Tag: Hawaii state government

‘Almost authoritarian:’ Hawaii’s Cold War speech law may go

HONOLULU (AP) — A Cold War-era law in Hawaii that allows authorities to impose sweeping restrictions on press freedoms and electronic communications during a state of emergency could soon be repealed by lawmakers over concerns about its constitutionality and potential misuse.

Those who are worried about the law, which allows a governor or mayor to suspend “electronic media transmissions” during a crisis, say that language could now also be interpreted to include social media posts, text messages and emails, as well as reporting by media outlets.

The Hawaii Association of Broadcasters says the existing law appears to be unique among all 50 states and violates the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.

“We get into a situation where … somebody could suspend electronic media because they don’t like what’s being said about them,” said Chris Leonard, the association’s president, who also operates a radio station on the Big Island.

Current state leaders haven’t invoked the law, but “Who knows who’s in office tomorrow?” he added.

Lawmakers in the state House and Senate have each passed versions of legislation to eliminate the decades-old rule and have a deadline this week to agree on language so the bill can move forward.

Christian Grose, a professor of political science and public policy at the University of Southern California, said the law “gives shockingly large amounts of power to the governor and mayors in ways that might be afoul of constitutional freedoms.”

“That’s sort of an unusual, almost authoritarian law that would allow such powers to be given to the governor or mayor,” Grose said.

Some do support leaving the law on the books.

James Barros, the head of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, said the law might still be needed to restrict electronic transmissions “that could trigger an explosive device or ignite volatile chemicals.”

The bill would eliminate the executive branch’s authority to take action that could save lives “based on a hypothetical restriction of free speech rights,” Barros said in written testimony.

The law appears to date to 1951, when the Cold War pitted the U.S. against the Soviet Union. There were concerns about radio frequency transmitters being used to identify bombing targets, said Leonard.

The law was revised about a decade ago to its current form, which allows a governor or mayor to: “Shut off water mains, gas mains, electric power connections, or suspend other services, and, to the extent permitted by or under federal law, suspend electronic media transmission.”

Hawaii Emergency Management Agency spokesperson Adam Weintraub said Tuesday the agency agrees technology has evolved beyond what existed when the law was originated. He said the agency hopes to get to a compromise that addresses the broadcasters association’s concerns about speech restrictions.

The Hawaii County Council on the Big Island discovered the law last year when it was reviewing its own county code to align it with state law.

Information has helped calm people and make decisions during the 2018 eruption of Kilauea volcano and the COVID-19 pandemic, Ashley Lehualani Kierkiewicz, a county council member, explained in testimony to state legislators.

“In times of emergency and natural disasters, the public needs more information — not less — and communication should flow through all possible channels as frequently as possible,” she said in written testimony.

It’s notable that Hawaii’s lawmakers are considering taking away executive power because the trend in the U.S. government and in some other states has been for the executive to amass power without legislators stopping them, Grose said.

“So the fact that Hawaii’s is doing this is big,” he said.

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April 26, 2023
Paying for paradise? Hawaii mulls fees for ecotourism crush

HONOLULU (AP) — Repairing coral reefs after boats run aground. Shielding native forest trees from a killer fungus outbreak. Patrolling waters for swimmers harassing dolphins and turtles.

Taking care of Hawaii’s unique natural environment takes time, people and money. Now Hawaii wants tourists to help pay for it, especially because growing numbers are traveling to the islands to enjoy the beauty of its outdoors — including some lured by dramatic vistas they have seen on social media.

“All I want to do, honestly, is to make travelers accountable and have the capacity to help pay for the impact that they have,” Democratic Gov. Josh Green said earlier this year. “We get between nine and 10 million visitors a year, (but) we only have 1.4 million people living here. Those 10 million travelers should be helping us sustain our environment.”

Hawaii lawmakers are considering legislation that would require tourists to pay for a yearlong license or pass to visit state parks and trails. They are still debating how much they would charge.

The governor campaigned last year on a platform of having all tourists pay a $50 fee to enter the state. Legislators think this would violate U.S. constitutional protections for free travel and have promoted their parks and trails approach instead. Either policy would be a first of its kind for any U.S. state.

Hawaii’s leaders are following the example of other tourism hotspots that have imposed similar fees or taxes like Venice, Italy, and Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands. The Pacific island nation of Palau, for example, charges arriving international passengers $100 to help it manage a sprawling marine sanctuary and promote ecotourism.

State Rep. Sean Quinlan, a Democrat who chairs the House Tourism Committee, said changing traveler patterns are one reason behind Hawaii’s push. He said golf rounds per visitor per day have declined 30% over the past decade while hiking has increased 50%. People are also seeking out once-obscure sites that they have seen someone post on social media. The state doesn’t have the money to manage all these places, he said.

“It’s not like it was 20 years ago when you bring your family and you hit maybe one or two famous beaches and you go see Pearl Harbor. And that’s the extent of it,” Quinlan said. “These days it’s like, well, you know, ‘I saw this post on Instagram and there’s this beautiful rope swing, a coconut tree.’”

“All these places that didn’t have visitors now have visitors,” he said.

Most state parks and trails are currently free. Some of the most popular ones already charge, like Diamond Head State Monument, which features a trail leading from the floor of a 300,000-year-old volcanic crater up to its summit. It gets 1 million visitors each year and costs $5 for each traveler.

A bill currently before the state House would require nonresidents 15 years and older visiting forests, parks, trails or “other natural area on state land” to buy an annual license online or via mobile app. Violators would pay a civil fine, though penalties wouldn’t be imposed during a five-year education and transition period.

Residents with a Hawaii driver’s license or other state identification would be exempt.

The Senate passed a version of the measure setting the fee at $50. But the House Finance Committee amended it last week to delete the dollar amount. Chair Kyle Yamashita, a Democrat, said the bill was “a work in progress.” The bill has been scheduled for a House floor vote on Thursday.

Dawn Chang, chair of the state Board of Land and Natural Resources, told the committee that Hawaii’s beaches are open to the public, so people probably wouldn’t be cited there — and such details still need to be worked out.

Rep. Dee Morikawa, a Democrat on the committee, recommended that the state create a list of places that would require the license.

Green has indicated he’s flexible about where the fee is imposed and that he’s willing to support the Legislature’s approach.

Supporters say there’s no other place in the U.S. that imposes a similar fee on visitors. The closest equivalent may be the $34.50 tax Alaska charges to each cruise ship passenger.

Hawaii’s conservation needs are great. Invasive pests are attacking the state’s forests, including a fungal disease that is killing ohia, a tree unique to Hawaii that makes up the largest portion of the canopy in native wet forests.

Some conservation work directly responds to tourism. The harassment of wildlife like dolphins, turtles and Hawaiian monk seals is a recurring problem. Hikers can unknowingly bring invasive species into the forest on their boots. Snorkelers and boats trample on coral, adding stress to reefs already struggling with invasive algae and coral bleaching.

A 2019 report by Conservation International, a nonprofit environmental organization, estimated that total federal, state, county and private spending on conservation in Hawaii amounted to $535 million but the need was $886 million.

At the Diamond Head trail recently, some visitors said the fee would make the most sense for people who come to Hawaii often or who might be staying for several weeks. Some said $50 was too high, especially for those who view a walk through nature as a low-cost activity.

“For a large family that wants to have the experience with the kids, that would be a lot of money,” said Sarah Tripp, who was visiting Hawaii with her husband and two of their three children from Marquette, Michigan.

Katrina Kain, an English teacher visiting from Puerto Rico, said she thought the fee would “sting” some people but would be fine so long as it was well-advertised.

“If tourists were informed about it, then they would be OK with it,” she said. “If that was a surprise $50 fee, it would be a pretty lousy surprise.”

The legislation says proceeds would go into a “visitor impact fee special fund” managed by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.

Carissa Cabrera, project manager for the Hawaii Green Fee, a coalition of nonprofit groups supporting the measure, said this would ensure the state has money for conservation regardless of budget swings.

Mufi Hanneman, president and CEO of the Hawaii Lodging and Tourism Association, which represents hotels, backs the bill but said Hawaii must carefully monitor how the money is used.

“The last thing that you want to see is restrooms that haven’t been fixed, trails or pathways that haven’t been repaved or what have you — and year in, year out it remains the same and people are paying a fee,” Hannemann said.

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April 9, 2023
Biden creates national monuments in Nevada, Texas mountains

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Tuesday he is establishing national monuments on more than half a million acres in Nevada and Texas and creating a marine sanctuary in U.S. waters near the Pacific Remote Islands southwest of Hawaii. The conservation measures are “protecting the heart and soul of our national pride,″ Biden said.

Speaking at a White House summit on conservation action, Biden said the new monuments are among the “natural treasures” that “define our identity as a nation. They’re a birthright we have to pass down to generation after generation.″

Biden designated Avi Kwa Ame, a desert mountain in southern Nevada that Native Americans consider sacred, as a national monument, along with the Castner Range in El Paso, Texas. He also moved to create a national marine sanctuary in U.S. waters around the Pacific Remote Islands.

Conservation and tribal groups praised Biden’s actions, but Nevada’s new Republican governor slammed the monument designation as “federal confiscation” of Nevada land and “a historic mistake that will cost Nevadans for generations to come.”

Gov. Joe Lombardo, who unseated the state’s Democratic governor in November, said the White House did not consult with his administration before moving to block clean-energy projects and other development in his state. “This kind of ‘Washington Knows Best’ policy might win plaudits from unaccountable special interests, but it’s going to cost our state jobs and economic opportunity,” Lombardo said in a statement.

“Our national wonders are literally the envy of the world,″ Biden said in a speech at the Interior Department. “They’ve always been and always will be central to our heritage as a people and essential to our identity as a nation.″

The Nevada site spans more than 500,000 acres (200,000 hectares) and includes Spirit Mountain, a peak northwest of Laughlin called Avi Kwa Ame (ah-VEE’ kwa-meh) by the Fort Mojave Tribe and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The rugged landscape near the Arizona and California state lines is home to bighorn sheep, desert tortoises and a large concentration of Joshua trees, some of which are more than 900 years old.

In Texas, the Castner Range designation will protect cultural, scientific and historic objects, honor U.S. veterans and tribal nations, and expand access to outdoor recreation on public lands, Biden said. Located on Fort Bliss, Castner Range served as a training and testing site for the U.S. Army during World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. The Army ceased training at the site and closed Castner Range in 1966.

Together, the two new national monuments protect nearly 514,000 acres (208,000 hectares) of public lands. The Avi Kwa Ame landscape is sacred to 12 tribes and is home to rare wildlife and plants, while Castner Range is the ancestral homeland of the Comanche and Apache people, and its cultural ecology is considered sacred to several Indigenous communities.

“To the native people who point to Avi Kwa Ame as their spiritual birthplace, and every Nevadan who knows the value of our cherished public lands: Today is for you,″ tweeted Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nevada, who sponsored a bill to protect the rugged region near the Mojave National Preserve from development, including solar farms and a proposed wind farm.

“Spirit Mountain will now be protected for future generations,″ Titus said.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said Avi Kwa Ame “holds deep spiritual, sacred and historic significance to the Native people who have lived on these lands for generations,″ adding that she was grateful to Biden “for taking this important step in recognition of the decades of advocacy from tribes and the scientific community.″

In the Pacific, Biden directed the Commerce Department to initiate a marine sanctuary designation to protect 777,000 square miles around the Pacific Remote Islands. If completed, the new sanctuary would help ensure the U.S. reaches Biden’s goal to conserve at least 30% of ocean waters under U.S. jurisdiction by 2030, the White House said.

The area to be protected is “larger than Alaska and Colorado put together,″ Biden said.

Biden’s actions come as he faces sharp criticism from environmental groups and youth activists over his approval of the huge Willow oil drilling project in Alaska.

Biden has made fighting global warming a central part of his agenda and has pledged to cut planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. But the decision on Willow has alienated supporters, particularly young activists skeptical about political compromise at the same time Biden is planning to announce his reelection campaign.

Climate activists gathered outside the Interior Department on Tuesday to condemn what they call Biden’s “climate hypocrisy” and demand the administration change course on Willow. Protesters hung a large yellow banner that said, “Stop the Willow oil project” and chanted “no more drilling, no more drilling, no more drilling on federal land.”

In Texas, the Castner Range monument “will preserve fragile lands already surrounded on three sides by development,″ help ensure access to clean water and protect rare and endangered species, said Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar.

Fort Mojave Tribe Chairman Timothy Williams, who attended the conservation summit, said tribes throughout the Southwest consider Avi Kwa Ame to be sacred land. Biden’s creation of a new monument demonstrated his “commitment to respect tribal nations and our nation-to-nation relationship.″

Under the leadership of Biden and Haaland, the first Native American Cabinet member, “We have a seat at the table and we have seen an unprecedented era and opportunity for our tribal communities,″ Williams said.

The Honor Avi Kwa Ame coalition, which includes tribes, local residents, state lawmakers and conservation groups, said its members were “overjoyed” at the new monument.

Biden designated his first national monument, in Colorado, last year. In 2021, he restored the boundaries for Bears Ears National Monument in Utah after they were significantly narrowed by President Donald Trump, a Republican.

Biden announced other steps Tuesday to conserve, restore and expand access to public lands and waters, promote tribal conservation and reduce wildfire risk. The proposals seek to modernize management of America’s public lands, better harness the ocean to help fight climate change and better conserve wildlife corridors, the White House said.

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Associated Press writers Darlene Superville in Washington and Ken Ritter and Rio Yamat in Las Vegas contributed to this story.

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March 21, 2023
Report: Native Hawaiians hit by missing and murdered scourge

HONOLULU — The average profile of a missing child in Hawaii: 15 years old, female, from the island of Oahu and Native Hawaiian. That’s according to a report released Wednesday that says much more disaggregated racial and gender data is needed to combat the scourge of missing and murdered Native Hawaiian women.

Key findings of the report, the first of its kind released by a task force created by the state Legislature last year to investigate the issue, include that more than a quarter of missing girls in Hawaii are Native Hawaiian and that members of the U.S. military play an outsized role in the sexual exploitation of children in the state.

Similar studies have shown that Indigenous women in Canada and the U.S. mainland are murdered or go missing at rates disproportionate to their size of the population. While the disturbing trend held for Native Hawaiian girls, a comparable, reliable statistic for Native Hawaiian women eluded the task force because of lacking data, said Nikki Cristobal, the report’s principal investigator. The task force was created amid renewed calls for people to pay more attention to missing and killed Indigenous women and girls and other people of color after the 2021 disappearance of Gabby Petito, a white woman, triggered widespread national media coverage and extensive searches by law enforcement. Petito’s body was later found in Wyoming.

One of the difficulties in addressing the issue, is that determining the true scale can be difficult because many cases have gone unreported or have not been well-documented or tracked. Public and private agencies also don’t always collect statistics on race. And some data groups together Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, making it nearly impossible to identify the degree to which Hawaii’s Indigenous people are affected. About 20% of the state’s population is Native Hawaiian.

Several states formed similar panels after a groundbreaking report by the Urban Indian Health Institute found that of more than 5,700 cases of missing and slain Indigenous girls in dozens of U.S. cities in 2016, only 116 were recorded in a Justice Department database.

Wyoming’s task force determined that 710 Indigenous people disappeared in that state between 2011 and September 2020 and that Indigenous people made up 21% of homicide victims even though they make up only 3% of the population. In Minnesota, a task force led to the creation of a dedicated office to provide ongoing attention and leadership on the issue.

Agencies such as the state, police departments and the military need to do better at collecting and retaining disaggregated data, Cristobal said.

“Native Hawaiian women and girls are displaced not only through violence, but also through data collection across departments and across islands,” she said.

One of the more disturbing findings of the report was the role of servicemembers in the abuse of children. Publicly available data in 2022 showed that 38% of those arrested for soliciting sex online from law enforcement posing as a 13-year-old during undercover operations were active-duty military personnel, the report said.

In response to a request for comment on the findings, a Department of Defense duty officer said late in the day Wednesday that the message was being forwarded to the right person.

Violence such as “selling and buying girls for sex on military bases, hotels, game rooms, massage parlors and in our own communities,” impact Native Hawaiians at much higher rates than other populations, Cristobal said.

The findings are startling but not new, said Khara Jabola-Carolus, executive director of the Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women and the task force’s co-chair.

“Instead, it vindicates and validates what Native Hawaiians, sex trafficking and gender-based violence service providers and feminist activists have been saying all along and have been told that they were exaggerating or manipulating facts or just simply providing an anecdote,” she said.

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December 14, 2022
Prayers? Bombs? Hawaii history shows stopping lava not easy

HONOLULU — Prayer. Bombs. Walls. Over the decades, people have tried all of them to stanch the flow of lava from Hawaii’s volcanoes as it lumbered toward roads, homes and infrastructure.

Now Mauna Loa — the world’s largest active volcano — is erupting again, and lava is slowly approaching a major thoroughfare connecting the Big Island’s east and west sides. And once more, people are asking if anything can be done to stop or divert the flow.

“It comes up every time there’s an eruption and there’s lava heading towards habited areas or highways. Some people say ‘Build a wall’ or ‘Board up’ and other people say, ‘No don’t!,’” said Scott Rowland, a geologist at the University of Hawaii.

Humans have rarely had much success stopping lava and, despite the world’s technological advances, doing so is still difficult and dependent on the force of the flow and the terrain. But many in Hawaii also question the wisdom of interfering with nature and Pele, the Hawaiian deity of volcanoes and fire.

Attempts to divert lava have a long history in Hawaii.

In 1881, the governor of Hawaii Island declared a day of prayer to stop lava from Mauna Loa as it headed for Hilo. The lava kept coming.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, Princess Regent Lili’uokalani and her department heads went to Hilo and considered ways to save the town. They developed plans to build barriers to divert the flow and place dynamite along a lava tube to drain the molten rock supply.

Princess Ruth Ke’elikōlani approached the flow, offered brandy and red scarves and chanted, asking Pele to stop the flow and go home. The flow stopped before the barriers were built.

More than 50 years later, Thomas A. Jaggar, the founder of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, asked U.S. Army Air Services to send planes to bomb a Mauna Loa vent to disrupt lava channels.

Lt. Col. George S. Patton (who later became famous as a general in Europe during World War II) directed planes to drop 20 600-pound (272-kilogram) demolition bombs, according to a National Park Service account of the campaign. The bombs each had 355 pounds (161 kilograms) of TNT. The planes also dropped 20 smaller bombs that only had black powder charge.

Jagger said the bombing helped to “hasten the end of the flow,” but Howard Stearns, a U.S. Geological Survey geologist onboard the last bombing run, was doubtful. In his 1983 autobiography, he wrote: “I am sure it was a coincidence.”

According to the park service, geologists today also are doubtful the bombing stopped the lava flow, which didn’t end with the bombing. Instead, the flows waned over the next few days and didn’t change paths.

Rowland said authorities could use a bulldozer to pile a big berm of broken rock in front of Daniel K. Inouye Highway. If the terrain is flat, then lava would pile up behind the wall. But the lava may flow over it, like it did when something similar was attempted in Kapoho town in 1960.

Rapidly moving lava flows, like those from Kilauea volcano in 2018, would be more difficult to stop, he said.

“It would have been really hard to hard to build the walls fast enough for them. And they were heading towards groups of homes. And so you would perhaps be sacrificing some homes for others, which would just be a legal mess,” he said.

He said he believes most people in Hawaii wouldn’t want to build a wall to protect the highway because it would “mess with Pele.”

If lava crosses the highway, Rowland said officials could rebuild that section of the road like they did in 2018 when different routes were covered.

Hawaii County’s director of civil defense, Talmadge Magno, said Wednesday the county has no current plans to try to divert the flow, though he has had some discussions about it.

Hawaii Gov. David Ige, who was governor during the 2018 Kilauea eruption, told reporters his experience showed him it’s not possible to overcome nature and Pele.

Thinking you should physically divert lava is a Western idea rooted in the notion that humans have to control everything, said Kealoha Pisciotta, a Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner. She said people need to adjust to the lava, not the other way around.

“We are not separate from nature,” she said. “We are a part of nature.”

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Associated Press writers Jennifer Sinco Kelleher in Honolulu and Mark Thiessen in Anchorage, Alaska, contributed to this report.

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December 1, 2022
Official: Toxic fire suppressant spill in Hawaii ‘egregious’

A cleanup is underway after about 1,100 gallons of toxic fire suppressant was spilled at the Navy’s Red Hill fuel facility Tuesday, according to Hawaii Department of Health officials

HONOLULU — A clean up is underway after about 1,100 gallons of toxic fire suppressant was spilled at the Navy’s Red Hill fuel facility Tuesday, according to Hawaii Department of Health officials.

The Honolulu-Star Advertiser reported that the Aqueous Film Forming Foam is used to suppress fires caused by flammable liquids such as fuel and contain PFAS, so-called “forever chemicals” that are slow to degrade when released into the environment. Health investigators said excavators are currently digging up contaminated soil. No surface water was contaminated.

According to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, PFAS may lead to a higher risk of kidney and testicular cancer, increased risk of high blood pressure in pregnant women, among other health problems.

“This is egregious,” Kathleen Ho, DOH’s deputy director of environmental health said in a news release. “AFFF contains PFAS forever chemicals — groundwater contamination could be devastating to our aquifer. While details are limited at this time, the Joint Task Force and Navy need to be transparent about how this happened.”

Ho said that regulators “will hold the Department of Defense accountable and will press the operator to take any and all appropriate corrective action throughout the defueling and decommissioning process.”

The release occurred above Adit 6, a passageway at the mauka end of the Red Hill facility, according to DOH, which said it was notified of the leak at about 3 p.m.

“A DOH on-scene coordinator responded and preliminarily reported that the spill was not contained and AFFF has spilled into soil outside of the Red Hill facility and into the facility near Adit 6,” DOH said in a news release.

No details were provided about the cause of the release, health officials said.

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November 30, 2022
Lava from Hawaii volcano lights night sky amid warnings

KAILUA-KONA, Hawaii — Waves of orange, glowing lava and ash blasted and billowed from the world’s largest active volcano in its first eruption in 38 years, and officials told people living on Hawaii’s Big Island to be ready in the event of a worst-case scenario.

The eruption of Mauna Loa wasn’t immediately endangering towns, but the U.S. Geological Survey warned the roughly 200,000 people on the Big Island that an eruption “can be very dynamic, and the location and advance of lava flows can change rapidly.”

Officials told residents to be ready to evacuate if lava flows start heading toward populated areas. Monday night, hundreds of people lined a road as lava flowed down the side of Mauna Loa and fountained into the air.

The eruption migrated northeast throughout Monday and spread out over the side of the volcano, with several distinct streams of lava running down the hillside.

The eruption began late Sunday night following a series of fairly large earthquakes, said Ken Hon, scientist-in-charge at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.

The areas where lava was emerging — the volcano’s summit crater and vents along the volcano’s northeast flank — are both far from homes and communities.

Officials urged the public to stay away from them, given the dangers posed by lava, which is shooting 100 to 200 feet (30 to 60 meters) into the air out of three separate fissures roughly estimated to be 1 to 2 miles (1.6 to 3.2 kilometers) long.

Volcanic gases wafting out of the vents, primarily sulfur dioxide, are also harmful.

Air quality on the Big Island more generally is good right now, but officials are monitoring it carefully, said Dr. Libby Char, the director of the state Department of Health.

Hon said air quality could deteriorate while the eruption lasts, which scientists expect will be about one or two weeks if the volcano follows historical patterns.

Lifelong Big Island resident Bobby Camara, who lives in Volcano Village, said everyone across the island should keep track of the eruption. He said he’s seen three Mauna Loa eruptions in his lifetime and stressed the need for vigilance.

“I think everybody should be a little bit concerned,” he said. “We don’t know where the flow is going, we don’t know how long it’s going to last.”

Gunner Mench, who owns an art gallery in Kamuela, said he awoke shortly after midnight and saw an alert on his phone about the eruption.

Mench and his wife, Ellie, ventured out to film the eerie red glow cast over the island, watching as lava spilled down the volcano’s side.

“You could see it spurting up into the air, over the edge of this depression,” Mench said.

“Right now it’s just entertainment, but the concern is” it could reach populated areas, he said.

Seeing Mauna Loa erupt is a new experience for many residents of the Big Island, where the population has more than doubled from 92,000 in 1980.

More than a third of the island’s residents live either in the city of Kailua-Kona to the west of the volcano, or about 23,000 people, and Hilo to the east, with about 45,000. Officials were most worried about several subdivisions some 30 miles (50 kilometers) to the volcano’s south that are home to about 5,000 people.

A time-lapse video of the eruption from overnight showed lava lighting up one area, moving across it like waves on the ocean.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the eruption had migrated to a rift zone on the volcano’s northeast flank. Rift zones are where the mountain rock is cracked and relatively weak — making it easier for magma to emerge.

Lava could move toward the county seat of Hilo, but that could take about a week, Hon said at a news conference.

Scientists hope the flow will parallel the 1984 eruption, where the lava was more viscous and slowed down.

Mauna Loa has another rift zone on its southwest flank. Lava could reach nearby communities in hours or days if the volcano erupts from this area. But Hon said historically Mauna Loa has never erupted from both rift zones simultaneously.

“So we presume at this point that all of the future activity is going to be on the northeast rift zone of Mauna Loa and not on the southeast rift zone,” he said. “So those residents in that area do not have to worry about lava flows.”

Hawaii County Civil Defense announced it had opened shelters because it had reports of people evacuating from along the coast on their own initiative.

The USGS warned residents who could be threatened by the lava flows to review their eruption preparations. Scientists had been on alert because of a recent spike in earthquakes at the summit of the volcano, which last erupted in 1984.

Portions of the Big Island were under an ashfall advisory issued by the National Weather Service in Honolulu. It said up to a quarter-inch (0.6 centimeters) of ash could accumulate in some areas.

“Volcanic gas and possibly fine ash and Pele’s hair may be carried downwind,” Gov. David Ige said, referring to glass fibers that form when hot lava erupts from a fissure and rapidly cools in the air. The wind stretches the fibers into long strands that look like hair. “So certainly we would ask those with respiratory sensitivities to take precautions to minimize exposure.”

Mauna Loa is one of five volcanoes that together make up the Big Island of Hawaii, the southernmost island in the Hawaiian archipelago.

Mauna Loa, rising 13,679 feet (4,169 meters) above sea level, is the much larger neighbor of Kilauea, which erupted in a residential neighborhood and destroyed 700 homes in 2018. Some of Mauna Loa’s slopes are much steeper than Kilauea’s, so lava can flow much faster when it erupts.

During a 1950 eruption, the mountain’s lava traveled 15 miles (24 kilometers) to the ocean in under three hours.

Mauna Loa’s volume is estimated at least 18,000 square miles (75,000 square kilometers), making it the world’s largest volcano when measured from the ocean floor its summit.

Tourism is Hawaii’s economic engine but Big Island Mayor Mitch Roth predicted few problems for those vacationing during the eruption.

“It will be spectacular where it is, but the chances of it really interrupting the visitor industry — very, very slim,” he said.

Tourism officials said no one should have to change Big Island travel plans.

For some, the eruption might cut down on some travel time, even if there is more volcanic smog caused by higher sulfur-dioxide emissions.

“But the good thing is you don’t have to drive from Kona over to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park to see an eruption anymore,” Roth said. “You can just look out your window at night and you’ll be able to see Mauna Loa erupting.”

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Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Jennifer Sinco Kelleher and Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu; Alina Hartounian in Phoenix; and Mark Thiessen in Anchorage, Alaska.

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November 29, 2022