Big Isle ranch
targeted in koa
logging inquiry

The state investigates alleged
illegal logging in conservation
land areas at Kahuku Ranch

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By Rod Thompson
rthompson@starbulletin.com

HILO >> The state is investigating alleged illegal koa logging on Damon Estate's 117,000-acre Kahuku Ranch at the south end of the Big Island.

Air and ground surveys show logging on conservation land was "extensive," said state enforcement officer Lawrence Terlep of the Department of Land & Natural Resources.

Estimates of the volume of the wood removed and its value are continuing, said state forestry manager Roger Imoto of the Land Department.

Since the investigation is incomplete, what violations may have taken place, if any, are unclear, Terlep said.

Tim Johns, the chief operating officer of Damon Estate, declined to comment except to say the estate is cooperating fully with the investigation.

Terlep confirmed the cooperation.

Until December, Johns was head of the Land Department and he remains on the department's Board of Land & Natural Resources.

At a minimum, it appears that neither Damon Estate nor its contractors obtained permits to log on conservation land.

"We have searched our records and find no permits on record for any commercial timber operations on the subject parcel," said Dean Uchida, state land administrator in Hilo, at the time he wrote an April letter to Puna resident Bill Eger.

Eger, an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for the state House of Representatives last year, had criticized a National Park Service proposal to buy Kahuku Ranch and expand Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

Eger predicted major management problems.

Early this year, Eger told state officials about the alleged illegal logging.

About 80 percent of the ranch is designated conservation.

Hawaii Administrative Rules relating to the "protective" and "limited" conservation subzones at Kahuku require a Land Board permit for removal of more than five trees with a diameter of six or more inches for "forest products."

Specialty lumber merchant Ed Winkler said he has bought wood from people who logged at Kahuku. "I had no sense that anything was not appropriate," he said.

Winkler said he did not know the land was in conservation until he saw maps of the ranch at public meetings this year on the national park acquiring it. "There aren't signs all over saying 'Conservation,'" he said.

Logging has been done at Kahuku since the late 1980s, Winkler said.

Terlep added, "This is something that has been going on for quite some time."

A rough road leads from the ranch onto state land above Pahala, where further indications of logging are seen, Eger said. Terlep said that is also being investigated.

Volcanoes park superintendent Jim Martin said he did not see many stumps during an inspection, but he did see a koa mill. Ranch officials told him it was for processing slash, a term usually meaning debris from prior logging.

Koa logging would not stop the park acquiring the land, Martin said, unless there was "significant degradation" since federal officials looked at it.