By JOHN BURNETT Tribune-Herald staff writer ADVERTISING The state Senate Judiciary and Labor Committee has delayed hearing a bill that would place restrictions on harvesting opihi. The hearing on Senate Bill 2923, which was to have been held on Friday,
By JOHN BURNETT
Tribune-Herald staff writer
The state Senate Judiciary and Labor Committee has delayed hearing a bill that would place restrictions on harvesting opihi.
The hearing on Senate Bill 2923, which was to have been held on Friday, has been rescheduled for Tuesday at 10 a.m. in Room 16 at the state capitol in Honolulu.
The measure is intended to help naturally replenish the population of the Hawaiian saltwater limpets, which are considered a local delicacy. If enacted, it would outlaw the taking of opihi from below the waterline, set seasons for opihi picking and limit the amount of opihi that can be taken for non-commercial purposes. It would also essentially ban opihi picking on the island of Oahu for five years.
Exempted from the law would be “any person exercising native Hawaiian gathering rights and traditional practices as authorized by law, or as permitted by the Department of Land and Natural Resources….”
The bill has passed one of three required readings before the full Senate.
The measure has support of University of Hawaii marine biologists and The Nature Conservancy and the conditional support of the DLNR and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.
Written testimony submitted by UH-Manoa Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw and scientists Christopher E. Bird and Robert Toonen stated that the bill, if passed, “will result in increased population size …, an increase in the number of opihi that can be sustainably harvested, and a decrease in the rate at which opihi prices are rising.”
Testimony by The Nature Conservancy stated that “opihi have been severely depleted and are becoming increasingly difficult to find in the main islands, especially the larger sized opihi.” The environmental group would like restrictions to be even tighter, expressing concern that the legislation, as written, “now only applies to non-commercial harvests, with no bag limits whatsoever for commercial harvesting.”
OHA suggested that the final legislation provide for “a baseline study of existing stocks of the various opihi throughout Hawaii and a requirement of regular inventory of those stocks — on a biannual basis, perhaps — which would allow for the potential re-opening of some of the fisheries if the stocks warrant it.”
Among those submitting testimony against the bill are opihi pickers and fishmongers.
Jennifer Lopez Reavis of Kurtistown wrote that “possession limits and seasonal constraints recommended by this bill would make it impossible to operate our small business” and pointed to “an abundant supply of opihi here on the Big Island year round.”
“When we pick, we never take more than is ordered and never go to the same location in a 4 month period. The amount we pick is reported to DLNR on a monthly basis,” she wrote.
Boyd Kaneshiro, owner of Boyd’s Fish Market in Nanakuli, Oahu, submitted a copy of a 2011 DLNR report of annual commercial opihi harvest by fiscal year for the years 1948-2010. Kaneshiro said that the figures “for now … does illustrate, in general, our opihi population is doing quite well.” The report from the Division of Aquatic Resources indicates that in 2010, 25,241 pounds of opihi was harvested by 33 licensed commercial fishers and that 10,821 pounds of that harvest was sold. That harvest is second only to 1967, when 40 licensees gathered 36,000 pounds of opihi and sold almost all of the harvest, 35,788 pounds.
A joint report from Sens. Brickwood Galuteria and Donovan Dela Cruz, Oahu Democrats who chair the committees on Hawaiian Affairs and Water, Land and Housing, respectively, noted that harvesting opihi is dangerous and sometimes deadly.
“A review conducted by the Department of Health reported that from 1993 to 1997, nine people drowned while picking opihi. On the Big Island alone between 1999 and 2009, at least 13 opihi pickers died from drowning, falls from cliffs, or in one case, getting stuffed into a blowhole by waves,” they wrote.
Brian Yamashiro, president of Yama’s Fish Market in Honolulu, also observed the danger.
“The normal person does not go out to the dangerous surf to pick opihi,” he wrote. He opined that the bill “basically makes criminals of all the legitimate opihi pickers” and will open up a “‘black market’ for opihi.” He said the end result would be “no opihi for the local people.”
“Is this the spirit of the bill?” he concluded.
Email John Burnett at
jburnett@hawaiitribune-
herald.com.
