Mililani Trask

There was a time when the name Mililani Trask brought to mind phrases such as "native sovereignty" and "Hawaiian activist." If anything, the term "development" was on top of the "don’t" list for Mililani and her sister, Haunani-Kay Trask, an equally well known University of Hawaii professor.

So it’s surprised many to see that the longtime Hawaiian rights advocate and attorney is championing the controversial Public Land Development Corp. (PLDC), a legislative creation now fighting for its life in the Legislature.

The benefit of such an agency, which would shorten the process of reviews for projects undertaken on many state-owned parcels, is that the general population would at last reap significant benefits from the developments, Trask said, rather than the modest revenue stream from private entities leasing public land.

These days, Trask principally works as a consultant for Innovations Development Group, which describes itself as a "majority-owned Native Hawaiian company" engaged in "developing energy resources in ways that preserve vital cultural traditions." IDG is most intensively involved now in the recent request for proposals on a Hawaii island geothermal project but also has worked with partners in New Zealand.

She was serving a three-year term as the Pacific representative to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues when she was swept up into the energy topic.

At 61, Trask enjoys planting and tending her gardens at home near Kurtistown, Hawaii island, and in maintaining ties with foster children now grown and having kids of their own. But making Native Hawaiians more aware of the hidden potential of tapping homegrown energy seems her principal professional passion.

"I think there has been a major shift in the Hawaiian community because they see now that we own the resources," she said.

QUESTION: State Sen. Russell Ruderman introduced Senate Bill 375 to regulate "fracking" to prevent the process from being used in geothermal development. What’s your take?

ANSWER: Why would we have legislation prohibiting hydrofracking for oil and gas when we don’t have oil and gas? … (As if he was saying,) "This is a preemptive strike I was putting together against geothermal." …

It kind of demonstrates the knee-jerk paranoia that we have going on. I just don’t understand it. To see that kind of thing happen in the state Senate? I mean, I expect confusion and maybe some ignorance about energy technology, I expect that in the local community. But, boy, you don’t expect that in the state Senate.

It’s just like the PLDC. There’s all kinds of horrible scenarios.

Q: What do you mean?

A: When you look at the PLDC, it was an idea, came out a couple of years ago, we’ve had some rulemaking. But all of the horrible scenarios, when you look at the testimony, I’m astounded by it. You know what I’m saying?

Including many Hawaiians getting up and saying, "This is going to destroy our burials." When I looked at all the testimony, testifier after testifier saying, "We need an EIS (environmental impact statement). This should not have been exempted." Well, an EIS wasn’t exempted and there’s no exemption from the archaeological inventory. But yet, because of this misinformation, we have Hawaiians all over the state testifying against it because they believe we are going to lose our cultural resources.

A few of us participated in the process, and we got our language in. Hawaiian burials, all cultural resources, all endemic species, protection for the wahi pana, the sacred places, the heiau, and also specific mention of our trails and access rights.

Our job as Hawaiians is to always protect our cultural resources. We were arrested for these things. We were arrested for the burial law. We camped out in sleeping bags in front of the Legislature for night after night, to get that burial law passed.

So now that we’re looking at the PLDC, we Hawaiians know what the protections are. We made that law, we got arrested for it. And now we need to get in there, take our civic responsibility and amend these laws. And that is exactly what has happened.

Q: How did you get involved with the PLDC issue?

A: I really did not participate in the passage of the PLDC legislation, but at the energy briefings that occurred during the summer, I had a chance to talk with some folks who were developing solar and wind.

They were talking about how the state itself had vast energy resources, that there was significant solar opportunity to be developed on state lands, there was significant wind on state lands, and that what our state really needed to do was follow what other states are doing. Get actively involved in the development of public energy resources and move forward with the creation of publicly owned utilities, so that we can have energy security at a fair rate, instead of turning energy from our own trust into a private marketable commodity.

Well, as a result of that conversation, I became convinced that they were right. And from that time to the present, I have tried to support the Public Land Development Corp. because I am committed to see this state change the energy paradigm, by identifying and developing our vast public trust energy resources for our security, Hawaiian and public both.

We need to do this for many reasons. One of the primary ones is, of course, food security. Our state has to import the majority of our food. Our farmers are going out of business because they cannot carry the fuel costs, they cannot carry the electricity costs. And fertilizer, being oil-based, is now priced beyond their capacity. They’re being forced to give up propagation of food; they have to plant weeds for biomass. We don’t need to do that for agriculture. If we develop geothermal in places such as Puna, which is the largest agricultural area, that energy can be made readily available for agricultural pursuits, without the added costs of transmission.

But the focus: "Bring the energy to Kona, because that’s where we have industrial, commercial, residential." We need to prioritize energy for food first. And I see our vast state resources, especially geothermal, as being the key there. You cannot move your economy, you cannot develop any form of business, you cannot achieve food security and self-sufficiency without energy, and so that must be our first priority.

And frankly, I don’t think we can survive anymore under the burden of the HECO monopoly. I don’t think we can survive as a state, as a Hawaiian community, as a business community.

Q: You’ve worked with the Maori; are they ahead of Native Hawaiians in energy development?

A: Significantly ahead. The world recognizes that New Zealand’s national statutory scheme is probably the most advanced in the world for renewable energy. For many, many years they have developed their geothermal and hydro resources, and they have vast resources.

So, if you want the worst scenario, it’s New Zealand, because when they first started developing geothermal, it was a toxic mess. That was many, many years ago. Today, they demonstrate all of the geothermal and other technologies, hydro technologies, available in the world. They started out before everyone, and they learned the hard way.

But today, they reaped the benefit in the form of progressive law and practice. … They would never allow it to be controlled by the private sector. They do not allow it. They view energy as being the core of national security. So in New Zealand, the federal government moved forward to develop the energy for the people. They were state-owned enterprises — SOEs.

But after they were created, and they were up and running, the New Zealand government said now is the time to divest of the government control, and we will sell the stock to the people in the community.

So (IDG’s New Zealand partner) Eastland became a community-owned trust, and they do transmission and they do production. So they were a good partner for us, because our native-to-native development model, … we believe that the development of native energy assets must be done in a culturally appropriate way. And because these are native and public trust assets, we must ensure the direct benefit to the beneficiaries: fair rate, share of revenue, share of energy and share of business opportunity.

Q: At one point, didn’t Hawaiians consider it almost sacrilegious to develop geothermal energy?

A: Absolutely. Not only was I up there demonstrating, but I was the attorney who walked with the Hawaiian kupuna that were arrested in the Thousand Person March. …

But let’s look at the reality of the time. Foreign company comes in — cheap, filthy technology. No information provided to the county, none to the community. They move in to develop resources, they go to our sacred place, they prevent people from worshipping. They arrest Auntie Emily Naeole, our councilwoman, for picking flowers to make a lei po’o (head lei). We had to shut ’em down. You don’t do that in a sacred place.

I tell you something else: Those guys try to come back, they get the same treatment.

Q: So what’s different now?

A: We came forward. We stopped it. We went and we amended Chapter 343 (of the state’s environmental statutes). … After the Pele Defense cases, we took it all the way to the Hawaii Supreme Court. We won the right to worship. Since that case was won to the present time, there has not been a single Hawaiian prevented from worshipping Tutu Pele. We won that.

So we understand now, development is not moving forward in a sacrilegious way.

Q: Has the energy issue put you at odds with other Hawaiians?

A: Oh, many. Many, many. I still see people at hearings and they say, "You’re a damned sellout," and all this. … We have always been targets, myself and my sister. … We’re used to it. My sense is that being bullied and being threatened cannot prevent us from developing our native assets for our own future security. … We cannot be intimidated by name-calling and empty threats at hearings. You have to tough up and go forward.