Federal parks chief
favors Volcanoes
ranch addition

The Kahuku Ranch would then
connect multiple public lands

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By Rod Thompson
rthompson@starbulletin.com

HILO >> The new director of the National Park Service, Fran Mainella, says she likes the concept of adding Kahuku Ranch to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, but she has to wait for a congressional study to see if it is feasible.

Mainella was appointed by President Bush and assumed her duties July 30. Since Monday she has been in Hawaii with her boss, Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton, getting to know Hawaii's federal parks.

Hawaii Volcanoes is the largest in Hawaii, with about 229,000 acres, and it would grow by 117,000 acres if the proposed federal purchase of Kahuku Ranch goes through.

The park currently extends from the southeast to the summit of Mauna Loa. The addition of the ranch would continue that arc from the summit down to the southwest, running along state conservation lands.

"What I like is the corridor concept," Mainella said. "It connects multiple public lands."

The Kahuku extension has been criticized by some as too costly to buy and maintain. Mainella said one purpose of the congressional study would be to determine what those costs would be.

Another criticism is that non-native animals, especially sheep, would likely be eradicated from the ranch if it were joined to the park.

Little hunting is done on the ranch now, and Mainella held out little hope of keeping sheep long term for hunting. Park managers generally prefer to remove wildlife that would affect the rest of an area's natural resources, she said.

On other matters, Mainella said the visitor center at the USS Arizona Memorial needs to be redesigned for better movement of people.

Nationwide, President Bush has made a priority of a backlog of maintenance needs. Mainella called it a "fairly significant" problem. "You need to make sure your septic tanks and sewage systems are working properly," she said.