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EiJ Hawaii Agriculture and Stakeholders

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Indigenous farmers - creating food forests that focus on native crops (though they do include non-natives that serve a purpose or simply taste good) and fostering biodiversity/sustainability, also support Hawaii's ability to be self-sufficient (85-95% of food is imported) and the return of native species of animals

Japanese farmworkers - first arrived in 1860s, particularly influential in coffee industry

Filipino farmworkers - 6,000 arrive in 1946

International Longshore and Warehouse Union - includes sugar plantation workers - 1946 28,000 workers strike; again in 1958, 1974 (pineapple workers strike 1947, 1968, 1974)

Agrochemical transnational companies, e.g. Monsanto, Pioneer, Novartis, Cargill - environmental destruction, disregard for regulations on use and disposal of hazardous chemicals, off-site releases of hazardous chemicals from Maui research facility, political lobbying against regulations for GMOs and pesticides

Historic stakeholders - cattle ranchers, monocrop plantations - less common today but their effects on the environment are still very visible

  • Cattle ranching begins in 1809
  • Coffee plantations begin in 1830s (peaks in 1957)
  • Sugar plantations begin in 1850s, peaks in 1933 and again in 1966
  • Pineapple plantations begin in 1880s (Dole plantation established in 1901; peaks in 1955)
  • Many plantations close in the 1990s

Tourism - economic control

Beyond Pesticides - national organization with programs in Hawaii

Maui County Department of Agriculture - newly created to invest in food sovereignty, help move the island away from monocrop pasts by rehabilitating the environment and creating jobs

Sources:

https://grist.org/agriculture/the-farmers-restoring-hawaiis-ancient-foo…

https://www.mauinews.com/opinion/columns/2022/03/changes-to-agricultura…

https://hdoa.hawaii.gov/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/HISTORY-OF-AGRICULTU…

EiJ Hawaii Agricultural Hazards

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Significant pesticide usage from industrial agriculture:

  • "[Hawaii] became the biotech GMO capital of the US after agrochemical transnationals were welcomed to open research fields with fewer restrictions on potentially toxic pesticides."
  • Legacy contamination from past monocrop plantations
  • Research facilities owned by agrochemical companies like Monsanto - potential illegal dumping, off-site releases of chemicals

Runoff from agriculture (even if it contains just sediments and no pesticides) is harmful to coral reefs

Sources:

https://grist.org/agriculture/the-farmers-restoring-hawaiis-ancient-foo…

https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2017/03/02/cooperation-is-key-to-reduce-sed…

TebbeM Learning from EcoGovLab

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I want to build my familiarity with a wide variety of different cases (in the room right now, we have people with expertise on: Austin, Louisiana, London, Orange County/Santa Ana, La Puente, and Delhi, among others) and my ability to think about how these cases can give insight on the places I am interested in.

TebbeM EcoGovLab Annotation 1

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I hope to be supported in thinking methodologically about experimental qualitative research methods and substantively about environmental injustice. This support is, on some level, academic–I am learning from both the more experienced researchers in the group and from the perspectives of newcomers, and it is an opportunity for me to share my work and get feedback. It is also emotional–this lab is the community of people (and friends!) that I had hoped I would get from my department but did not. It’s also a way for me to build relationships with other people and organizations, both within and outside UCI–I think it’s much easier to come into a school as a research group that has staying power than as an individual researcher.

4. How scales (county, regional, neighborhood, census tract) can be seen through this data resource?

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Facilities and enforcement case searches can both easily be limited by geography (EPA region, city, state, zip code, county, proximity to national border, and watershed). The tool also automatically produces maps that allow users to see the distribution of facilities across space.

3. What data is drawn into the data resource and where does it come from?

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This database uses a broad variety of data. Most of the data is collected by the EPA itself. Users are able to search for facilities regulated under the following systems:

  • Risk Management Plan (RMP)
  • Toxic Release Inventory (TRI)
  • National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) - under the Clean Water Act
  • ICIS-Air
  • Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) - hazardous waste
  • Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA)
  • Superfund Enterprise Management System (SEMS)
  • Clean Air Markets Division Business System (CAMDBS)
  • Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP)
  • Emissions Inventory System
  • Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)

When looking at individual facilities, the database provides detailed facility reports, enforcement case reports (civil and criminal), air pollutant reports, effluent charts, pollutant loading reports, effluent limit exceedances reports, CWA program area reports, permit limits reports, and other facility documents as available. The database provides easy ways to download and map the data. The database also allows users to narrow facilities searches using demographic data from EJScreen (also maintained by the EPA), the U.S. Census, and tribal land data.

Users can also look for information on federal administrative and judicial enforcement actions through an enforcement case search.