I think this works for me: Go sleep early, wake up early, and while the neighborhood is still quiet and mostly asleep, and itʻs dark outside, I write. That was the pattern developed during The Three Months, when prolonged sound sleeping wasnʻt an option for me. Too much disconcerting shaking, the subconscious waiting for the next lūʻōniu, those 5.3 equivalent magnitude no tsunami generated events that guided our lives. We waited, they happened, then for a half day or more, all was quiet. Till it wasnʻt.
And now, in the quiet, I still wonder...when??? And mostly I marvel, that after all that, itʻs so very quiet. So quiet that ears ring. You know that quiet? And on our walks recently, the winds have been still and the air chill. And absent the racket of helicopters, and when we go early enough that weʻre The First on the scene, and we pause, and listen, our ears hear only the hum of the universe.
Then in these times of changeable weathers, sometimes the wind comes from the southeast. And while in summer that wind is warm and humid, these days itʻs jacket-brisk. Itʻs ka makani kapalili lau ʻōlapa. A wind that flutters ʻōlapa leaves. We enjoy that sight along Crater Rim Drive where ʻōlapa are becoming more and more common. Itʻs an understory tree, sometimes, in wet forest, an epiphyte growing in the crotches of ʻōhiʻa. Clusters of the darkest purple fruit make a purple dye, and the leaves have a strong, unique ʻōlapa scent. Dye samples below are from friend lr, an inveterate experimenter with all things having to do with kapa.
The colors above came from the fruits below:
And lau ʻōlapa quiver and quake because leaflets have long thin stems:
The scent comes from a...a stickyish shiny juice (donʻt know how else to describe it) produced by the plant. And maybe when stems and leaves are crushed and mixed with the dye solution they "varnish" kapa making it shiny.
Oh. And hula dancers are ʻōlapa, the motion of their hands and arms recalling kapalili, the fluttering of leaflets.
And OH too: The butterscotch brilliance of pua māmane, also now making an appearance in the forest along Crater Rim Drive, this by eb. Itʻs her favorite.
I had the intensely memorable pleasure one day decades ago, with Tōb and HK (I think), of tasting māmane honey. It tasted exactly like...butterscotch candy. An amazement.
And another amazement: I donʻt quite understand the apparent lack of urgency to reopen rudimentary access over the pele in Puna ma kai. Maybe discussions are being had, but all Iʻve heard about in media is "Six Months". Gotta wait Six Months. I was talking with an acquaintance at the County Building several weeks ago, and Mayor Kim happened by. I asked why the wait, and he said that in 1990, HVO staff said to wait Six Months before attempting to reopen roads. Before I could suggest an explanation, he went upstairs.
My Explanation. And no, I wasnʻt present during the conversation(s) in 1990, but I WAS working at the park, and 1990 was the year that Pele slowly inundated the Kalapana area.
Christina Helicker, a geologist with HVO, and other staff spent a LOT of time documenting the change. Note that the pele is pāhoehoe. Smooth, thin, silvery. Thus was the relatively gentle nature of the flows in those days. They issued from Kupaianaha, a vent downrift of Puʻu'ōʻō, and traveled through insulating lava tubes, seven, eight, nine, and more miles to their destination on the coast. Those flows were very very different in character than the recent pele in Keahialaka, Kapoho, Pohoiki, and surrounding areas.
In 1990, Pelehonuamea was of course very active, moving there and here and there again. She had first reached the highway, then the ocean, in late 1986, having traveled ma kai from Kupaianaha. Short buried sections of road were reopened when she took a break or went elsewhere, but eventually it became a pointless (and expensive) exercise to maintain road access. So Iʻll guess that HVO said JustWait. Maybe wait Six Months.
And of course Pele continued her work for decades, inexorably exploring and visiting beloved places in Puna ma kai. And then, The Three Months. And then, She stopped. For now. Giving us pause. All indications are that after more than three decades (35 years or so), Pele rests.
We have no reason to think that sheʻll start again soon without some warning, though of course She might. The lavas erupted in Keahialaka are hard. Theyʻll remain hot inside for years because in some places theyʻre tens of feet thick and well-insulated. But theyʻre hard. Bulldozers can (and have) easily traversed surfaces of the flows. A road has been opened to Pohoiki. The people at Puna Geothermal Venture have opened access to their property.
Owners of unburied properties in Puna ma kai must be allowed the opportunity for access. Sooner rather than later. There is no physical, geological reason access cannot be provided now. At least along the route of Highway 132, the road from the "Y" to Kapoho. And no, the lava should not be "removed" from what was the road. Make the rudimentary access On Top. A gravel road. Figure out how to make that happen. Itʻs so easy to say Oh. Cannot. Get law. Get Regulation. Cannot. That, my friends, is the easy way out: Cannot. "Cannot" must not be an option. Figure out what needs to be done so Can. NOW!
To recap something I posted awhile ago (I think).
According to the online flow map posted by Civil Defense, Highway 132 is about 5.25 miles long. Or so. There are two sections buried by pele, and a kīpuka. Section 1 (buried) = 1.5 miles. Then a kīpuka of 1.9 miles. Then Section 2 (buried) = 1.6 miles.
According to my basic clicking and measuring math, about 3 miles of the road is buried. Letʻs use the work that Goodfellow Brothers did to make Chain of Craters passable in case of emergency in May and June 2018 as an example.
Work started on May 31, 2018, and the road was ready for cars on June 2, 2018. THREE DAYS. The distance was .7 (seven-tenths) mile, itʻs 26 feet wide (two lanes), and cost $120,000.
My maybe poor attempt at math (never my best subject): To make a 3-mile-long gravel road on top of the flow that buried HWY 132 might take 5 days and cost $600,000. Doesnʻt sound like a lot to me, especially when recovery figures of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars are tossed around. And when residents are waiting and waiting and waiting...
Just Do It already!
OK. The sun has risen, itʻs 51dF outside. I gotta go nibble then get ready to walk.
As always, with aloha, and today, especially to LD-S and AR!!!
BobbyC
maniniowali@gmail.com
The mamane at kipukapuaulu were beautiful last month.
ReplyDeleteI am also interested than ready for 132 to be opened. The waawaa Rd is beautiful but it's slow and dangerous. I have a few friends in the kipuka that would love to have access back with 132 opened. Doesn't seem hard unless they need to redirect the rd, then they'll have to do the tricky paperwork of Rd realignment with easements and what not.