My name is Jeff Bagshaw, and I work for the State of Hawaii’s Division of Forestry and Wildlife, but I am testifying for myself, not my agency.
I oppose Bill 109 which claims to clarify Bill 21 CD! FD2 of county Chapter 20.35. Bill 109 moves the compliance date forward, erases definitions details that provide clarity such as those that describe shielding, returns lighting levels to those the original Bill sought to prevent, and places enforcement authority, as well as what shielding means in the hands of the the office of Works instead of Environmental Management. It does not increase safety, security, prevent crime or quality of life.
By removing and shortening definitions, eliminating lumen requirements and transferring enforcement authority, Bill 109 does none of the things it proposes is its purpose. Its purpose is clearly to water-down the original bill making it in-effective.
I stand by my original testimony years ago when Bill 21 was passed after much work and compromise by the Council and community:
“I am in strong support of Bill 21 CD1 FD2 to amend Maui County Chapter 20.35, because it specifies lighting uses that protect wildlife while addressing human needs. Limiting short wavelength content to no more than two percent of blue light content, down-directing lighting and ensuring lights are fully shielded protects native seabirds and marine life, but this also helps protect our fresh water future. It includes a three-year replacement schedule for existing lighting that is problematic as well as prohibitions on new installations of certain bulb types, light wavelengths and direction of illumination. Light pollution is growing exponentially across Maui County, making life for native seabirds and other marine animals more difficult with each passing night.
One concern opponents have raised are the costs of conversion. It’s easy to calculate those dollars, but what is more difficult to quantify are environmental services we expect to be free, even to make us money. When the issue of conversion costs are raised, please compare those to the following.
Freshwater is the first: We talk about food-security often, but water-security is even more basic unless we’re willing to have a future of tankers delivering fresh water to our docks, we have to take care of all the links in the chain that keeps our waters flowing, now.
I’ve previously testified how seabirds are a vital link in nutrient cycling for native forests and shrublands. We get our freshwater from our forests. It may flow in streams, be stored in ponds or come from aquifers and wells, but it is first captured in our native forests. To replace the work of seabirds evenly distributing nutrients in the form of their guano, to keep forests healthy and functioning would require hundreds of thousands of dollars in helicopter time to foliar-spray our native forests. Or it would take thousands of people-hours annually, hiking through the forests with heavy packs, hand-spreading fertilizers. And there are many studies showing how those nutrients even feed our reefs in the right amounts and chemical compositions, to keep corals producing fish for food.
There are about 80.000 acres of native forests on Maui, and Hawai‘i Island studies show native trees are superior at “cloud capture.” Their leaf, bark and root structures have evolved to capture water from clouds touching them and channeling that water into aquifers, where most of our freshwater resides. About 30% of our freshwater is generated this way, even if it doesn’t actually rain. Those native trees need nutrients like all plants, and historically, those nutrients were delivered by seabirds. ‘Ōhi‘a get about 28% of their nitrogen from marine resources, i.e. seabirds.
DOFAW has no plans and is not prepared to do arial fertilizing, but to do so at the same rate as the seabirds would conservatively cost about $11 million annually for Maui not to mention the carbon footprint of all that helicopter fuel. Right now, we are relying on the free labor of seabirds. And there are many studies showing how those nutrients even feed our reefs in the right amounts and chemical compositions, to keep corals producing fish for food.
Which leads to another environmental service we capitalize on for free: reef fish and sea turtles. The Hawai‘i Visitor Bureau’s 2020 Annual Visitor Satisfaction and Activity Survey once again states that roughly 60% of visitors to Maui report they snorkeled or came to Maui specifically to snorkel. The survey doesn’t report one thing I can share anecdotally. First time visitors to ‘Āhihi- Kina‘u Natural Area Reserve will ask me about 30-40% of the time: “Can we see turtles here?” right after “Can we see fish here?” Look at souvenirs sold through any retail outlet large or small. What is one of the top five iconic creatures on tee shirts, stickers, stuffed toys, keychains… sea turtles. How many dollars in profits can be attributed to the presence of these animals and visitors wanting to remember or hope for an experience? As others have testified, over- and badly designed lighting affects all reef animals including fish and turtles.
Modern astronomers can give estimates of the values of dark skies for professional sky-watching, and there are at least a dozen private tour-companies that include star watching in their list of activities/services they provide, which can again, equate to environmental aspects we capitalize on for free. But an incalculable benefit is the ability for residents to be able to look at up and experience seeing stars used in traditional navigation as was done generations ago, and Nainoa Thompson of course used stars, but also relied on seabirds in the last hours of his first voyage as a navigator to Tahiti. The modern definition of a cultural landscape goes beyond archeological features – it includes being able to experience a landscape as our ancestors did to hear seabirds call in the night. “Honolulu City Lights” is a lovely song but rewriting those lyrics to become “Kahului City Lights” would be a sad cultural replacement for the loss of seabirds and the other pieces of the environmental chorus we are losing with in-action.
The latest estimates for sea level rise say we will lose 26-40% of the nesting habitats for seabirds inPapahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, where 96% of the world’s Laysan Albatross currently nest, a species that led early navigators here, which is unique to our islands. We have to start now in preparing for those climate refugees to move back to the lower eight Hawaiian islands. We can make room for them, we can invest in and pay for the free resources we have capitalized on for many years. Its time to pay that back-rent, to take back the night.
Kudos to this committee and the Council for working on this difficult and detailed bill. You’ve worked through many details and iterations because this is about creating “smart-lighting” instead of over-lighting. Mahalo for all your efforts.
Please find attached the February 22, 2022 letter from DOFAW to DPW that I referenced in my oral testimony.
My name is Jeff Bagshaw, and I work for the State of Hawaii’s Division of Forestry and Wildlife, but I am testifying for myself, not my agency.
I oppose Bill 109 which claims to clarify Bill 21 CD! FD2 of county Chapter 20.35. Bill 109 moves the compliance date forward, erases definitions details that provide clarity such as those that describe shielding, returns lighting levels to those the original Bill sought to prevent, and places enforcement authority, as well as what shielding means in the hands of the the office of Works instead of Environmental Management. It does not increase safety, security, prevent crime or quality of life.
By removing and shortening definitions, eliminating lumen requirements and transferring enforcement authority, Bill 109 does none of the things it proposes is its purpose. Its purpose is clearly to water-down the original bill making it in-effective.
I stand by my original testimony years ago when Bill 21 was passed after much work and compromise by the Council and community:
“I am in strong support of Bill 21 CD1 FD2 to amend Maui County Chapter 20.35, because it specifies lighting uses that protect wildlife while addressing human needs. Limiting short wavelength content to no more than two percent of blue light content, down-directing lighting and ensuring lights are fully shielded protects native seabirds and marine life, but this also helps protect our fresh water future. It includes a three-year replacement schedule for existing lighting that is problematic as well as prohibitions on new installations of certain bulb types, light wavelengths and direction of illumination. Light pollution is growing exponentially across Maui County, making life for native seabirds and other marine animals more difficult with each passing night.
One concern opponents have raised are the costs of conversion. It’s easy to calculate those dollars, but what is more difficult to quantify are environmental services we expect to be free, even to make us money. When the issue of conversion costs are raised, please compare those to the following.
Freshwater is the first: We talk about food-security often, but water-security is even more basic unless we’re willing to have a future of tankers delivering fresh water to our docks, we have to take care of all the links in the chain that keeps our waters flowing, now.
I’ve previously testified how seabirds are a vital link in nutrient cycling for native forests and shrublands. We get our freshwater from our forests. It may flow in streams, be stored in ponds or come from aquifers and wells, but it is first captured in our native forests. To replace the work of seabirds evenly distributing nutrients in the form of their guano, to keep forests healthy and functioning would require hundreds of thousands of dollars in helicopter time to foliar-spray our native forests. Or it would take thousands of people-hours annually, hiking through the forests with heavy packs, hand-spreading fertilizers. And there are many studies showing how those nutrients even feed our reefs in the right amounts and chemical compositions, to keep corals producing fish for food.
There are about 80.000 acres of native forests on Maui, and Hawai‘i Island studies show native trees are superior at “cloud capture.” Their leaf, bark and root structures have evolved to capture water from clouds touching them and channeling that water into aquifers, where most of our freshwater resides. About 30% of our freshwater is generated this way, even if it doesn’t actually rain. Those native trees need nutrients like all plants, and historically, those nutrients were delivered by seabirds. ‘Ōhi‘a get about 28% of their nitrogen from marine resources, i.e. seabirds.
DOFAW has no plans and is not prepared to do arial fertilizing, but to do so at the same rate as the seabirds would conservatively cost about $11 million annually for Maui not to mention the carbon footprint of all that helicopter fuel. Right now, we are relying on the free labor of seabirds. And there are many studies showing how those nutrients even feed our reefs in the right amounts and chemical compositions, to keep corals producing fish for food.
Which leads to another environmental service we capitalize on for free: reef fish and sea turtles. The Hawai‘i Visitor Bureau’s 2020 Annual Visitor Satisfaction and Activity Survey once again states that roughly 60% of visitors to Maui report they snorkeled or came to Maui specifically to snorkel. The survey doesn’t report one thing I can share anecdotally. First time visitors to ‘Āhihi- Kina‘u Natural Area Reserve will ask me about 30-40% of the time: “Can we see turtles here?” right after “Can we see fish here?” Look at souvenirs sold through any retail outlet large or small. What is one of the top five iconic creatures on tee shirts, stickers, stuffed toys, keychains… sea turtles. How many dollars in profits can be attributed to the presence of these animals and visitors wanting to remember or hope for an experience? As others have testified, over- and badly designed lighting affects all reef animals including fish and turtles.
Modern astronomers can give estimates of the values of dark skies for professional sky-watching, and there are at least a dozen private tour-companies that include star watching in their list of activities/services they provide, which can again, equate to environmental aspects we capitalize on for free. But an incalculable benefit is the ability for residents to be able to look at up and experience seeing stars used in traditional navigation as was done generations ago, and Nainoa Thompson of course used stars, but also relied on seabirds in the last hours of his first voyage as a navigator to Tahiti. The modern definition of a cultural landscape goes beyond archeological features – it includes being able to experience a landscape as our ancestors did to hear seabirds call in the night. “Honolulu City Lights” is a lovely song but rewriting those lyrics to become “Kahului City Lights” would be a sad cultural replacement for the loss of seabirds and the other pieces of the environmental chorus we are losing with in-action.
The latest estimates for sea level rise say we will lose 26-40% of the nesting habitats for seabirds inPapahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, where 96% of the world’s Laysan Albatross currently nest, a species that led early navigators here, which is unique to our islands. We have to start now in preparing for those climate refugees to move back to the lower eight Hawaiian islands. We can make room for them, we can invest in and pay for the free resources we have capitalized on for many years. Its time to pay that back-rent, to take back the night.
Kudos to this committee and the Council for working on this difficult and detailed bill. You’ve worked through many details and iterations because this is about creating “smart-lighting” instead of over-lighting. Mahalo for all your efforts.
Jeff Bagshaw