Status of Koke‘e master plan

It is the calm before the storm. We must be ready to rally again at a moment’s notice to save Kokee and Waimea Canyon State Parks from being managed as a profit-center to fund DLNR’s statewide operations.

It has been over a year since our community spoke with one, very clear and articulate, voice in response to the DLNR’s proposals to commercialize Koke‘e and Waimea State Parks. (These proposals are contained in a 2004 Master Plan and a subsequent Draft EIS issued in 2006.) The DLNR received over 1,000 letters and e-mails from Kaua‘i residents as well as many from off-island Hawai‘i residents and visitors. Thousands of people signed petitions. The message: our precious Koke‘e is perfect just as it is.

We were initially told that a final revised Master Plan would come before the Board of Land and Natural Resources by December 2006. That date was postponed in part due to the extraordinary outcry from the community, continuing long after the Aug. 7, 2006, “cut-off” date for public input. The date for adoption of the revised master plan (which we still have never seen) has yet to be set.

In February of 2007, we, together with David Boynton, presented a Ho‘opono Community Master Plan for Koke‘e and Waimea Canyon parks to Peter Young, then-head of the DLNR, and Ron Agor, our Kaua‘i BLNR representative. We worked to make only those changes to the original master plan that would ensure that public use would never compromise the integrity of the mountain’s natural resources or its important cultural, spiritual and historic values. Many of DLNR’s original proposals (calling for maintenance and repair) were left in our community plan. However, we never heard from Young again. Later that spring, his reappointment was not confirmed; the new head of DLNR is Laura Theilen.

We forwarded the Ho‘opono Community Master Plan to Thielen and then met with her in early November 2007. She had not read it. To her credit, she is quite candid about her position with respect to Koke‘e and Waimea Canyon state parks. She believes that Koke‘e and Waimea Canyon must be commercialized to fund statewide DLNR activities.

Per Thielen, DLNR does not have adequate resources to pay for its statewide obligations and cannot count on the Legislature for funding. She expects the situation to worsen in the coming years. Therefore, Thielen’s position is that the best source of funding for DLNR activities is from our state parks — and currently Koke‘e is Hawai‘i’ s premier state park, and therefore the park with the greatest revenue-generation potential. Auwe.

In summary:

•Although the DLNR has stated that a “revised” master plan is complete, there has never been a revised version of the master plan or a final EIS made available for public review. We don’t yet know for certain what either will look like.

•Ron Agor, Kaua‘i’s Board of Land and Natural Resources representative, has stated that he has not been able to secure a copy of the revised master plan, though he understands that it was finished some time ago.

•Ron Agor has promised to provide us with a copy of the revised master plan as soon as he receives it and that he is able to set the date of the BLNR meeting at which this new master plan will be adopted.

•Ron Agor has also promised that the BLNR meeting to adopt the master plan will be set on Kaua‘i not earlier than three months after we receive a copy of the master plan.

•Based upon DLNR staff comments and our meeting with Theilen, we can expect that the final master plan will largely focus on revenue-generating proposals that, interestingly, also involve expenditure of enormous sums both upfront and over the long-term. These will be couched in terms such as “enhancing the user experience,” “meeting visitation levels,” “upgrades,” “improvements to better serve park visitors,” etc. The plan will likely include tearing down all existing buildings at the meadow to replace them with a “visitor’s center,” a new museum, a books and sundries gift shop, restaurant and other commercial ventures; permanent as well as truck and kiosk concessions at lookouts; a fee booth or entry station; lower elevation pull off area with restroom and parking lot at mile 4; and vague plans for increasing overnight accommodation.

Please check savekokee.org for on-going updates as we receive them.

Generations of Kaua‘i residents have hiked into the forests and along the trails of Koke‘e and Waimea, have gathered, have hunted, have fished, have nurtured their families, and have found spiritual connection and solace in this special place. As a community, we have consistently and urgently called upon the DLNR, the agency given the responsibility of holding our state parks in trust for the people of Hawai‘i, to protect our mountain from commercialization, to protect the fragile gifts the mountain contains into the distant future. Our state parks exist in a complex context of geography, biology, economics and politics; without ho‘opono, what was originally set aside for protection can be destroyed forever.

Nancy Budd, Margaret Ezekiel, Kehaulani Kekua, Kumu Hula-Halau Palaihiwa O Kaipuwai