grows well even in low rain areas, and when the fruit is at maximum ripening the ulu is enjoyed as a 100% natural sweet candy, and it can be used as a natural repair material for canoes.
When it comes to the now more important than ever search to maintain or restore your health, to prevent disease on the one hand, and to avoid toxic and lethal medicines, more and more people are realizing that what we put into and onto our bodies is extremely important for the maintenance, restoration, and perpetuation of real Health; so vastly more effective and safer than the foolish pill for every ill.
The foolish now generations long ill-attitude that we should eat what only tastes good, what’s quick to make, even faster to buy made already, and is an attractive wrapper or package…well thos days are over…if you want to live long and be active and healthy you have to learn how to work on your health every day. Those short life days are over if you want. Living only 59 years or 99 years or more are in your hands…it’s live natural food.
We’ve slowly, sadly, and ignorantly come to believe from daily barrages of medical advertising that drugs and surgeries are health care when they are only after the fact, only reactive measures and diseases care from something we ignorantly wait to occur, the 20,000+ diseases known to the petrochemical drug industry who use their toxic side effect ridden chemical drugs to mask the symptoms of the diseases while the diseases still rage on in ones body. We as a people as a society, as tax payers, we deserve better than that.
In the old days, food was food, made by nature, now food is all about chemicals. READ THE LABELS…PETROCHEMICALS.
That we, as a society, have over several decades grown to accept this 5th rate form of disease care, ignoring actual Health Care, which is proactive in that it daily promotes ones health making us stronger and more resilient disease. Think S.W.A.R.E.; Sun, Warer, Air, Rest, and Exercise…Rap Replinger always said…”not too much, not too little”.
Yet we can never forget, never let up on preventing chemicals from being in and on our food and drinks, the chemicals from laboratories, factories, food manufacturing, and from petrochemicals (oil) and other unnatural sources never intended by Mother Nature for the bodies of human beings, and other living creatures as well.
Work on your health today so you’re not sick tomorrow, your health is in your own hands…!
Mahalo,
Charles
So Hawaii just ships in all its dairy from the mainland now?
Yes, unless someone is willing to undertake smaller sustainable dairies in suitable locations. Larger industrial confined animal feeding operations like the one proposed for Maha’ulepu that generate tons of waste in a small area and burden the soil, streams, groundwater and drinking wells with nitrates and other toxins are models that no longer work. Communities everywhere, not just on the Big Island, are finding out the hard way as they find themselves saddled with cleanup costs after these operations are forced to close–sticking the taxpayer with the mess and the bills. So yes we may have to pay more for milk collected from numbers of smaller sustainable dairies, but perhaps it’s a small price to pay for the clean oceans and air, swimmable beaches and healthy reefs that drive our economy and make life what it is here in the islands.
Oh yeah, let’s put a dairy here on Kauai just like they did on the Big Island.
See how well that worked out?
The south shore is not the place to put this dairy. The North Shore corals have taken a tremendous hit because of nutrient runoff. All of the farms and lack of a sewage treatment system for North Shore housing is allowing too much nutrient runoff. The corals are ruined and there is nothing but algae, dinoflagellates cyanobacteria on the reef flat. If you look offshore at Maha’ulepu there are nice corals because of low runoff, lower rainfall and no sewage seepage from housing and farming. There is a 30 foot diameter porite coral offshore, if the dairy is allowed this environment will be ruined.