Molokai Reef (24 page)

“
Shark
mania,” exclaimed Mongoose.

“
In
the report, jacks, sharks, and groupers are listed as the top
predators. The carnivorous predators in the northwestern islands
average almost six times the weight of the few remaining ones in the
populated islands.”

Flyn
glanced at her notes. “Each year three hundred thousand
tourists visit the reefs. While snorkeling and diving, they
inadvertently or ignorantly trample the reefs and pulverize the
coral. The study found that in heavily used areas, the coral cover
was as low as two percent. This compared with a control area with
thirty-four percent coverage.”

Gybe
noticed Kara’s face reddening and suspected her blood pressure
was spiking. Mongoose appeared disinterested, perhaps because this
wasn’t news to him. Meanwhile, the shock value was lost on an
observant Gybe.

“
Now
for the rest of the story.” Flyn mocked Paul Harvey. She told
them that unbridled shoreline development destroyed wetland areas and
fringing reefs. Over the years, many exotic species had found their
way to the islands, either deliberately to enhance algal culture and
fishing or inadvertently aboard ocean ships.

“
Don’t
forget the idiots?” Gybe interjected.

With
their eyes, the other three said ‘which idiots?’

“
There
are the aquarium people who MUST have an imported plant species.
Then they dump the aquarium in a lake and the plant flourishes. That
one was
Salvinia molesta
. It choked a lake on O‘ahu
until the government spent hundreds of thousands of dollars during a
removal program. At the end of the eradication program, the
legislature still couldn’t agree on a ban of the plant.”
As an afterthought, he added, “un-fucking-believable!”

On a
roll, he continued. “Horticulturists imported exotic plants
and along came the coqui frog. The dime-sized frog makes a deafening
noise and it has spread rapidly on the Big Island. Scientists have
discovered colonies on other islands as well. And there are a whole
slew of plants, like miconia, that are crowding out native species on
each island.”

“
You
know this isn’t new, Gybe?” Kara suggested.

“
What’s
not new? Idiots? Or, idiots bringing in their favorite species?”

“
Both.
However, I was referring to the introduction of non-indigenous
critters. The Polynesians brought pigs and other animals when they
discovered and settled the islands.”

“
You’re
right and the feral pigs have done a ton of damage. But, if Hawai‘i
was paradise when the Polynesians found it, or Captain Cook re-found
it for the Western World, or if we stretch and agree that it is still
paradise compared to most of the U.S., then is it reasonable to
assume that there are enough plant and animal species already here?”

He
paused for effect. “Hawai‘i should embargo the shipment
of new plants and animals to the islands. If it doesn’t grow
here, they don’t need it. The hell with what Home Depot wants
to sell in their garden department.”

“
You
seem ambivalent, Gybe.” Flyn jabbed. “To cheer you up,
let me explain my own analysis.”

Flyn
had observed that Hawai‘i imported almost everything and
exported almost nothing. The large agricultural exports of the past,
sugar and pineapple had diminished as cheap third world production
increased. Lāna‘i, once known as The Pineapple Isle, was
barren of pineapples.

Quantifying
her hunch, she had found a state publication called
Hawai‘i
Data Book for 2001
on the Internet. She couldn’t ascertain
an exact figure for net imports to the islands, but the book revealed
that the port of Honolulu handled nearly eight million tons of cargo
that year. With over seventy percent of the state’s
population, most of the cargo stayed on O‘ahu. Much of the
rest was transferred to other islands via the interisland barges.
Beyond this container cargo, nearly 150,000 tons of coal and almost
40 million barrels of oil were shipped to the refineries and electric
power plants.

“
All
of it, all of it” She emphasized, “ends up in the ocean.”

This
hypothesis got their attention, especially Kara’s. “Huh?
What do you mean it all goes into the ocean?”

“
Interesting,”
Mongoose interjected. “But what does this have to do with
murder on Moloka‘i? We’re getting off track.”

“
Hardly,”
replied Flyn. “Listen and pay attention.”

“
Buildings
– houses, factories, hotels, office towers – grow from
construction materials shipped from off-island. The buildings stand
for a few decades, occasionally a century, before someone tears them
down and carts the debris to a landfill. Furniture, appliances, lawn
equipment, cars, trucks, buses, et cetera, are used until they are
outmoded, wear out, or bore the consumer, then it’s off to a
landfill or an illegal roadside dump. Office supplies, computers,
telephones, copiers, drill presses, lathes, welders, and the tools of
business are used until replaced and then once more, it’s a
journey to the landfill.”

Flyn
continued her case for all the common material goods shipped to
Hawai‘i. “Food, medicine, imported water, milk, and beer
are consumed then excreted into the sewer system. Sewage treatment,
depending on island and locale, is minimal before the wastewater
flows through outfalls into the ocean. The sewage sludge is dumped
in the landfill.”

Coal
and oil fired power plants and vehicles – autos, mopeds,
trucks, and buses – emit ash, particulates, and other
combustion products into the atmosphere. After combustion, the plant
operator trucks the residual byproducts to the landfill.

Burning
released carbon dioxide, monoxide, sulfur compounds, etc. into the
air. “Remember your chemistry – burning a kilogram of
coal or a gallon of gasoline does not convert mass to energy. The
re-configuration of the chemical bonds provides the energy. If you
weigh all the emitted products, you would still have a kilogram of
material. Much more when you add in the new compounds formed with
oxygen during combustion.”

What
rises in the air, falls in the ocean. The particulates return in
rain while the gaseous compounds take a longer journey.

Flyn
summarized. “Will you agree that everything – every
gallon, pound, ton, square foot, and capsule – lands in either
the air, ocean, or landfill?”

“
Agreed,”
said Kara “but you said it ALL went into the ocean?”

Flyn
was ready for the question. “The landfill will slide into the
ocean. Maybe not today or next year, but it will slide under water.”

“
The
islands are volcanic and subject to earthquakes. Either a new
eruption, most likely on the Big Island, or an earthquake, possible
on any island, could cause the landfill to slide.”

“
Because
Hawai‘i is in the tropics, the islands receive lots of
erosion-producing rain with some areas receiving more than one
hundred inches per year. Mount Waialeale on Kaua‘i receives
nearly five hundred inches. And don’t forget the hurricanes,
rising sea levels due to global warming and the tsunamis?”

Flyn
paused then presented her final summary.

“
Everything,
and I mean everything that is shipped into Hawai‘i is thrown
into the ocean. Imagine if every day, all of the cars and trucks
that leave Home Depot, Costco, the Ala Moana Shopping Center, or a
gas station were driven to Honolulu Harbor and rolled into the
ocean.”

For
emphasis, Flyn added. “Is there any wonder the reefs are
dying?”

Silence
captured the others as they pondered the merits of Flyn’s
argument. Time was a key factor because the landfills wouldn’t
slide in the ocean tomorrow. Probably not. However, they knew that
much of the material destined for the landfill ended up on the side
of the road or at an illegal tree-shadowed dump site. It was clear
that the fossil products and food products went almost directly to
the ocean.

The
listeners realized that Flyn’s prognostication for Hawaiian
trash also applied to every other state or locality. Hawai‘i
provided a quantifiable foundation for the argument because it was
easier to determine the net amount of imported products. On the
islands, the erosion, volcanic activity, and landslides were evident
to anyone who looked.

Gybe
broke the silence. “Susan is wrong about the seed companies.
At worst, they are but one of hundreds of ways to destroy a reef.
There isn’t any evidence they are guiltier than the rest of the
humanity in this archipelago.”

Gybe
glanced at the surfer. A dense fog had rolled across his eyes.

Sensing
Gybe’s glare, he stood. “There’s an eight to ten
foot northwest swell predicted for this afternoon. I’ll catch
a ride to the north shore.” At that, he dove over the side,
swam to Flyn’s boat, grabbed his surfboard, and paddled ashore.

“
Flyn,
what are you doing with that guy? I didn’t catch his name.”
Gybe said.

“
Boy
toy. I don’t remember his name either.” Flyn’s
eyes widened. “Firm, lean muscles. Below the neck, that is.”

“
Kara,
what did you learn from your visit with Susan on Maui?”

45

While
Gybe sailed to Lono Harbor, Kara had taken the ferry
Moloka‘i
Princess
to Lahaina where she caught a bus to Wailuku. The trip
to Maui’s north shore was the same one that she and Gybe had
taken earlier. In Wailuku, she checked into a motel, then visited
Susan in the county jail.

At
first, Susan didn’t want to discuss Jean, the murdered woman.
Kara impressed upon her how important it was to know everything about
Jean. She and Gybe needed to follow all leads if they hoped to free
Susan.

Kara
had suspected that Susan’s sexual orientation didn’t lie
north and south, but like most people of her generation, she didn’t
care. Susan hesitated, but then told Kara about her first arrival on
Moloka‘i.

Something
had happened soon after she won the contract to reconstruct several
of the pilings at the commercial pier. As she had explained earlier,
although she was an avid, some say rabid, environmentalist who
believed we had done enough damage to the ocean, she knew that
mankind would not stop building in the ocean. She could write
letters, protest, scream, chain herself to a dock, and lobby, but the
ocean structures would be built anyway. Susan chose to continue her
protests and lobbying for better regulation and more conservation,
but on a practical level, she decided that as an environmentalist,
she was the best choice for performing the hateful work. She would
cause far less damage to the environment than a profit-driven
industrialist would.

During
the first week of the project, she had swum from under the pier on a
Friday afternoon. It was the end of her workday. When she pulled up
her mask, she had been startled to see a woman standing above her
staring down. Susan shimmied into the workboat and stripped off the
dive gear. The woman called down to her and they started talking.

After
a few minutes, Susan invited the woman to join her on the workboat.
The woman introduced herself as Jean. She offered the woman a soda
and the two women continued to talk.

Jean
expressed an interest in the work on the pier – especially when
she found out about Susan’s environmental background. It was
the end of the day, so Susan accepted Jean’s invitation to go
out for a drink.

Susan
rinsed off, slipped into clean shorts and shirt, then walked to
Jean’s car.

They
went to the Hotel Moloka‘i and grabbed two barstools at the
Lanai Bar. The women had talked for almost an hour before Jean
revealed that she was a genetic engineer at GeNesRus. As expected,
Susan had not taken the news lightly. Instead of leaving, Susan took
the opportunity to learn more about genetic engineering.

“
Susan
is smart, very intelligent,” Kara told Gybe. “She knows
that you can work a crowd of greenies into a powerful, emotional
frenzy with repetitious chants of short rhyming or alliterative
phrases. The veracity of the phrases is unimportant.” Kara
explained her conversation with Susan. “But, she also knows
that the resultant flock of emotion-charged, mindless sheep is no
more aware of the consequences than are the illiterate followers of a
militant mullah.”

Gybe
nodded in agreement. Politicos, preachers, mullahs, saviors of this
and that, and Starbucks-nurtured protesters, groupies, jihadists,
rioters, and individuals too lazy to think or too cowardly to stand
up for their beliefs. Individuals no more influential than a yak in
a herd, a drone in a colony, or a can in a six-pack. Kara’s
voice brought Gybe back to the tale of Susan and Jean.

Susan
and Jean had visited the Lanai Bar on a Friday night. Soon, the bar
area began filling with ukulele players shoving tables together. On
Friday evenings, uke players from around the island joined at the
bar. New arrivals added more tables. During one song, Susan had
counted twenty-three players aged from eighteen to eighty. Kapunas,
older ones, was what they called themselves.