Environmental work force headed for new funding

Pacific Business News (Honolulu)
February 12, 2002

A proposal to keep funding a special environmental work force for Hawaii is easily gaining committee approvals in the current Hawaii legislative session.

In the state senate Monday, both the Labor Committee and the Committee for Water, Land, Energy & Environment voted to recommend approval of a bill to continue funding an emergency work force set up during last year's special session to pay unemployed workers to collect unwanted plants and animals that threaten Hawaii ecosystems.

Hundreds of noisy coqui frogs have been collected by the workers, hundreds of thousands of miconia plants have been destroyed, and several tons of refuse providing mosquito breeding habitat have been removed, Senate Majority Floor Leader Kalani English (D-Wailuku-Kahului-Upcountry Maui) said.

"The work this emergency work force has accomplished in the few months of its existence is remarkable," English said. "Acres have been cleared that provided breeding areas for mosquitoes that carry dengue."

Recent research into the travel decisions made by Japanese since Sept. 11 found that some Japanese vacationers were as concerned about dengue fever as they were about airline security. There have been more than 100 confirmed cases of dengue, most but not all on the remote Hana side of Maui. Mosquitos give it to humans. Though it's far more common in the South Pacific, its spread to Hawaii last year was cause for graves concern by tourism officials.

Tom Ishii, the state official in charge of the cleanup work force, says apart from the economic benefit of providing employment and the environmental benefit of dealing with some problems that needed handling regardless of the economy, he also finds that the people actually doing the work say they are grateful for finding work they regard as "meaningful and important."

© 2002 American City Business Journals Inc.

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