Can we build an eco-highway?

Author:

Sanburn, Curt

Title:

Can we build an eco-highway?

Periodical:

Hawaii Island Journal

Year:

2000

Pages:

12-15

Subject:

Pohakuloa Training Area (PTA) Ecosystem management Saddle Road

Summary:

This document describes a plan to convert and slightly redesign an old highway that is known as the Saddle Road, into a modern, two-lane highway, as this road was hastilty built by the wartime U.S. Army in 1942. According to an Environmental Impact Statement, this highway, that provides the most direct and least resistant route between the east and west side of the island of Hawaii, would shave 14 miles and 20 minutes of drive time off a Hilo-Kona route through its new design. It also predicts a 15-fold increase in traffic by 2014. Described are the scenic and educational resources that would be unlocked by the new highway as well as concerns that were voiced in an effort to ensure the esthetics as well as the native Hawaiian fauna and flora that exist in the area would not be damaged. Concerns were also voiced to ensure that a redesign that would lead traffic away from the military maneuvers that occur on the northern edge of the Pohakuloa Training Area. In addition concerns were voiced by hunters who objected to the fencing off of 10,000 acres of public land for the protection of the endangered palila bird habitat as the hunters felt that this was an unfair appropriation of hunting grounds even though bird hunting would still be allowed in the area.

Label:

Pohakuloa

Date:

March 16-31, 2000

Collection:

Periodicals