THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 2018 WESTHAWAIITODAY.COM 75¢
ERUPTION RACKS UP POLICE OT
COULD BE $600K OVER AS FISCAL YEAR COMES TO CLOSE
SEE OVERTIME PAGE 4A
A view from Luana Street shows fissure No. 8 fountaining Tuesday in Leilani Estates. HOLLYN JOHNSON/TRIBUNE-HERALD
HILO — The 7-week-old eruption
on Kilauea’s lower East Rift Zone has
reached a new milestone.
Steve Brantley, Hawaiian Volcano
Observatory deputy scientist-in-charge,
said during a community meeting
Tuesday evening in Pahoa that preliminary
estimates show it has produced
about 145 million cubic meters of lava
— more than the last two eruptions in
the area.
“It’s a very difficult number to come up
with,” he said. “But it gives you a ballpark
that this current eruption is erupting
lava at a higher rate than both of those
eruptions.
“At this point, it doesn’t look like it’s
slowing down whatsoever.”
Brantley said the 1960 eruption that
destroyed the village of Kapoho erupted
122 million cubic meters of lava over 37
days, while the 1955 eruption produced
81 million cubic meters over 88 days.
The ongoing eruption started May 3
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and is approaching its 50th day.
It has destroyed 577 homes, by official
estimates.
The Federal Emergency Management
Agency opened a Disaster Recovery
Center last week at the Keaau High
School.
Janet Snyder, spokeswoman for the
Mayor’s Office, said Wednesday morning
that more than 1,000 people have
registered with FEMA. Despite rumors
KAILUA-KONA — About $1 million
has been redirected within the
Hawaii Police Department to cover
overtime hours piling up as lava
continues to flow in Puna.
Officers racked up 11,020 hours
in overtime between May 1 and 31
amid the May 3 eruption on Kilauea
volcano’s lower East Rift Zone. As a
result, the department is currently
a little more than $300,000 over
budget in salaries and wages as this
fiscal year winds to a close.
But, there was approximately
20 days yet to be calculated as
of Wednesday, in addition to nine
more days left in the fiscal year ending
June 30.
Assistant Chief Marshall
Kanehailua estimated overtime
from the 20 days yet to be calculated
could put the department over
budget by as much as $600,000
when it’s all said and done.
“If you take away the lava event,
we were breaking even,” Kanehailua
said of fiscal year 2017-18.
The police department’s 2017-
18 operating budget accounted for
$67.2 million of the county’s $490.8
million budget.
The police department will start
the next budget cycle — which
begins July 1 — with overtime on
the books, as Hawaii County faces a
$5 million shortfall for the 2018-19
fiscal year, Kanehailua said.
The $5 million shortfall is
attributed to loss of property tax
revenues in Puna, where lava has
consumed nearly 6,000 acres and
more than 500 homes. The county
hoped to offset that loss with a
temporary quarter-percent general
excise tax surcharge, which the
County Council voted against in a
Tuesday meeting by a 4-5 vote.
“The budgets have been status
quo and reduced budgets, so there
isn’t a lot there to cut,” said Nancy
Crawford, deputy director of Finance
regarding department budgets.
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INSIDE
DON’T BE
SO SALTY
NELHA gets $2M
grant to turn
saltwater to fresh
Page 4A
▼
ADVENTURES
WITH ALICE
Aloha Theatre
brings
“Wonderland” to
the stage with
exclusive play
PAGE 10A
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HI 86 LO 75 WEATHER, PAGE 6A
VOL. 50, NO. 172 18 PAGES
BY TIFFANY DEMASTERS
WEST HAWAII TODAY
tdemasters@westhawaiitoday.com
Members of Hawaii County Civil Defense, CERT
and Hawaii Police Department prepare to
dispatch from Cooper Center May 17 to go door
to door in Volcano informing residents about
potential ash fall and its effects. HOLLYN JOHNSON/
TRIBUNE-HERALD
KILAUEA ERUPTION
On and on it goes
BY TOM CALLIS
HAWAII TRIBUNE-HERALD
SEE LAVA PAGE 4A
Inner
sanctuaries
HDOH ADVISES
WEST HAWAII
RESIDENTS BUILD
CLEAN AIR ROOMS
INSIDE HOMES
BY MAX DIBLE
WEST HAWAII TODAY
mdible@westhawaiitoday.com
KAILUA-KONA — Aside from leaving
the island, there’s no escaping the
vog that has enveloped most of West
Hawaii since the latest Kilauea volcano
eruption began in early May.
But if you can stand the heat, there
might be an option to reasonably mitigate
it.
At an informational meeting
Wednesday night in the Konawaena
Elementary School cafeteria, Hawaii
Department of Health (HDOH) officials
continued to push the best solution
the state has for dealing with vog
and the harmful particulate matter it
contains — simply stay inside.
Vog obliterates the view of Hualalai
from NELHA in late May. LAURA
RUMINSKI/WEST HAWAII TODAY