Tracy S Stice

With the federal election just a few days away, world oil prices dropping dramtically, and only short term incentives in place to foster an environment for future expansion of wind and solar power, it is imperative that the short term economic drive is to increase both production of infrastructure, but incentives to include non-firm power in to established grids are increased long term.

It will be all too easy to go back to driving the gas guzzler cars we already own, and to build more coal fired generators if our legislators don't stop and take a hard look. The US ( and world ) , for that matter need the manufacturing jobs and the whole world needs start reducing our carbon footprint.

The Feds could produce model legislation to give state, and local communities guidelines and incentives to work with local and regional utilities to provide greater incentives to invest long term capital into the infrastruture right now. Our Federal government may well be faced with a WPA type of environment very soon. What better way to employ the unemployed than to put them to work on energy self-sufficiency.

The next step is to be able to affordably allow each individual to install wind and solar power generation on their own homes to offset their on the grid consumption. A huge part of the success of this program will to create local net metering laws that force the utilities to re-purchase all of the excess power generated , even by small producers, so that the focus on central, huge power generation stations is off-set to a larger degree with a distributed generation system all connected to the same grid.

Living in Hawaii, on any given day, at any location in the islands, the sun is shining and the tradewinds are blowing. That is a lot of juice going to waste !

In Hawaii, we need to push our legislators this year to extend the solar credit for individual homeowners, not just new construction. We need to push Hawaii Electric to modify their tariff to allow the individual producers to recover some of their investment for excess production and allow a greater avoided cost payback and to actually become a net producer to the grid with the right to make a little money.

Take a look at what my friend Michaelangelo Leone is doing with wind for individual homeowners and businesses at http://www.hiwindpower.com/

Tracy Stice Tracy@SellDirt.com Maui's Sustainable Real Estate Broker

Yesterday, the state water commission voted to greatly increase the stream flow to many East Maui streams. As a long time East Maui resident and a Realtor who has lived and worked in East Maui since 1979, this is extremely significant in many ways.

Water is life and life had been taken for many years from lands that were once very productive valleys all along the North Shore of Maui. Go for a hike sometime up Hanawana, Waipio, Honopou, or almost any East Maui valley and you will see ancient Lo'i that were once providing Taro to a huge community of Hawaiians. With the arrival of sugar on Maui in the late 1900's, large irrigation ditches were cut laterally across East Maui diverting almost all of the stream water to Central Maui to grow sugar.

Since the early 1980's when the State Water Commission asked all registered users to identify and register their water use in East Maui, the amount of water release by EMI ( East Maui Irrigation ) in to down stream flows has been minimal and down stream users, Taro farms, and traditional gathering have been extremely limited. Most Streams have lost almost all of their native flora and fauna as a result

Now, with increased stream flow, many property owners adjacent to the streams, may be able to start cultivation

once again in long dormant Taro Lo'i. With the increased stream flows, the water may be cool enough to cultivate wet land Taro. Low flow increase water temperature above the optimum temperature of 78 degrees farenheit and the Taro corms rot before they can be harvested.

What this means to adjacent owners is that perhaps once again, small scale farming may be possible along many East Maui Streams and the consequent revival of small scale , self sustainable farming should increase dramtically.

In my farm at Maliko, I rely on a spring that it supplied from cane irrigation on the fields above my farm. When HC&S turns off the water irrigating the fields above, my spring flow drops and I can't grow wet Taro for 3 or 4 months until the spring picks up flow again after the sugar company harvest the crop, replants and turns the water back on. During this time, I harvest the Taro and replant it dry land style to keep it alive for a seed crop to provide huli ( starts ) , for the next generation of wet Taro. All types of Taro can be grown either wet or dry, some do better wet, some better as a dry variety.

For more fun and tips on Maui sustainable farming, keep reading my blog.

Aloha,

Tracy@SellDirt.com

For the novice fish farmer on Maui, this is a good start. I built this pond in 2004 down in the bay , near the ocean at Maliko Maui. For years this property was farmed by a Japanese family who leased it from the owners, the Hong family. Seven children were born and raised on this property and they grew enough food on 3 acres to support the family. I purchased this property in 2004. A spring spills out of the cliff above this property and runs into a dam that I constructed to trap the water, run it underground, back in to the pond and out of the pond in to a Taro patch that uses the fertilized overflow.

My fish come from hybrid Tilipia from the University of Hawaii , Hilo and from a private farmer in Hilo. The most successful hybrid so far is the " Rocky Mountain White ". I am harvesting fish over 1 Kilo consistently and this month I have harvested over 100 Kilos.

Raising a crop diet is in my plans that will close the loop on sustainability for fish food. Since Tilapia are omniverous, they eat just about anything. They got all of the worms and damaged corn from the big vegetable garden that we grew this winter. They eat a lot of the garden weeds including the despised spiny Amaranth. Protein is an issue and now we have to include high protein fish food and dog food to keep them growing. Reproduction is not a problem, we are constantly giving breeding stock to our friends and will supply fry to other farmers.

Jeremy, my son and I have a long term goal to make this small farm be totally off the grid, and to be a net food producer. We have other small farms around Haiku, but none have the spring water source which is the key to this property.

If you have ideas for protein crops that we can grow for fish food. Send us a line to tracy@selldirt.com