North Shore’s burned
fields get seeding grant
A federal conservation agency will receive a $30,000 grant to seed the North Shore's Poamoho Gulch, where a brush fire in late September burned more than 1,000 acres of old sugar cane and pineapple fields.
The blaze also put nearly 900 residents and 67 buildings at flood damage risk should there be heavy rainfall in the area, according to federal agriculture officials.
"Without this emergency assistance, prime agricultural lands, Kaiaka Bay and the entire Waialua land and ocean ecosystems will be seriously affected by potential flooding, soil erosion and pollution runoff," said U.S. Rep. Ed Case, D-Hawaii.
The funds, allocated by Congress, will pay for a helicopter to distribute seeds next month over the burned areas in the gulch.
