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Hunter-lawyer
may delay Saddle
Road alignment

The contested case hearing
requested could take a year to
resolve, an official says

By Rod Thompson
Star-Bulletin

HILO -- Work on a $46.3 million realignment of a portion of the Big Island's cross-island Saddle Road could be delayed for a year under action sought by hunter and former state Rep. Katsuya Yamada.

Yamada asked for a court-like contested case hearing on the project during a hearing by the state Board of Land and Natural Resources last night.

Yamada said he is in favor of the project but opposes the particular 12.7-mile alignment through the Army's Pohakuloa Training Area. The alignment goes through land designated as critical habitat for the endangered palila bird, although authorities agree that no palila currently live there.

Since the new alignment will modify 102 acres of habitat, federal law requires the project to create new habitat for the bird, in the present case, 9,345 acres of it.

Three areas have been designated for that new habitat, including 3,000 acres within Pohakuloa called Kipuka Alala, said consulting biologist Reggie David.

Pig hunting at Kipuka Alala would come to an end.

Yamada, also a lawyer, said the law requires the project to go through the area that creates the least environmental destruction. Project designers picked the wrong route, he said.

The state Constitution allows "any person" to bring an action to preserve "a healthful and clean environment," he said.

Timothy Johns, head of the Department of Land and Natural Resources, said the attorney general will have to determine if the wording applies to Yamada in the current case. If so, contested cases often take as much as a year to resolve, Johns said.

Other than Yamada, three other people spoke in favor of the project and 28 sent written support.

County Council member Bobby Jean Leithead-Todd said besides protecting the environment, the state has a duty to protect travelers on the road.

She told of one of her staff members whose car overturned on the Saddle Road, of someone else she found injured in an accident, and of a lawsuit against the county in which a child died on the road and the child's mother committed suicide on the first anniversary of the death.