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Green Sands Beach
#31
I do not coordinate for the Kamilo Bay cleanups, but can relay info:
Feb 20 & May 1 are the next 2 cleanups there....email kahakai.cleanups {at} gmail {dot}com

For the Earth Day week Cleanups:
I am coordinating n underwater & beach cleanup in Hilo on April 18th
I will also be working with Hilo Bay WAG on some school projects that week.... looking like Puna / Keaau area right now
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#32
quote:
Originally posted by Carey

One of my biannual cleanups is at a gated beach, one of the "string of pearls" in Hilo.... it still has dumping.... so... I have no clue how to stop it... & it keeps happening.... cannot tell you the frustration I go through when we are pulling out some of the crap that is dumped there...
Thirty years ago, NYC was facing a crisis of illegal dumping. Persons caught illegal dumping faced fines in excess of $750 per incident and confiscation of vehicles used in illegal dumping. Despite having a unit of sworn Sanitation Police Officers patrolling and taking action against illegal dumpers, the problem was escalating exponentially.

After a careful review, NYC recognized that citizens, who were reporting illegal dumping in progress, should be allowed to act as a complainant and law enforcement action should be allowed based on their eyewitness testimony. But more often than not, people didn’t want to take time off from work to deal with the paperwork and required ECB appearance. So how do you encourage people to report illegal dumping and be willing to testify before the Environmental Control Board? Thus was born the NYC Department of Sanitation Illegal Dumping Bounty Program.

A portion of the fines collected for a violation was return as a bounty to the eyewitness who reported it and testified at ECB.

Since that date, well over 2,900 cities have successfully copied that program. Almost 40% of the violations issued results in immediate guilty pleas. Almost 85% of all Illegal Dumping bounty actions result in guilty convictions. The statutory minimum fines were raised to $1,500 or more for both the violator and operator of the vehicle if one was used. There are civil penalties to cover the cost of clean up. There are criminal sanctions when environmental or substantial loads are involved, and until such time as a person post a bond equal to the statutory violation, or they pay the imposed fine, their vehicle is impounded.

If it can work in thousands of other communities, it can work on Hawaii.

I propose the Hawaii County Council implement a similar Illegal Dumping Bounty Program with minimum statutory fines of $1,500 or more for illegal dumping and the impounding of vehicles used in illegal dumping. The County will return 50% of the final fine to the citizen who witnessed, documented, reported and assisted in conviction. A $1,500 fine would return $750 to the citizen. A $5,000 fine will net $2,500 to the citizen.

Now you tell me, how many people do you know (like they now have in many areas) who might make hunting illegal dumpers their job if they receive a Bounty?
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#33
Bob, The legal process here is not the same... even traffic tickets are not the same... just write a letter & the ticket is removed... no real incentive to obey the law - or even to bother writing the ticket...(I am basing this on a class project on the 'click it or ticket' campaign, doesn't even matter what the letter says... one student wrote that the law was stupid and there was no way she was going pay.... all of the students had the ticket expunged... at only the cost of the letter & postage.... no big deal...)

ETA: I am used to a system where there was court supervision on 1st offense in a time frame... but the PRIVILEGE of having supervision = going to court, requesting supervision & PAYING for it....
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#34
quote:
Originally posted by Wao nahele kane

Force...
Yes there is a stepway down to the beach including a steep wood stairway, you have to head for the bottom of the bowl so to speak, no entry from the sides. Most the vehicles park just in front of the entry way down.

E ho'a'o no i pau kuhihewa.


Cool. When I was a kid I climbed down the rocks and it was fairly easy, but this last time (3 years ago or so) I must have missed the trail down. No vehicles last time either, although some other hikers almost caught me and my gf getting a little too romantic on the side... heh heh heh.
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#35
Carey, if the State and County wants to pass a new law, written to make it fully enforceable, they can do it. It's been done successfully in many places. Now, will the state and County do it? I have my doubts that the State has the ability to do it and not muck it up in the process. I have zero faith in Hawaii County doing anything right.
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