Kamehameha Schools’ proposed Keauhou Bay Management Plan has stirred many opinions within the community. Last week, The Conversation heard from a retired environmental attorney who took issue with some of the points in the plan's draft environmental impact statement.
Listener Ben Rice sent HPR an email that read, in part, “My wife and I are retired attorneys from Santa Cruz who bought a place over ten years ago nearby Keauhou Bay. We are very concerned about Kamehameha Schools' determined effort to change the area into another glamorous getaway for well-to-do visitors to Hawaii.”
The Conversation also spoke with a Keauhou resident impacted by the plan in several ways. Manu Powers is the regent and president of the Daughters of Hawaiʻi. Its members are the caretakers of King Kamehameha III's birth site at the bay.
She also co-owns the Keauhou Bay-based snorkeling adventure company Sea Quest Hawaii.
"From the Daughters' perspective, we are in support of the master plan, not necessarily speaking directly to the EIS," she said. "As a business owner, I have concerns about runoff, but I'm assured that those concerns are going to be addressed."
"As a resident, I would love to be able to take my children down to the bay, to be able to find a parking spot, to not feel as though we are being pushed out by the commercial operations or by any user, as a matter of fact, and the current iteration of the plan seems to address all of those concerns," Powers told HPR.
The draft EIS is available for the public to read and comment on by Aug. 7. Click here to comment on the EIS.
This interview aired on The Conversation on July 29, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
Past Keauhou Bay coverage on The Conversation:
