Eco-police unit being formed

Maui News Editorial
Saturday, November 24, 2001

The Research Corporation of the University of Hawaii has taken the first steps toward setting up an emergency environmental workforce that could be the beginning of a permanent eco-police unit badly needed on Maui and across the state.

The workforce was funded by the last special session of the Legislature with Maui's Sen. J. Kalani English being one of the main proponents of the measure.

As envisioned by English, the workforce would serve a dual purpose, supplying jobs for individuals hurt by the post-Sept. 11 downturn in tourism and providing the paid manpower needed to limit the threat of dengue fever while working to eradicate miconia, coqui frogs and fire ants.

English said the $1.5 million appropriated for the workforce would fund three months of employment for 400 to 450 individuals. The Research Corporation of the University of Hawaii, a separate entity set up to administers grants and the like, announced Wednesday it plans to hire about 220 to 250 individuals through the state for the three-month life of the program.

The difference between the number of workers legislators thought the program would employ and the number of workers that The Research Corporation says will be hired could be attributed to at least two things: the Legislature failed to include all the costs involved in hiring even a contract worker or The Research Corporation is taking a bigger chunk of the funds for administration than was anticipated. There is also the possibility the legislators were guilty of a bit of political hyperbole.

The Research Corporation is working with the university's Pacific Cooperative Studies Unit to plan, administer, implement and evaluate the program. State and county unemployment statistics are to be used in determine which counties get how many workers. The statistics will be weighted by considering locations that have high unemployment and significant problems with dengue fever or invasive species.

That last qualification seems tailor-made for East Maui, the epicenter of the dengue fever problem, although the County of Maui and the state Department of Health has made major strides in cutting the problem to size. Hana also is the center of a miconia infestation while Maui's unemployment figures would argue in favor of getting a large portion of the emergency environmental workforce manpower.

At this point, it would behoove Maui's legislative contingent and the county administration to stay on top of the formation of the workforce and to also begin an effort to make that workforce a permanent eco-police agency.

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