Work force needs funding

The Maui News
Editorial
Wednesday, April 28, 2004

In all things legislative, it isn't over until it's over. Even though the state's supplementary budget has gone to the governor, there is still time and ways of getting needed budget items into law.

One of those items is a state Emergency Environmental Workforce being pushed by Sen. J. Kalani English, who well remembers the economic impact of dengue fever on his home district of East Maui. He also knows how important the original Emergency Environmental Workforce was to those individuals who signed on for the backbreaking work involved in clearing up mosquito-breeding sites.

Originally supported by then Gov. Ben Cayetano as a make-work project in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the $1.5 million project was administered out of the University of Hawaii to eliminate as much administrative cost as possible.

"That initial $1.5 million ended up saving billions of dollars and the loss of jobs and livelihoods" if the outbreak of dengue fever had resulted in tourists finding other places to spend their vacation dollars, English said. "What the environmental work force did was save the entire tourism industry in Hawaii."

Even discounting a certain amount of political hyperbole, English is right in thinking a standing environmental work force is needed. The next environmental assault, such as dengue fever or murine typhus, is as close as the next landing airplane or another mouse population explosion.

English is looking for $1 million to be used by the Hawaii Invasive Species Council to deal with future emergencies. Such a rapid response team would move the islands "away from an ad hoc approach and toward a coordinated holistic approach," English said.

Each island in the state should have a crew of individuals ready to deal with such things as dengue fever or murine typhus. Once the crisis is at hand, it is often too late. In between emergencies, a standing environmental work force could do valuable work - and supply paychecks for remote areas such as Hana - fighting miconia, fire weed, coqui frogs, veiled chameleons and other alien pests.

Even when money is tight, spending $1 million on the environment, both natural and economic, is a good move.

Copyright © 2003 — The Maui News

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