County steps in to rescue environmental work force

Anti-dengue, invasive species program gets $100,000 reprieve

The Maui News
Wednesday, March 6, 2002

By VALERIE MONSON
Staff Writer

WAILUKU — Maui County will rescue part of the Emergency Environmental Workforce, a statewide program that was designed to relieve unemployment caused by the Sept. 11 attacks and that now stands on the verge of getting its own pink slip.

"We don't want to see the efforts of the work force stopped at this point because they've done so much," said Myles Inokuma, executive assistant to Mayor James "Kimo" Apana. "We want to keep it going, but we probably won't be able to keep everybody."

The $1.5 million appropriated by the state Legislature during the special session last fall runs out next week when the first crews hired to address much-needed health and cleanup issues around the islands are terminated. 

Maui Sen. J. Kalani English, who came up with the idea of the work force and wants to see it continue indefinitely, said that unless interim funding is found, the earliest the program could start up again would be July 1 — and that hinges on state lawmakers passing a bill.

At the moment, Maui is the only county to step in to maintain a portion of the program that began in early December with funds to last for three months.

Inokuma said the administration will use $100,000 from a special $250,000 allocation approved by the Maui County Council last year to respond to the outbreak of dengue fever. The administration has already spent $100,000 to haul away derelict cars and tires that were breeding hot spots for dengue-carrying mosquitoes, but still has $150,000 left. Because dengue often flares up in the summer, Inokuma said the county wants to hold back $50,000 in case there is a recurrence of the outbreak that occurred last summer. 

The administration will meet Friday with leaders of the agencies that supervise the 54 members of the Maui work force to discuss the greatest funding needs.

"We want to stretch the money as far as we can," said Inokuma.

Proponents of the highly successful venture have said that ongoing appropriations would be one of the best investments the government could make — not only for the workers, but also for the state, which avoids paying unemployment benefits, but also for the ultimate beneficiary of all the labor, Hawaii's fragile environment.

"This program has paid for itself a million times over," said Christy Martin of the Maui Invasive Species Committee. "If we lose these wonderfully trained people, it would be a real shame."

In Hana, 172 tons of bulky items and tires have been removed from yards where they were threats as mosquito-breeding sites. At Kanaha Beach, stands of alien species and mounds of trash have been removed, transforming the beach into a scenic shoreline everyone had forgotten existed. In East Maui, thousands of suffocating miconia plants have been destroyed.

English said the costs of paying unemployment aren't that much less than paying the decent salaries (nearly $10 an hour) that have produced a windfall of good for the environment.

"It's ironic because many of these people will go back on unemployment and the state will have to pay almost the same amount for that (as in wages for the program)," said English. "Either way, we're going to pay. The cost is minimal compared to the return."

In January, English asked Gov. Ben Cayetano to approve emergency moneys to cover the entire program through June, but press secretary Kim Murakawa said Monday that won't be happening.

"The governor said it was supposed be a temporary program, in direct response to 9-11," said Murakawa. "The economy has been improving and with the very serious fiscal considerations (the state faces), the governor believes there are more important priorities at this point."

About 200 employees, many laid off in the economic downturn caused by the terrorist attacks on New York, were originally hired to address numerous environmental problems plaguing the islands, such as miconia, overgrown beaches and dengue fever. Almost half of the work force was assigned to Maui — and half of that in Hana, which was hit hard by the double whammy of Sept. 11 and dengue.

Ray Henderson, executive director of Ohana Makamae, the Hana-based agency that was contracted to coordinate the effort for Maui County, said the crews have become so specialized that their skills would be greatly missed.

"It would really affect us here," said Henderson. "We would lose these workers who now know more about dengue and dengue control than anyone else in the state."

Work force employees who quit or went on to find other, more permanent jobs, were not replaced. Of the original 96 hires on Maui, 54 remain.

Jan Dapitan, coordinator of the Community Work Day Program, would like to see the environmental work force continue and be staffed with permanently flexible crews that can be moved around to attack whatever environmental emergencies spring up.

"We should see this as a complement to the government work force, not a burden to it," said Dapitan.

Without the work force, Dapitan's staff would not have been able to keep up with the demands of the past few months, especially the explosion of bulky items that residents have left along the roads in response to the dengue cleanup.

Martin worries that if the program were discontinued, even for a few months, the well-oiled work force would be lost forever.

"In 99 percent of the cases, the hires were perfect fits," she said. "We had people telling us, 'I've wanted to do this kind of environmental work for a long time, but it's so hard to get in.' "

Because the jobs pay nearly twice the minimum wage, the positions are attractive and instill a sense of worth in the employees. Three of those assigned to help clear Kanaha said the respectable paychecks, coupled with their desire to work, were why they applied in the first place. Ettatani Kailikini of Paukukalo, Gayle Kila of Pukalani and Rodney Souza of Kahului also took pride in being able to care for the environment.

"It benefits me, but it also benefits the land," said Kailikini. "We're saving the native plants and making the place clean. It just feels good."

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