Layoffs could leave island vulnerable to alien species

6 state inspector positions land on budget-cutting list

The Maui News
Sunday, August 9, 2009

By HARRY EAGAR, Staff Writer

It was somewhat ironic.

On Monday, the leaders of the American Farm Bureau Federation were on Maui, touring the brand spanking new inspection facility at Kahului Airport. And on Tuesday, layoff notices went out to many of the state inspectors who make the building useful.

Should the layoffs go forward in November as planned by Gov. Linda Lingle, not all Maui-based inspectors will disappear, according to Carol Okada, manager of the Plant Quarantine Bureau in the state Department of Agriculture.

There are inspectors in 10 positions covered by special funds who will not be affected, including six funded by the state Department of Transportation. But the six positions paid out of the state's general fund are on the budget-cutting hit list.

Anna Mae Shishido, Maui County supervisor of the Maui Plant Quarantine Branch, wrote a letter expressing her concern about the impact of the layoffs to two Maui lawmakers - state Sen. J. Kalani English and Rep. Joe Souki.

She said the Transportation Department's special fund specifies that the six inspectors it pays for would work at the Kahului Airport - which means they wouldn't do maritime inspections.

As a result, Matson and other containers carrying produce, animal feed and other agricultural material would need to go to Honolulu first for inspection, Shishido said. Diverting that cargo to Oahu would mean extra handling of Maui-bound containers, adding delays and costs for consumers.

The layoffs would also mean that more than two dozen certified nurseries on Maui would no longer be able to self-certify their plant shipments to other states because state inspectors would not be available to conduct semi-annual nursery re-certification inspections, she said.

Shishido said she was alarmed about the potential for infestations of alien species without maritime inspections on Maui.

"We anticipate increased infestations of stinging nettle caterpillars and coqui frogs on Maui and new infestations of little fire ants and the varroa mite, which have not been found here so far," she said. "The safeguards we have worked so hard to put in place will be drastically decreased or completely gone. Maui will be exposed."

Bob Spallman, president of the national Farm Bureau, commented last week on the state's cuts of plant quarantine inspectors.

"People don't understand the economic upside" of spending money on combating alien pests and diseases, he said. "They don't allow for the economic impacts."

Spallman raises cattle and grows rice in southeast Texas, which is the home of one of the outstanding success stories in pest control, the endless war against the screwworm. Screwworms are controlled by breeding, irradiating and releasing millions of sterile flies to knock down the population. The swarms of sterile flies serve as a barrier that helps to keep the scourge from crossing the border out of Mexico, which does not invest in control.

"You still have to be vigilant," Spallman said in an interview Tuesday. He recalls riding a horse across his family's ranch in the 1950s, "knocking over cans" where any remnant screwworm flies could breed.

It isn't just inspections of incoming shipments of produce that will be affected if the layoffs happen as announced. The state Department of Agriculture would be denuded of staff throughout the Neighbor Islands, with services consolidated on Oahu.

Department spokeswoman Janelle Saneishi said there are 78 plant quarantine inspectors statewide, 50 of whom have received layoff notices. Of 16 positions on Maui, the department is losing six, she said.

Warren Watanabe, executive director of the Maui County Farm Bureau, said many of the state Agriculture Department services go beyond serving farmers and ranchers.

"In fact, the majority of the tasks at the Neighbor Islands offices is for the public; for example, the certification to ship ag out of Hawaii is by that office. You cannot do that by the Web," he said. "Many others than farmers send things out that need the stamp. And then the imports, even hospitals are affected then. Who will certify?"

Watanabe noted that inspectors recently intercepted the slug that carries rat lungworm disease in a Young Brothers shipment from the Big Island to Maui. Maui has the disease but so far does not have the worst vector that spreads it.

Also, he said, pest control companies need Department of Agriculture certification.

"Their hands are tied because they have already been cut deeply," Watanabe said.

Spallman was on Maui for the presidents' meeting of the Western Region of the Farm Bureau. The farm leaders toured the Kula Agricultural Park and a flower farm.

Spallman noted that Maui's agriculture problems mirror those of the Mainland in miniature.

For example, the 13 counties of coastal Texas where rice can be grown used to devote 550,000 acres to the crop. Today, rice acreage is down to 180,000 acres.

It is being crowded out by urban sprawl from Houston and water shortages.

"Texas is a water-deficit state," Spallman said. "All the surface water has been allocated."

Spallman said the major legislative issues that the bureau is working on this year are especially acute in the western states.

These are national climate change legislation, which by taxing carbon is likely to raise farmers' costs for fuel and supplies, and an extension of the Clean Water Act from navigable waters to all waters, which the bureau also considers an infringement on state water regulation.

The presidents meeting continued on Maui through Wednesday.

* Harry Eagar can be reached at heagar@mauinews.com. City Editor Brian Perry contributed to this story.

Original article URL: http://www.mauinews.com/page/content.detail/id/522082.html

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