Hawaii Superferry Thwarted

Governmental impassivity towards the diverse opposition groups resisting the Hawaii Superferry has created a groundswell of protesters that made up the human blockade at the Kaua'i port on Aug 28, 2007. The human lei across the harbor was a reaction of frustration brought on by the insulting indifference of an autocratic government that responds to industry at the degeneration of the larger common good.

Those who resist the Hawaii Superferry have different personal motivations and objections to the unpopular eventuality of the Malthusian trap. The demonstrators were there to in an attempt to stem the tide against the unfettered development amongst a crumbling infrastructure that would end in an altogether lower standard of living for all on Kaua'i.

Environmentalists illustrate that if the Hawaii Superferry is admitted to disgorge portable pollution makers that may be infested with stowaway foreign animals and plant species within the undercarriages.

The varroa mite has recently been discovered to have already blighted Oahu and is blamed for the disappearance of over ninety percent of beehive deaths on the mainland called, Colony Collapse Disorder. The Hawaii state department of Agriculture has just announced that permits are now required for bee transportation inter-island. Unlike barges and other goods-only transport where any eventual infestation would - at first, be limited to ports, there would be no containment zone within an urban port if vehicles that are harboring unwittingly a disoriented honeybee infested with mites are allowed to travel island-wide without inspection or decontamination procedure.

It is reasonably easy to see why a relatively undeveloped pristine paradise would object to slippered feet blackened with indelible carbonized smog grime from pre-1994 diesel tour buses spewing 33 tons of particulate matter per year per bus. Roberts Hawaii, founded by Robert Iwamoto on Kauai in 1941, has the oldest buses on the urban island of Oahu. Those buses' exhaust pipes are near the ground, which belches thick black clouds of diesel exhaust.

Hawai'i state has the toughest anti-smoking law in the United States which bans smoking within twenty feet of a public doorway, but allows each older diesel tour bus to continue discharging 80 pounds of exhaust particulate a day. The noncompliance with mandatory retrofitting of any pollution control devices for older diesel buses is epitomized in the impromptu vote for "stink from Roberts Hawaii buses" by the readers of honoluluweekly. All buses on Oahu, with the exception of Roberts Hawaii, spew exhaust at the elevation above the roof of the bus.