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Honolulu Civil Beat •

Big Island Mayor Says State Will Miss 2050 Cesspool Deadline

The Big Island’s new mayor says there’s no way Hawaiʻi can meet its 2050 deadline for converting the state’s 83,000 cesspools to septic tanks.


Since his island is home to well over half of those cesspools, Mayor Kimo Alameda’s perspective carries weight in the debate over the 2017 law.


“It’s an unfunded state mandate and it’s stressing everybody out… especially on our island,” Alameda told Civil Beat.


The deadline stems from Act 125, which was aimed at curbing tens of millions of gallon...
Alaska Beacon •

Bowhead whales are ingesting toxins driven by warming in Arctic, study finds | Alaska Beacon

A long-term study of bowhead whales in Alaska published this week points to a direct correlation between ocean warming and threats to the Arctic food web.  


An example of a fecal sample from a subsistence-harvested bowhead whale, part of a long-term study of ocean conditions, algal toxins and bowheads published on July 9, 2025, in the journal Nature. (Photo courtesy of Gay Sheffield/Alaska Sea Grant)


An interdisciplinary team of scientists, collaborating with Alaska Native...
Alaska Beacon •

Scientists find Aleutian Range volcano offers clues to ‘stealthy’ eruptions | Alaska Beacon

An ice-clad behemoth among Alaska’s Aleutian Range mountains is sharing secrets about what makes some volcanoes tick — namely, ones that show little sign of erupting before they blow.
In a study published Tuesday in the journal Frontiers in Earth Science, scientists said they have discovered why Mount Veniaminof is so stealthy — and that information may help improve volcano forecasting and perhaps save lives. 
Named after an 18th century Russian Orthodox priest, Veniaminof is what scientists cal...
Honolulu Civil Beat •

Foreclosure Opens Door To Preserve Big Island Black Sand Beach

Learning about a land foreclosure at Punaluʻu provided an instant wave of relief for Nohea Kaʻawa. 


The way she read it, a recent court decision means that prime coastal lands on the Big Island’s southeastern shore, ones that sustained her grandfather and ancestors before him, would be off the chopping block. A chance to start anew.


“We have been fighting development after development for generations,” Kaʻawa said.


Punaluʻu is a strip of black sand beach on the Big Island in the rural K...
Honolulu Civil Beat •

Hawaiian Knowledge And Western Science: A Recipe For Reef Recovery?

A daughter of the Big Island’s Kailua-Kona region, Cindi Punihaole remembers when the ocean was teeming with life. 


“My father taught me how to throw a net,” recalled Punihaole, now 74. “The sea was our ice box.”


Punihaole left the Big Island for college on the mainland and did not move home again for 30 years, until her aging parents needed her.


What she found on her return shocked her. Far fewer fish. A degraded reef. Resorts, golf courses, overtourism and urbanization — all of it pou...
Honolulu Civil Beat •

Hawaii's Love Affair With Cesspools Is Ruining Its Reefs

A coral reef at the base of a Big Island lava field is one of Hawaii’s healthiest — and most at risk.


It’s located off Milolii, considered the state’s last fishing village and home to Native Hawaiians since the first millennium. Their descendants fought to create a state-protected fishing reserve there just two years ago, making it the largest locally managed marine refuge in the main Hawaiian islands.


New threats to the reef’s rich biodiversity loom just uphill from Milolii’s weatherworn...
Honolulu Civil Beat •

Half Of All Coral Reefs Are Dead. A Maui 'Super Reef' Offers Hope.

Maui artist Michiko Smith grew up in Lahaina. After a deadly wildfire leveled much of her coastal town, Smith took stock and decided to reprioritize her life.


The 30-year-old continues to make art from marine debris, mainly “ghost nets” cast adrift from fishing vessels. But making her beloved West Maui more resilient to climate-fueled disasters has become Smith’s obsession.


After enrolling in a marine studies program at University of Hawaii Maui College, she discovered the Super Reefs proj...
Honolulu Civil Beat •

This Buddhist Temple Is Collapsing Into The Sea Off Maui

A Zen Buddhist graveyard on Maui’s north shore is supposed to be a place of eternal rest. Instead, the cemetery is battling an ever-encroaching sea.


Pounded by relentless surf, an alluvial bluff supporting the cemetery has eroded to the point that waves have washed away dozens of graves containing human remains.


Just down the beach, Paia Mantokuji Soto Mission faces a similar fate. Built in 1906 to serve Japanese immigrant laborers, the seaside temple and associated buildings are perched p...
Honolulu Civil Beat •

Researchers Fear A Disturbing Pattern Of Health Problems Is Emerging After The Maui Fires

They were both napping on the afternoon of Aug. 8. But Filikitonga-Lukela’s barking dogs alerted her to the fast-approaching inferno.


“There was black smoke everywhere,” she said. “Then I felt the heat, and I thought, ‘Oh my God. It’s a fire.'”


Filikitonga-Lukela and her mother escaped death because one of her daughters rushed home and piled them into her car as neighbors jumped into the ocean.


After staying in a government-funded hotel room, the Lahaina family found a rental in Central...
Honolulu Civil Beat •

This Developer Wants Public Money To Build Maui's Future. Has He Come Clean About His Own Past?

As Maui County officials struggle to find housing for thousands of displaced people who survived the deadly Aug. 8 wildfire, a Texas real estate developer is offering to build hundreds of affordable homes just north of Lahaina.


In exchange for developing the Pulelehua subdivision near the Kapalua Airport, Paul Sau-Ki Cheng wants $50 million from Maui County, on top of $18 million he’s already received.


Cheng and his project have many supporters in Maui and the developer cites a decades-lo...
Honolulu Civil Beat •

Puna Is The Fastest Growing Place In Hawaii. But It Comes With A Catch

PAHOA, Big Island — Gary Pickler grew up in a military family in California, the son of a naval officer and a homemaker who urged him to become “rich and famous.”
He shunned his parents’ path and took up tarot card and palm reading instead, supplementing his income with henna tattooing, astrology and massage therapy.
“I became a hippie and a rebel and earned money in unusual ways,” said Pickler, 75.
 
Pickler spent years reading palms and tarot cards on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco and in...
Honolulu Civil Beat •

Out-Of-Bounds? NBA Star Kevin Johnson Pushes Hard As Point Man For Hawaii Energy Project

Jennifer Potter was settling into a new job at the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission when a high-profile visitor paid her an unannounced call.
It was August 2018 and Hawaii’s governor had appointed Potter as a commissioner on the PUC. An influential quasi-judicial body, the three-person commission regulates powerful industries including telecom, energy and transportation.
One month into her job, Potter was at her desk when an administrative assistant buzzed her line. A Kevin Johnson was there t...
Honolulu Civil Beat •

Hawaii Is The Only State Not Seeking Federal Buyouts To Move Residents Away From Floods

In the ensuing years, the beach has drastically shrunk. The sea is now threatening to swallow Mowat’s home in Kapa‘akea on Molokai’s south shore, a structure built on Hawaiian Home Lands where her in-laws once lived. She said her family secured the lease to the homestead in the late 1930s, and five generations currently live on the six-acre property that was once used to raise cattle.
“The sand is going out. The land is being taken away. We have coconut trees in the water,” said Mowat, or Aunty...
Anchorage Daily News •

Injectable medication shows promise for Anchorage’s homeless alcoholics

This story was produced in a collaboration between Alaska Public Media and the Anchorage Daily News, with support from the journalism nonprofit the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

Lucy Tall and Roger Williams spent years living on the streets of Anchorage, camping in parks and bathing in creeks. Last year, both were suffering from health problems related to alcoholism and coronavirus was spreading.

“We realized we were getting too old for camping out in wintertime,” Williams said

The cou...
Anchorage Daily News •

As Anchorage struggles with homelessness, outdoor deaths occur regularly — but with little public notice

The bodies turn up in snowbanks. Behind utility boxes. Face-down in creeks. In the woods and under bushes.

Sometimes they’re found at bus stops, in parking lots or on the sidewalk of busy city streets.

At least 53 people have died outdoors in Anchorage since 2017, according to Anchorage police records compiled by the Anchorage Daily News. How many were homeless? No one knows for sure.

Anchorage spends tens of millions of dollars every year addressing homelessness. An estimated 1,100 people ar...