Ted Hong Spouting Off Again, Waste To Energy Plant Funding Rejected,Realtime SO2 Monitoring Site,Interesting Interview With Hokulia CEO John DeFries,Kawahae Harbour HSF Readyness

Republican candidate Ted Hong again spouted off in this Hawaii Reporter article about the doom and gloom direction our economy is going. I agree with Ted Hong’s basic premise that Hawaii’s business climate is poor. But I really detest politicians who employ scare tactics to gain votes. Come on lets get real here Governor Lingle, who is Ted Hong’s good buddy,stated recently that “the closures of Molokai Ranch and Aloha Airlines do not reflect underlying problems with Hawaii’s economy.”

Thank goodness the Hawaii County Council rejected funding the proposed Hilo waste to energy plant. Now the focus can be shifted to more reasonable alternatives.

Hat tip to Hunter Bishop for blogging about NOAA’s realtime SO2 emission monitoring site.

I found this interesting interview with Hokulia’s CEO John DeFries today.

Lastly, I received this e-mail from Ian Birnie today in regards to how ready Kawaihae harbor is for the Hawaii Superferry.

“Hi Aaron,

We’ll probably have to use Pier 1, if earthquake-related damage is repaired by then, or Pier 2-A, which also has some damage but will hopefully be repaired soon. We recently received an insurance settlement, so we are finally initiating repairs. The barge to be used in Kawaihae is in Honolulu and can be delivered here, but depending on whether we use Pier 1 or Pier 2, the ramp may have to be moved from one side to the other, i.e., if we use Pier 1, the ramp goes on the port (left) side, but if we use Pier 2, the ramp will go on the starboard (right) side.

The longer range plan is to develop a new pier down near the LST ramp, but that’s a few years off. The advantages of using one of the existing piers is that we can use a separate access gate into and out of the harbor, and we already have a paved area to in which to queue the vehicles.

Aloha,
Ian Birnie”