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Environment

News stories regarding Molokai’s outdoor environment

Fertilizing Your Garden

Wednesday, September 11th, 2013

Community Contributed

By Joe Kennedy

How do you grow a large veggie garden, like a community garden, and get enough fertilizer to make everything thrive? Going to the store and paying higher and high prices for packaged, synthetic, petroleum-based fertilizers that’s been shipped from the mainland is not the answer. So where do we get it? Look around and try to remember the things that have high amounts of nitrogen in them.

Some easy-to-find, high-nitrogen materials include grass clippings from lawns and roadsides, the leaves, seeds, pods and twigs from the monkey pod and koa, and the dirt from under these trees.…

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Rising from the Rocks

Wednesday, September 4th, 2013

Rising from the Rocks

Native plants making a comeback

Editorial by Catherine Cluett

We’re bumping along a rocky track, ascending steeply through a landscape some would call lunar. Ahead of us is mostly gray—Kawela’s barren, stony slopes and gulches, topped by a thin line of green where the mountaintops meet the sky. But I can’t help turning in my seat of our all-terrain vehicle toward the view behind us—each bump expands a breathtaking panorama of Maui to the east, Lanai’s slender back, the turquoise fingers of Molokai’s south shore reef, and the slopes of Pu`u Nana to Molokai’s west.

In the years before European contact in the 19th century, these mountainsides were covered in lowland forests, according to historic records.…

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Catching Invasives

Monday, September 2nd, 2013

U.S. Department of Agriculture Molokai inspector Chevy Levasa said it was just a regular day at work for her, but a finding a fungi last year landed her some recognition. She now holds the first report in the U.S. of a strain of fungi called frog-eye spot, or P. morindae, on a noni leaf on Molokai.

“It’s such a regular part of my job, I don’t think much of it,” Levasa said.

A request went out from the USDA office on Oahu for inspectors on every island to collect noni leaf samples, and Levasa — along with Molokai Invasive Species Committee leader Lori Buchanan and her crew — responded.…

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Krazy For Kolea Kontest Winners

Sunday, September 1st, 2013

Nene O Molokai News Release

This year’s 16th annual Krazy For Kolea Kontest winner was an unusually early kolea on the grass at the Puko`o harbor spotted by Mia Evans on July 19. She will receive a Kolea Research T-shirt from the Hawaii Audubon Society and a certificate for a free scoop of ice cream at Kamoi Snack-N-Go.

The kolea or Pacific Golden-Plover (Pluvialis fulva) has one of the longest transoceanic migrations of any of the world’s shorebirds, with some birds flying from breeding grounds in Alaska to winter as far away as Madagascar. The species has been documented migrating at speeds of up to 118 miles per hour.…

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Backyard Gardens, New Thinking

Sunday, September 1st, 2013

Community Contributed

By Joe Kennedy

We have so many problems. Write down a list of the world’s most pressing problems and it will become clear that things are dangerously close to more widespread pain and suffering. Global warming, drought, flooding, starvation and warfare are increasing. Agriculture is the world’s biggest polluter in the form of soil erosion and pesticide and herbicide use.  But on the other hand, there’s a new kind of thinking out there that latches on to a certain kind of change and it’s called quantum physics. This new way of thinking is even favorably affecting farming methods and what to do with profits. …

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Hawaii’s Golden Age of Orchids

Sunday, September 1st, 2013

Hawaii’s Golden Age of Orchids

Community Contributed

By Glenn I. Teves, UH County Extension Agent

The first orchids made their way to Hawaii around the mid-1800s via Asia, and by the end of the 19th century, wealthy individuals and even Hawaiian royalty maintained orchid collections. Soon, the average Hawaii resident learned they could grow orchids without effort in the perfect climate.

In late 1945, members of the 442nd Infantry returned home from Europe as decorated heroes, and these Nisei or first generation Hawaii-born of Japanese ancestry took up the growing of orchids as a hobby. Many were self-taught, and took orchid production to another level as they learned new technology.…

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Dream Green Team

Thursday, August 29th, 2013

Talking trash isn’t usually a good thing, but a small team in Kalaupapa is changing the way people think about rubbish with their award winning solid waste management program. The Kalaupapa National Historical Park (KNHP) Green Team, comprised of five local Molokai employees, has received national recognition for the work they’re doing to make the peninsula a statewide model of waste management.

The team — Arthur Ainoa, Joseph Kahee, Brennan Lee-Namakaeha, Pa`oneakai Lee-Namakaeha, and Ryan Mahiai — has recently been named one of seven recipients of the National Park Service’s 2013 Environmental Achievement awards. The award recognizes their accomplishment of drastically reducing the peninsula’s solid waste through recycling, composting, conserving and reusing.…

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MECO Planned Kaluakoi Outages

Thursday, August 29th, 2013

MECO News Release

Maui Electric Company (MECO) will be scheduling periodic interruptions in electrical service for the Kaluakoi subdivision as part of a system improvement project to install new equipment in this community. Kaluakoi residences will be notified of specific dates and times of the outages via printed flyers delivered to their homes.

As part of this project, the periodic outages will be scheduled through October to replace several switchgears. A combination of electrical disconnect switches, fuses or circuit breakers used to control, protect and isolate electrical equipment, switchgears provide continued reliability of the electricity Maui Electric provides to customers.

Should there be any questions or concerns, please contact Maui Electric directly at 1-877-871-8461.…

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Bringing Electric Vehicles to Molokai

Wednesday, August 28th, 2013

Maui Electric Vehicle Alliance News Release

Molokai residents know all too well about high gas prices.  The island has some of the highest in the nation.  Electric vehicles – cars that can plug in to the electricity grid for some or all of their power – promise relief from these high costs.  Plus, they offer a sustainable and energy-independent way to get around the island, reinforcing the island ethic of caring for the environment.

A few Molokai residents have managed to purchase electric vehicles, taking advantage of a current price war among the automakers and new lease deals that remove high upfront costs. …

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The Future of Pu`u Opala

Wednesday, August 28th, 2013

Community Contributed

By Glenn I. Teves, UH County Extension Agent

We have the beginnings of new mountain range forming on the south side of Molokai. Pu`u Opala or Garbage Mountain is composed mostly of our rubbish with some soil added for stability. Already several stories high, who knows how high it will be when it finally goes dormant. The question is how many more mountains will be formed in the process to add to the South Molokai mountains? That decision lies mostly with us, the creators of this mountain.

There are ways to slow the growth of the mountain, including recycling to minimize what is being thrown away, hauling the green waste out of the land fill, and finding value in the things that we throw away.…

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