Saddle Road permit
upheld by state judge

A hunter claimed the Land Board
acted without authorization

---

By Rod Thompson
rthompson@starbulletin.com

HILO >> A Hilo judge has rejected a challenge that would have partially blocked reconstruction of the Saddle Road across the Big Island.

The current timetable calls for work to begin next year on a $28 million portion of the $165 million project.

In hearings before the state Board of Land and Natural Resources last year, Hilo attorney Kats Yamada, who also hunts in the Saddle area, opposed the realignment of about seven miles of the 47-mile project.

The Federal Highway Administration plans to remove the seven-mile segment from old lava flows east of Mauna Kea State Park and create a new alignment through dryland forest where several endangered species are located.

When the Land Board granted a permit for the realignment last year, Yamada appealed the decision in court.

Judge Greg Nakamura ruled last week that the permit was "not clearly erroneous."

Yamada said the Land Board considered the effect of the project only on the endangered palila bird, ignoring eight other plant and animal species.

Nakamura's decision acknowledges that the Land Board did not mention some species, but evidence presented in hearings "would support specific findings" that the species will not be affected, Nakamura wrote.

The project calls for creation of 9,345 acres of new habitat for palila where they do not now exist in exchange for the highway disrupting 102 acres of current habitat.

Yamada argued no rule allows such a transfer of use from one area to others. Nakamura determined that the Land Board "implicitly interpreted its own rules so as to allow it."