Damon Estate faces
$480,335 in logging fines

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By Rod Thompson
rthompson@starbulletin.com

The state Board of Land and Natural Resources has assessed Damon Estate $480,335 in fines and costs for illegal logging of koa trees on the estate's Kahuku Ranch on the Big Island.

In the action yesterday, the board imposed penalties that were 38 percent higher than the $348,215 recommended by Department of Land and Natural Resources staff, but below the approximately $1.4 million that the law allowed.

The logging was done in 1992-2001 on conservation-designated lands without permits.

Land Board Chairman Peter Young said the board recognized that Damon's contract logger did the actual cutting and that Damon cooperated with the investigation. But the board also sent a message that there are consequences for violations, he said.

There is no certainty that Damon will pay the fine. The board adopted a staff recommendation that would let Damon "restore" the land instead of making payment.

Damon would have to propose to the board how the restoration would be done. It would not necessarily be on the basis of a dollar of restoration for each dollar of the fine, Young said.

But before that point is reached, Damon has requested a court-like contested case hearing which could result in a decreased fine.

The board calculated the fine as $650 per tree times 712 trees harvested or destroyed, plus fines for a saw mill and some roads. An attorney general's opinion supported that action, Young said.

But Damon presented its own legal opinion saying the fine should not be on a tree-by-tree basis. Those would be matters for the contested case, often a time-consuming process.

Meanwhile, purchase of the 117,000-acre Kahuku Ranch by the Nature Conservancy of Hawaii is expected by June 30, with the conservancy then reselling the land to the federal government for addition to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

"Are we going to run out of time?" Young wondered out loud.

The Department of Land and Natural Resources and the National Park Service discussed Damon doing restoration at Kahuku even after the land is turned over to the park, he said.

If that doesn't happen, Damon would have to pay the fine to the state, which would use the money for environmental work in a different area, he said.