To: Department of Health, The Hawaii State House, The Hawaii State Senate, and Governor David Ige
Hawaii: Adopt Scientific Criteria for Calling Ag No-Burn days
Call a no burn day when an inversion layer is predicted, OR when VOG is predicted, OR when winds are light or in a direction that the cane field slated to be burned will smoke out one of our communities.
Why is this important?
Kamali'i Elementary School and all of Kihei were completely smoked out by HC&S cane burning on May 27, 2015. Photos show that you could barely see a stop light a block away. HC&S claimed it was "odor" not smoke and a photo of the smoke with "This is a photo of what HC&S calls 'odor'" made its rounds on Facebook.
Obviously the archaic system of calling a no-burn day (wait until after HC&S burns and the sun comes up, look at 4 peaks, if you can see at least one of them, it is ok to burn) doesn't work. We have suggested for the last 4 years that DoH revise this rule to use easily available meteorological forecasts including VOG index, wind speed and direction and predicted inversion layer to call no-burn days PRIOR to HC&S initiating a burn. However they have done nothing despite the literally thousands of complaints they have received.