Last week, a friend put this question to me (among others) in a message posted here. He wrote, in part:

The Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has already granted a license to the Superferry folks to operate. Where were the plaintiffs when the PUC was considering the license to actually operate the Superferry as a public utility?

Good question. So I checked. Turns out Superferry opponents participated actively in those hearings and called for an EIS to be prepared.

In fact, the PUC listened, and actually incorporated that demand as a condition running with their decision and order regarding the Superferry certification.

Here’s what the PUC said in December 2004. It’s worth quoting at length.

The commission recognizes that issues were raised by some at the public hearings about the impact of the proposed ferry system on the environment and suggesting that an environmental assessment be done on the proposed ferry services’ effect on the surrounding environment. We believe that although these are important issues that should be addressed, they need not be addressed in this particular decision and order, since the determination of whether the proposed ferry service and its effect on the harbors and surrounding areas require an environmental assessment is currently being reviewed and addressed by the DOT,” and the legislature has determined that this Application should be processed expeditiously.’

We find it necessary, however, to condition our authorization in this docket upon Applicant’s showing, to the
satisfaction of the commission, that Applicant has complied with all applicable federal and state laws, rules and regulations,
including, without limitation, matters relating to the Environmental Impact Statement Law (“ElS”), under Chapter 343,
HRS, to the extent applicable to ensure that all such requirements are appropriately addressed.

The problem appears to be that the PUC then jumped the gun and said all conditions had been met and the Superferry could start service. And Superferry folks say that “comply with the EIS law” condition doesn’t matter because that they’ve complied with all laws, which seems a bit dubious given the Supreme Court’s decision. Botton line, though, is that the PUC certainly did specifically require that the EIS law be followed. In any case, I wrote up a bit of this in a short piece for the new issue of Honolulu Weekly which appears on racks today.

At risk of belaboring the point, Steve Laudig left an excellent comment on Sunday’s entry, which I’ll just quote here.

The Superferry owners wanted to be free from the constraints of law because the law adds costs. The executive branch of the state was agreeable to this “law avoidance” [query: is shoplifting any more or less a “law avoidance”] Many in the legislative branch are complicit in the executive branch’s law avoidance scheme. The judiciary and the public are not. The superferry [query: What’s so super about it anyway?] owners gambled, thought the house [the executive branch and many of the legislative branch] would fix the table. Law enforcement [the judicial branch] and the “posse” [the enraged citizenry] showed up with a rope and hung the outlaws.

All the superferry owners had to do was play it straight in the first place and not try to cheap it out by placing their avoided costs on the environment and the residents.

Cutting corners results in losses. If the “super” owners were willing to cut legal corners, one wonders what “safety” and environmental corners they actually are cutting. False in one thing, false in all things.

At the end of the day, I ran into some negatives that I had forgotten about, including a self-portrait in the darkroom in the basement of Jefferson Hall at the East West Center. I was a student worker given charge of the darkroom and photo duties at the EWC from the fall of 1969 through the summer of 1970. Looking back, I should have stayed with this job for a while more. So it goes.