Damon Estate settles
fine for illegal logging
HAWAII VOLCANOES NATIONAL PARK >> Damon Estate will provide 10 miles of fencing material and cash payments to help control wild animals in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park as part of a state fine for illegal logging of koa on the Big Island.
When the state imposed the fine and costs of $480,335 in April, Damon owned Kahuku Ranch where the logging took place from 1992 to 2001. The park has since acquired 116,000 acres of the ranch.
The logging of 712 koa trees was conducted without a permit in conservation-designated areas of the ranch by a contractor, but the state Board of Land & Natural Resources imposed the fine on Damon as landowner.
The Land Board also fined the contractor, Steve's Ag Services Ltd., $1.37 million, but the Land Board granted company owner Steve Baczkiewicz a hearing yesterday in which he will contest the fine.
Regarding the Damon fine, there was initial uncertainty whether the payment would be in cash or services.
Under an agreement approved yesterday by the Land Board, the estate will give the park $150,000 worth of fencing.
Damon also will pay $30,000 for the park to hire two biological monitors for up four months and will pay up to $74,000 for a program to control wild pigs, goats and mouflon sheep.
That comes to $254,000, less than the total of the fine. But the national park will also provide labor, which will bring the value of restoration work to $504,250, said Land Board Chairman Peter Young.
"The focus is on restoration," Young said, not who pays each portion of the fine.
Since pigs, goats and sheep are the greatest threat to young koa trees, controlling those animals will make replanting of koa unnecessary, park naturalist Tim Tunison reported to the Land Board. With the animals gone, new koa will grow.
