04-13-2013, 07:45 PM
I understand the point Ms. Trask is making. However, I was told by elderly Kapoho residents years ago that the entire area east of Pahoa toward the coast dropped about 50 feet in the mid-1920s. They told me the area was covered with coffee farms but the people sold the land and left when the land dropped. (I can't really recall exactly but I think I recall them saying Mr. Richard Lyman bought up a lot of the property.
The land dropping back then would coincide with the instability throughout lower Puna, including Pahoa roads splitting, etc. preceding the explosive May 1924 eruption of Halema'uma'u that erased the summit lava lake. The geologic dynamics of this entire system remain in great flux, as we can all recognize with what seems to be the re-establishment of the Halema'uma'u lava lake in the past year or so.
It was my understanding that the hotel development that was being pushed for the Pohoiki area in the 1970s was denied by the County Council when geologists testified the area was too unstable geologically for such development. Dr. Robert Decker compared the Puna coast to a crisp cookie where the edges keep crumbling and falling off.
Who in their right minds would invest in such an unstable area? People with money to burn like Halliburton?
Maybe we should insist that anyone doing such development has to pay for a second highway out of lower Puna before any such development can be started. That's what we should be insisting on anyway!
All other issues are truly secondary compared to the need for an alternative to the Highway 130 cul de sac that literally tens of thousands of us live on. And this proposed development just is a reminder of that basic fact. Evacuation plans? Can't really create an evacuation plan when there's just one way in and one way out!
The land dropping back then would coincide with the instability throughout lower Puna, including Pahoa roads splitting, etc. preceding the explosive May 1924 eruption of Halema'uma'u that erased the summit lava lake. The geologic dynamics of this entire system remain in great flux, as we can all recognize with what seems to be the re-establishment of the Halema'uma'u lava lake in the past year or so.
It was my understanding that the hotel development that was being pushed for the Pohoiki area in the 1970s was denied by the County Council when geologists testified the area was too unstable geologically for such development. Dr. Robert Decker compared the Puna coast to a crisp cookie where the edges keep crumbling and falling off.
Who in their right minds would invest in such an unstable area? People with money to burn like Halliburton?
Maybe we should insist that anyone doing such development has to pay for a second highway out of lower Puna before any such development can be started. That's what we should be insisting on anyway!
All other issues are truly secondary compared to the need for an alternative to the Highway 130 cul de sac that literally tens of thousands of us live on. And this proposed development just is a reminder of that basic fact. Evacuation plans? Can't really create an evacuation plan when there's just one way in and one way out!