Blaming the Watchdog
March 19, 2009 | 07:36 PM

The Sierra Club has been getting a lot of heat from irate 'Oahu Superferry supporters. I think this is misplaced anger.

The Sierra Club NEVER sues except when there's a really egregious violation of the law. And they almost always win every lawsuit they bring because they are very cautious and conservative about what they take to court.

So the very fact that the Sierra Club was willing to go to court should have told Lingle and the Superferry that they were on extremely shakey ground.

The Sierra Club often SUPPORTS big projects and compliments EIS's. For instance, the Kaheawa Wind Farm received high marks from them and the Kahewaw EIS was an excellent piece of work that created a beneficial project that has worked exceptionally well and profitably for the company.

If an EIS had been done on the Superferry I suspect the results would have been that we got a much better ferry that was economically viable - not this overly big, overly fast, fuel guzzling, money losing mess.

The taxpayers would have saved $40,000,000 because the EIS would have required folding ramps on the ship (like the 2nd Superferry has).

Passengers would have seen lower priced tickets since the vessel would have been more fuel efficient.

Passengers would have experienced a smoother ride since the ship would have had a deeper hull and been designed to stand up to our interisland channels (instead of getting cracked by our waves)

And Hawaii Superferry could have stayed in business instead of consistently running at a loss and thankfully packing up its bags to go military contracting.

Ah -- but that was probably their plan all along -- they wanted the JHSV contract...which Lehman got. That's why they used an unsuitable, uneconomical ship and refused to go through the planning that would have made a better ferry service.

Karen Chun, SaveKahuluiHarbor.com