WAILUKU - Three Oahu men next week face a total of $9,150 in fines and penalties for allegedly removing three pickup loads of rocks from the Paukukalo shoreline last summer for imu, or fire pits, back home to benefit their church and local charities.
Based on a complaint from the Maui Sierra Club, state Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement officers discovered 934 river rocks under tarps loaded on three trucks waiting for the Hawaii Superferry on Aug. 28.
The Kaneohe men's trucks had been left stranded in the Hawaii Superferry parking lot a day after a 2nd Circuit Court judge issued an injunction that prevented the new ferry service from traveling to Kahului from Honolulu Harbor, the day after service began.
The case of the unpermitted rocks received additional attention last year when Superferry opponents used it as an example of how the access to the islands provided by the ferry service could lead travelers to deplete natural resources.
Charlie Bright, Ralph Chun and Victor Fomoimoana were charged by the state Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands with violating several laws meant to protect conservation districts, according to a staff report scheduled to go to the Board of Land and Natural Resources on July 11.
The board meeting is scheduled to start at 9 a.m. in conference room 132 at the Kalanimoku Building in Honolulu.
Under state rules, a permit is required for anyone collecting natural materials such as river rocks from a conservation district. The Iao Stream river mouth and shoreline along Paukukalo, from which the rocks were collected, is conservation district. The men told authorities that they didn't know what they did was against the law.
None of the men involved could be reached for comment by The Maui News on Thursday.
Off-duty DLNR enforcement Officer Gordon Yen, who was surfing at the time of the alleged incident, also reported seeing the men take the rocks on Aug. 27 from where Iao River converges with the Paukukalo shoreline, a surfing site commonly known as "River Mouth." According to a statement by Yen, he watched the men and then reported the incident to his supervisor that evening.
The river rocks are smooth, rounded basalt rocks that washed down the stream and line the shoreline. Rocks used in making imu are selected because they are porous and retain heat without fracturing when they are used to line an imu and placed in a kalua pig.
According to the report prepared by Senior Staff Planner Dawn Hegger, the men said they were directed to pick up rocks for the imu by the bishop of their church after the Hawaii Superferry offered a special $5 introductory fare.
"I've been diving at that spot for years and thought the ferry was a great way to get the rocks back to Honolulu because Honolulu does not have these types of rocks," Chun is quoted as saying in the report. "We make imus to kalua and to help children on Oahu."
Bright told officers that the bishop of his Mormon church told the men to come to Maui and get imu rocks because the church's old rocks were wearing out. The unnamed bishop also told them where to find the rocks on Maui, Bright said.
"We use the rocks to kalua pig for the Boy Scouts and support them through our fundraisers," Bright stated in the DLNR report. "We had good intentions. It was for a good cause. We didn't know it was illegal or that we needed a permit."
However, DLNR investigators determined that the men's act was "of a serious and willful nature."
The maximum fine for violating the conservation district permitting process is $2,000 per violation as well as administrative and other costs. If it is determined that the defendant's violation is willful, he or she can be fined another $2,000 per day, per violation.
The staff report recommends fines and administrative costs totaling $3,050 for each man. If they pay up within 30 days of a board decision, the defendants will be able to retrieve their pickup trucks, which are still impounded in the Maui District baseyard of the Department of Land and Natural Resources.
* Chris Hamilton can be reached at chamilton@mauinews.com.
