STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2168

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 2770

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Seventh State Legislature

Regular Session of 2014

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committee on Water and Land, to which was referred S.B. No. 2770 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO KAWAINUI,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to ensure continued community participation in the preservation and protection of Kawainui after the completion of the master plan update process, by establishing the Kawainui Advisory Council and making an appropriation to support the work of the council.

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Land and Natural Resources, Pacific American Foundation, and one individual.  Your Committee received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Kailua Neighborhood Board, Hawaii's Thousand Friends, Hawaii Audubon Society, and Windward Ahupua‘a Alliance.

     Kawainui encompasses approximately eight hundred thirty acres of land in Kailua, Oahu, and is the State's largest remaining wetland and an ecological and cultural treasure of statewide interest.  It has been identified by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service as a primary habitat for endemic and endangered Native Hawaiian birds such as the ‘alae ke‘oke‘o, ‘alae ‘ula, ae‘o, and koloa maoli.  In 2005, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands designated the Kawainui-Hamakua Complex as a wetland of international importance in part due to the wetlands' relationship to surrounding cultural sites.  In 2011, the Department of Land and Natural Resources began to hold public meetings to discuss a draft of the revised master plan for Kawainui.

     Your Committee finds that this measure ensures continued community participation in the preservation and protection of Kawainui after the completion of the master plan update process by establishing the Kawainui Advisory Council to facilitate implementation of the master plan, enhance community education and cultural awareness of Kawainui, and protect and preserve Kawainui's resources.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Water and Land that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2770 and recommends that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Water and Land,

____________________________

MALAMA SOLOMON, Chair