Photos From the Big Island

This is shortly after sunrise at the mouth of the Hakalau River, about 1 1/2 miles from our home.

 The main highway spans the river canyon about 100' over it.
This bridge used to be a narrower rail bridge and was widened
 to convert it to two lane car traffic after the sugar plantations
closed and the rail line went bankrupt.

   Akaka Falls is the highest on the Big Island and is only about 4 miles away.  It is an easy stop for tourists as it is only 2 miles off the highway and has a paved walkway from the parking lot.










Our guest house as viewed from the roof of our house.

Now (two years after the roof view picture) the whole area in front of the guest house
of this is covered by six lima bean plants that are over a year old.

Fallout

                                                            3/17/11

                                           POWER PLANT FALLOUT

Hopefully restoration of electricity will allow the returning of coolant to the reactors in Japan but meanwhile, after 20 years of talking about coal power plant emissions control, their fallout continues increasing.  An article in today’s New York Times reports that the coal fired electric generation industry has not only fought more regulation, they have INCREASED mercury emissions by more than 8% to 53 tons from 1999to 2005 and arsenic emissions by 31% to 210 tons over the same time.

The industry complains that compliance with the proposed rule will cost $10 billion.  The EPA data show that savings in lives and healthcare will be $100 billion, 17,000 premature deaths and 120,000 cases of childhood asthma symptoms per year.  As a government “of, by and for the people” isn’t the math result an obvious $90 billion savings to proceed with this rule?  Wouldn’t delaying this clean-up of emissions be another case of continuing to PRIVATIZE THE PROFITS WHILE SOCIALIZING THE COSTS?

While the new rule would only require adoption of the current best practices among the 400 coal fired generators operating in the U.S., the Republicans in congress are up in arms against it.  They are also bent on defunding the EPA (and the IRS) as much as possible while they are at it.  I hope you give them and the EPA a piece of your mind.

3/11/2011

               3/11/11 THE TRUE MEANING OF MARCH MADNESS

I am writing this on the 14^th and the situation in Japan is still getting worse.  Yes I’m talking about the nuclear power plants heading towards meltdown while in the United States we are still heading towards building more of them.  For a view of the worst hit the Big Island took from the tsunami go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqlpqtIjYrY&feature=email>

The sea wall and a lot of this video is Kailua looking down Alii Drive in front of Kamahamaha Hotel.

The surge on the East side of the Island where I am didn’t get above normal storm surge levels.

Now for some words on what is really on my mind today.  Our species is always acting like teenagers sure of their own immortality and even smug enough to believe we have the right to not only poison ourselves off if we want to, in the name of cheap profitable fuel, but also poison the planet for all higher life forms for thousands of years with nuclear weapons or, more slowly, with nuclear power.  We have no plan to deal with the waste even though we know it will be dangerous longer than we’ve been in existence. Even though we have the ability to provide every home with solar or other pollution free energy, what we plan the most on for replacing dirty coal is more nuclear power.

In the 50’s when our government was already the leading nuclear weapons power on earth we went to extraordinary lengths to force a nuclear power industry into existence “to harness the peaceful uses of the atom”.  Since no private company could afford to insure the risk of malfunction, in 1957 the PRICE-ANDERSON ACT was passed through congress allowing us, the tax payers, to cover all but the first 60 million dollars of damage.  This made it profitable for private industry to build centralized power plants to serve large areas at guaranteed profit levels and minimal risks.  It was the means for private profits from socialized risks and one of its tools became world wide insurance pools in our case represented by American Nuclear Insurers.

This scam was somewhat improved upon through a series of revisions.

When the Three Mile Island partial meltdown occurred, evacuation cost claims, lost wage claims and economic harm to business and individuals came to a total of $65,000,000.  A public health fund got $5,000,000 in addition. 

The latest revision to The Act was in 2005 and although on the surface it appears to offer much better compensation there are a couple possible loop holes.  A larger amount of money is in the insurance pool but only 1/3 of it is required to be kept available in this country and the rest may be invested in world wide pools.  Also the power plant operators are required to pay a larger dollar amount ($111,900,000) and all must pay it at once in the event of a plant failure but it is not really larger when inflation is taken into account.  But shakiest of all might be that the operators are not required to have this money on deposit but just “available” by the means of their choosing.  If we can’t even trust private companies to guard the pension funds of their employees (or even local or state governments now) how can we trust them to make prompt disaster payments that will damage their company’s future at a time when it is already in doubt?

Of course we need to question why we should be concerned with compensation for damages when lives and the whole land’s inhabitability is in question.  But it is illustrative of the fact that the risks are huge and would NEVER be undertaken were it not for the fact that the PROFITS ARE PRIVATIZED AND THE RISKS ARE SOCIALIZED.

The Japanese disaster will reduce the funds available if we have a nuclear disaster here.  A major earth quake in California, where the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Reactor is built right on a fault, or one on the New Meridian fault along the Mississippi River may damage more than one reactor at once.  We are so arrogant to believe that we can predict what the earth will do next based on our puny short lifetimes or upon our nearly as short “recorded history”.

The power plants failing in Japan did automatically shut down as designed when the quake struck.  The failure was because the fuel still needs to be high pressure cooled for days and kept under water for many years to not melt and go critical.  The water supply and/or the pumps failed so the fuel was not covered in water.  For full details follow the link below.  For safe power, go to renewable alternatives.

 http://allthingsnuclear.org/tagged/Japan_nuclear

02 17 11

 

                             2/17/11 HAWAIIAN DOLLARS

People often ask me how much more expensive is it to live in Hawaii.  I may not be the best person to ask since our lifestyle tends more towards self sufficiency and simple living than most, but here is my take on that question.

The first cost exposure that visitors get is a stroll down any supermarket aisle where milk is $4.50 or more a gallon and eggs are $2.50 - $4 a dozen.  Our first approach is to adapt.  We only buy soy milk by the case when we can get to Costco for about $14 / dozen quarts ($3.50/gal) and I only buy eggs when they are on sale and we use less of both.  The other way we adapt is to use what we can grow or forage.  We make coconut milk by shredding coconut meat in the blender then steeping it in boiled water and squeezing the result for a rich and creamy drink.   We toast the dry remains for adding to baking or cereal.  Coconuts are available most times either from our own palm (one producing and several will start in three or four years) or from the lower edges of the local sports field.  Eggs we’ve greatly reduced our use of (and hopefully our cholesterol levels) by switching to cereal more often in the morning and fish more often at supper.

Starting this summer we will be harvesting around 70 pounds of tilapia from our back yard pond annually at a cost of about 100 pounds fish feed.  I still hope to grow a larger percentage of their food in the future but I’ve found that difficult.  The store bought fish food costs around $1/pound and our other cost (besides the capital to build the pond) is the small air pump to keep the pond aerated and most of our electric we solar generate.  A valuable side benefit is the fertilizer rich water that is gravity fed to our gardens.

But, back to the beginning question, I estimate very roughly that groceries cost 1/4- to 1/3 more here.  Clearly this Island at least could produce all its own food if the people had not been conditioned by good times or by food stamps to expecting convenience food instead of basic unprocessed local food.  And we include ourselves in this expectation.  Even though we grow, forage or are gifted most of our fruit and vegetables we still spend $100 – 150 per month on groceries.  We probably also spend $100- 130/ month on gas even though Myrna’s Insight that she commutes to work in gets 60 m.p.g.  So far this year gas has been around $3.69/gallon on our side of the Island and average $4 on the west side (we have the refinery in Hilo).  So you can imagine why I’m planning for an electric car soon after we finally sell the house in Chattaroy.  But since we’ve lost so much on last year’s false sale, I may be building an electric conversion car instead of buying a new one.  Another price example, a round bale of grass hay costs $300!

The uncertainties of selling a house on the mainland are another of the expenses of moving to Hawaii that I’ve learned a great deal about lately.

The housing “bubble” caught many people with a house for sale on the mainland and a house to pay for here.  We were better prepared than most because our house on the mainland was paid for and Myrna had a good paying job here that although stressful was not impacted by the changing economy.  Unlike many people stuck with two homes we’ve not had to surrender one of them to the bank but we have seen our “investment” declining in value.  Just this week I finally got back the deed from the owner contract “buyers” who I let into our home in Chattaroy for a ridicules low down payment last fall and then never were able to make payments.  Now I guess I’ll need an appraisal to try to price it right to get a quick sale.  Both renting the house in ’09 when it didn’t sell and moving out the renter to prepare for the buyer in ’10 required an expensive and lengthily trip and this spring will probably be the same.

Another added expense of living here is all those items that we want but are not stocked here on the Island.  In Spokane County if it is not stocked it can usually arrive on a truck from Seattle or Portland in two days at no extra charge.  Here shipping might take one week from Honolulu or two weeks to two months from the mainland.  The shipping charges are astounding.  When shopping on line if it says free shipping in the U.S. we will usually encounter a suddenly added LARGE shipping charge for Alaska or Hawaii when we get to the LAST page of the transaction.  Or at the Sears parts store, as I was yesterday, when I only need a tiny drive belt for my belt sander, which weights one once and could be put in an envelope and mailed, they tell me that UPS charge will be $23!!!  Sears, like a surprising number of large businesses, refuses to ever use the USPS.  Even so, I frequently order on line but need to spend a lot of time searching for a company that offers free shipping or uses USPS because things are so expensive here.

As a lot of people my age need occasional medical care that is only available in a large city, trips to Honolulu or the mainland can be an added expense.  I have Medicare advantage with Kaiser which covers flying to Honolulu for anything they don’t do here.  As I remain basically healthy I think the fact that people here live an average of 2 years longer plus the fact that I gain a month of productivity every year that I don’t need to shovel snow and chop firewood makes retirement in Hawaii a great deal!

Here on the eastside the forecast is for a temperature range the next 5 days of 65 to 82, a passing shower and sun each day.  Kona side is usually 5 degrees warmer and Waimea area (2,000 ft) 5 degrees cooler.                Aloha!

Africans in Hawaii

                                    11/12/10 KNOW THY ENEMY

                                                                                                                   

When you see photos of the tops of the forest canopy in Hawaii and there are large patches of bright red-orange (and sometimes yellow–orange) they will most likely be the blossoms of African Tulip trees.  Here they are an invasive weed that crowds out many of the native trees and the older orchards.  I’ve written about them and my efforts to control them more than once.  Today I had time to take a closer look so, along with a photograph; I’m going to tell you how they make such a nuisance of themselves.

As the African Tulip trees have very soft wood they are easy to cut down but from each stump 2 to 8 new shoots will sprout in a couple weeks.  In six months the shoots can be six feet tall and 1 ½” diameter.  In addition, like many tropical trees they have wide ranging surface feeder roots and they can send up sprouts and certainly will when the trunk is cut.  Even the logs laid on the ground will grow a sprout about every 4 feet in the right conditions and they will keep on doing so for a couple years in spite of my cutting them off every 3 or 4 weeks.  So far I’ve not applied herbicide to the stumps but I might some day.

Recently on the first sunny day after 3 days of rain I was sitting on the North shore of the Hakalau River mouth looking south.  The macro view was of a steep canyon wall covered in dark green of many different species.  In between, in the air over the river and the park on the far side, the air was sparkling with the drifting white winged seeds of the African Tulip.  The seeds have the shape of a Chinese Elm – a disk with a wing all around it – but they are 2 or 3 times the diameter.  It was a calm day so the seeds were descending with the drift at about 12:1.  Except, I then noticed, about one seed in 30 was rapidly assenting.  As I watched it became apparent that individual seeds were suddenly changing from decent to assent for several seconds and a climb of 12-20 feet then reverting to decent.  I couldn’t tell if an individual seed could do this more than once but I knew from a past observation what was happening.  At some point in the drying of these seeds they are capable of flapping their wings to gain elevation.  Not only that but the tree also has evolved the right mechanisms to open its pods and release those seeds at the proper time to give them the best chance of flying the longest distance.  The days a lot of seeds are released are always sunny days after a rainy period.  I’d love to see this in slow motion cinema so if you know of such footage please let me know.

Another thing African Tulips excel at is the abundant numbers of seeds they produce.  Each 4” x 4” flower produces a pod 7-9” long.  Each pod has a wall down the middle from which the 550 to 900 seeds grow.  The pods split open from one side only so that first the chamber on the open side releases its seeds.  The following day, if the weather is dry, the umbilical wall drops out and the remaining seeds can scatter.

Because the pod usually only splits from one side the empty pods look like little canoes and they work quite well for that purpose.  You can see flower, green pods a half open pod and an empty pod in the picture.

Hilo Coastline

Hilo has many miles of accessible coastline.  Inside the bay most are smooth grey sand.  South of the bay most are black (and sharp) lava like this one.  The nice white sand beach exception is Onekahakaha where a almost solid rock reef protects the sand.  If the tide is in it is a calm place to swim but when the tide is out it gets too shallow.
We have snorkled some of these but Kapoho is so much nicer for both fish and clarity that it is worth the longer drive south.

Green sea turtles are common all over Hawaii but we are sometimes surprised at what rough waves they will feed it.  This one is resting in shallow water.  Often they will be seen on very crowded beaches.  Sometimes we see them as small as 12" but most are around 36" long and 32" wide.

Banyan Drive, along the bay in Hilo is lined with giant Ficus trees like this one that Myrna is standing in front of.  The common ficus leaves are small.  The large leaves you see here a kind of philodendron vine.
There is at least one true Banyan towards the North end of Banyan Drive which has a larger leaf and prop roots.  Yes, this is only ONE tree in the picture.

    




 Here I am standing in front of the hotel that Myrna stayed in for two months while our house deal was closing.  The other end of the building is nearly within fishing pole reach of the bay.  Rent by the week or month was quite reasonable.

Akaka Falls

Akaka falls is in a misty draw only 2 miles south of us.  The circular path to it goes by very dense bamboo stands with diameters up to 8" and two smaller water falls.  Most of the time when we visit there it is raining but it is still worth it to take the whole circle.  There is a side walk the whole way so you won't get muddy but as you can see in the picture below, there are lots of stairs!