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July 4 fireworks
display will leave
Kailua island

The noise and pollution harm
birds on Popoia island bird
sanctuary, the state says

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By Pat Gee
Star-Bulletin

Kailua's annual Fourth of July fireworks display, threatened by a shortage of funding, apparently will continue next year, but not from Popoia, or "Flat Island," the traditional staging area.

Dave Smith, Oahu wildlife biologist for the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, said yesterday that he will not issue the Kailua Chamber of Commerce a permit to set off fireworks from the island because of harm to nesting birds. The island is designated a Hawaii State Seabird Sanctuary.

No one from the chamber would comment on Smith's decision.

Last week, Joe Ryan, vice president of EnviroWatch Inc., an environmental activist group, complained that the fireworks threatened the nesting habitat of endangered shearwaters and other birds. He urged the chamber to find another location.

Smith said he agreed that "a bird sanctuary is not an appropriate place to do the fireworks. ...

"What they're actually doing is setting off bombs adjacent to bird nests," he said.

Smith, in charge of wildlife sanctuaries on Oahu, said he has issued fireworks permits for the island for the past 10 years because he was born and raised in Kailua and understands how popular the event is. But he took precautions to cordon off the area where the fireworks are detonated and made sure fireworks operators understood the need for "maximum protection" of the birds, he said.

Smith said he "flags every single burrow" the day before the fireworks and checks everything the following day. This year, for the first time, Smith said he found a crushed nest, eggs destroyed and a "bird buried alive in its burrow" when he went to inspect the island "at the crack of dawn" on July 5.

His division has "zero tolerance for "take -- any kind of harm or harassment to birds," he said. "But we are willing to work with (fireworks sponsors) to find another location" -- perhaps from a barge.

Smith said he left a telephone message with the Kailua Chamber on July 5 that he would no longer issue a permit for use of the island, but no one had yet contacted him.

The bird issue was not brought up in recent reports that the 25-year fireworks tradition was to be canceled next year due to a lack of funding. However, several Kailua businesses reportedly have stepped forward with pledges of support.

Car dealer Mike McKenna, a chamber member and regular contributor to the display, said the fireworks have not threatened the bird sanctuary in all the years it has been held. He said the birds are on the back side of the island, not near the beach where the fireworks are detonated.

Former chamber president Ted McCrea said he helped detonate the fireworks on the island for several years, and "it didn't appear we were harming the birds. ... We never trampled on the bird nests. In fact, we hardly saw any birds or nests" near the beach.

But, Ryan said, whether nests are crushed, the noise and air pollution caused by the fireworks adversely impact not only the sanctuary birds, but birds in the Kailua area.

He cited a letter sent to the Star-Bulletin last January. At that time, Paul Ansberry of Kailua wrote: "While walking Kailua Beach the Sunday after New Year's Eve, I came across several hundred dead birds washed up on the shoreline. I called the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and was told that the birds 'probably died as a result of the fireworks.'"