Report Title:

Supports Accelerated Development of Kapalama Container Yard.

WHEREAS, the State of Hawaii depends almost entirely on the ocean shipping industry to import its essential commodities and to export local products to and from the neighbor islands, the mainland, and foreign countries; and

WHEREAS, most of the goods shipped into and out of the State are packed in cargo containers that need to be temporarily stored near the port while customs requirements are met and arrangements are made for delivery or loading of the goods; and

WHEREAS, the American Association of Port Authorities ranked Honolulu Harbor as the tenth busiest of all North American container ports in 1995, yet its available cargo storage acreage ranks in the lower thirty-first per cent of North American container ports; and

WHEREAS, the Oahu Commercial Harbors 2020 Master Plan ("Master Plan"), developed by a multilevel task force headed by the Director of Transportation, concluded that the State must develop significant, well-planned harbor facilities, including a substantial increase in the amount of available container space; and

WHEREAS, the Master Plan identified the former Kapalama Military Reservation as the location for a new container terminal facility; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Twenty-First Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2001, that the Twenty-First Legislature supports establishment of a new container terminal facility at the former Kapalama Military Reservation, and urges that the facility to be constructed as soon as reasonably possible; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Resolution be transmitted to the Governor of the State of Hawaii and to the Director of Transportation.