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SATURDAY, JUNE 9, 2018 WESTHAWAIITODAY.COM 75¢
KILAUEA ERUPTION
INSURANCE AND LAVA
New policy moratorium for Puna
What some companies won’t cover
Page 4A
▼ ▼
Hooked on helping
BITE ME SPORTFISHING DONATES HUNDREDS
OF POUNDS OF FISH TO RELIEF EFFORTS
BY CAMERON MICULKA
WEST HAWAII TODAY
cmiculka@westhawaiitoday.com
KAILUA-KONA — When Bite Me Sportfishing
marketing and sales manager Stephanie Smith started
thinking about how she can help those displaced
by the ongoing eruption, she knew there was one
thing available.
“I have access to fish,” she said. “I have access to
help these people out. And to feed them is love; that’s
a lot of aloha.”
At the beginning of this week, she developed her
plan to get fresh, healthy fish out of the water and
onto the plates of those in need. The sportfishing
company’s customers, she said, would be able to take
whatever of the catch they wanted. The rest, she said,
Bite Me would donate to those displaced by the eruption
and lava flows.
“And all of my captains and crew were completely
down with it,” she said.
The company’s effort culminated on Friday, when
Bite Me employees loaded three coolers with hundreds
of pounds of fish — cut, cleaned and ready to
go — into a West Hawaii Today delivery van bound
for the island’s east side, where they planned to
donate the fish to The Food Basket.
Smith said given their access to fish, it only made
sense to do what they could to help out.
“It’s important because we have it,” she said. “I
have these resources, and so it’s important to use
your resources. When something like this happens to
the island and people, it’s important to start pulling
together what you can do for everybody.”
Over the course of the past week, the company
collected a total of 400 pounds of fish, including
SEE BITE ME PAGE 7A
READY FOR RECOVERY
WITH ONLY ONE ACTIVE FISSURE, COUNTY EASES INTO FIXING THE DAMAGE DONE
BY MICHAEL BRESTOVANSKY
HAWAII TRIBUNE-HERALD
HILO — Little about
the volcanic eruption
changed Friday as the
county began shifting its
focus to rebuilding.
Fissure 8 in Leilani
Estates continues to be
the only vent actively
producing lava, although
Hawaii County Civil
Defense reported early
Friday that fissures 9, 10
and 24, all located southwest
Lava fountains from fissure 8 on Friday in Kilauea Volcano’s lower East Rift
Zone above Kapoho. Lava reached heights of 180-220 feet. U.S. GEOLOGICAL
SURVEY/VIA AP
at Sacred Heart Church
in Pahoa that will house
evacuees displaced by
lava.
Civil Defense
Administrator Talmadge
Magno said the official
count of homes destroyed
has not been updated from
130, although more than
600 are thought to have
been destroyed after lava
wiped out Vacationland
and most of Kapoho earlier
this week.
SEE LAVA PAGE 4A
‘I knew someday I would be out’
CALIFORNIA MAN CELEBRATES FIRST BIRTHDAY IN HAWAII
AFTER THREE DECADES OF WRONGFUL INCARCERATION
BY TIFFANY DEMASTERS
WEST HAWAII TODAY
tdemasters@westhawaiitoday.com
WAIKOLOA — After spending nearly
39 years in prison for a crime he didn’t
commit, Craig Richard Coley celebrated
his first birthday this week at the age of
71 as a free man in Hawaii.
Coley didn’t spend the memorable occasion
alone. Mike Bender, a former police
detective who spent 30 years of his life
fighting to prove his innocence, joined
Coley on the Big Island. The men were also
in the company of Bender’s wife Cynthia,
their daughters Mikali and Jaime, her
husband Chris and granddaughter Keira
— Coley’s newfound family.
“I never lost my hope. I knew someday
I would be out. I just didn’t know when,”
Coley said Thursday sitting in an oceanfront
hotel room at the Hilton Waikoloa
Resort.
According to an April 28 article in
The San Diego Union-Tribune, Coley
was arrested in Simi Valley, California,
in 1978 for the murders of his ex-girlfriend
24-year-old Rhonda Wicht and
her 4-year-old son, Donald.
After two trials, he was convicted and
sentenced to a life in prison without the
possibility of parole.
“People make mistakes – it happens,”
Coley said. “It’s too bad it took so long to
straighten mine out.”
Coley was an only child. During his
incarceration both his parents passed
away. His mother died in 2011. Despite
the loss of his immediate family, When
the 71-year-old was released the day
before Thanksgiving last year he found
a new family and home with the Benders
in Carlsbad, California.
“Mike worked on my case for 30 years,”
Coley said. “He believed no innocent
man should be behind bars.”
Coley said Bender is like his brother.
Bender’s 3-year-old granddaughter Keira
is like the granddaughter he will never
have.
INSIDE
of fissure 8, were
producing gas and steam
and that fissure 24 was
incandescent.
Steve Brantley, deputy
scientist-in-charge
at Hawaiian Volcano
Observatory, said no
changes in the “vigor” of
fissure 8 were detected,
with the vent continuing
to produce fountains of
lava more than 200 feet
high.
The flow of lava from
fissure 8 to the ocean is
now estimated to cover
roughly 9 square miles,
said HVO geophysicist
Jim Kauahikaua. An
accurate shape of the
lava shelf extending from
the former shoreline of
Kapoho Bay has not been
determined, although it
was confirmed that lava
is flowing along the ocean
floor, Kauahikaua said.
A north-pointing
branch of the fissure 8
flow remained largely
stagnant Friday.
Janet Snyder, spokeswoman
for the mayor’s
office, said the county’s
relief efforts have partially
shifted to a “recovery
phase,” in addition to its
ongoing “response phase.”
As part of the shift, Snyder
said Mayor Harry Kim
intends to focus on how to
help farmers whose livelihoods
were destroyed by
the lava.
Snyder said Kim hopes
to use the Kaikoo Project
— a recovery project
developed in the wake of
the 1960 tsunami — as
a model for how quickly
recovery can happen in
Puna. The Kaikoo Project
was completed within six
months.
“He said we are going
to make Puna better, just
like we made Hilo better,”
Snyder said.
Specifics of Kim’s
plan were hazy Friday.
However, work continues
today on a cluster of 20
temporary housing units
Craig Coley, left, embraces his longtime friend and fellow Vietnam vet
Solomon “Sam” Pakani Thursday at the Hilton Waikoloa Village. LAURA
RUMINSKI/WEST HAWAII TODAY
SEE FREE PAGE 5A
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VOL. 50, NO. 160 16 PAGES
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