[ OUR OPINION ]

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26 years is too long
to fulfill ag mandate

THE ISSUE Mayor Harris has called on the City Council to vote on a bill that would satisfy, in part, a constitutional requirement.

THE City Council will assemble reluctantly tomorrow for an unusual session insisted upon by Mayor Harris to take up a measure to protect 84,482 acres of Oahu's agricultural land.

Annoyed as they may be, the bill presents Council members with an opportunity to accomplish, in part, what the state has failed to do for more than a quarter of a century: to identify and conserve important agricultural land in Hawaii -- as the state Constitution requires.

The Council's passage of the bill would be a bold step in complying with the spirit of the mandate voters approved in 1978 and may prod the state administration and legislators to finally move forward.

The bill does not change existing zoning, affect any pending zone changes or subdivisions or all land of the 115,519 acres earmarked for agricultural uses. Neither does it mean that the designated sites cannot be rezoned in the future. However, because the acreage has met community-established criteria as significant for sustaining agriculture, the measure requires a majority of six Council votes instead of five to allow other uses.

The bill's critics contend that the city is exceeding its authority, but the counties have historically been involved in zoning issues and the Harris administration believes it is in the city's purview to denote its stakes.

Council member Charles Djou, who opposes the bill and has held it up in his Zoning Committee, sees no urgency in voting on the measure. Yet, the bill has been before the Council in one form or another for two years and Djou has aggressively sought ag land preservation, albeit piecemeal, in his own district when he wished.

The urgency is chiefly the mayor's. As a Constitutional Convention delegate, Harris helped write the mandate and clearly would like to see at least part of it met. Council members, who have often been at odds with the mayor, may not want to hand him this achievement, but they should not begrudge another generation of voters the same.

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Hawaii harbors safer
but sill vulnerable

THE ISSUE The Department of Homeland Security has assigned an anti-terrorism Coast Guard unit to Honolulu Harbor.

HAWAII'S harbors have become safer with the deployment of a special Coast Guard unit trained to react swiftly to terrorist threats. Equipped with six 25-foot armed boats, the 76-sailor unit has added significantly to existing Coast Guard units with security and law-enforcement duties. However, other measures are needed to make the harbors less vulnerable to terrorists.

Honolulu became the fifth port in the Pacific region to be assigned a Maritime Safety and Security Team, following the commissioning of teams at the Seattle, Los Angeles/Long Beach, San Francisco and Anchorage harbors. It is the 10th among 13 to be assigned nationwide.

The team, based at Sand Island, will be expected to respond to threats in Hawaii or elsewhere in the Pacific as part of the Department of Homeland Security's security efforts. The unit will not only patrol the waterways but protect harbor facilities and combat drug trafficking and illegal immigrants.

The greatest threat will continue to be the possibility of explosives hidden in cargo destined for Hawaii. Under a 148-nation treaty that went into effect in July, port facilities, stevedoring companies and owners of ships larger than 500 tons must comply with rules aimed at detecting dangerous cargo.

The rules require ship owners to provide their cargo and crew manifests to customs before a U.S.-bound container is loaded at a foreign port. Much of the system's effectiveness relies on the trustworthiness of shippers; only 6 percent of the containers are examined by X-ray, and only 6 percent of those are then inspected by hand.

Hawaii gets 90 percent of its goods by ship. Most of the foreign shipments enter the country at West Coast ports, but that provides no assurance that they have been found to be safe before forwarded to Hawaii. According to estimated inspection percentages, only 720 of the 12,000 containers arriving daily at Los Angeles/Long Beach are scanned and only 43 are examined by hand.