Waipio parade set

The "Parade of Champions" for the Waipio Little League All-Stars is set for Sept. 12. The parade will be from 10 to 11 a.m., beginning at Ukee and Waipio Uka streets in Waipio-Gentry. It will travel down Waipio Uka Street, turn left on Ka Uka Boulevard, and end at Central Oahu Regional Park, where the athletes will be honored along with other youths who have won national championships.

Floating radar leaves Ford Island

The Missile Defense Agency’s giant floating radar left its Ford Island dock yesterday after $7 million in maintenance was completed sooner than expected, officials said.

When it will return to Hawaii is unclear. Missile Defense Agency officials said it will resume operations at sea.

The $1 billion ballistic missile tracker, known as the Sea-Based X-Band Radar, or SBX, returned to Pearl Harbor on July 13.

The Missile Defense Agency said the SBX would be in port in Hawaii for "periodic maintenance" and to conduct American Bureau of Shipping surveys leading to renewal of a U.S. Coast Guard certificate of inspection. Work included checks of the vessel hull and machinery operating condition and safety, as well as checking all safety programs.

The distinctive radar was expected to be in Hawaii until the fall. It has 45,000 radiating elements within its white pressurized dome to track targets. Designed to discriminate nuclear warheads from decoys, the radar is so powerful it can detect a baseball flying through the air on the East Coast when the SBX itself is on the West Coast.

Since the "golf ball" arrived here in 2006 from Corpus Christi, Texas, for a temporary stay, it has returned periodically to Hawaii for millions of dollars in maintenance and repairs.

Isle roads rank near worst in study

State roads nationwide are the best they’ve been in years, but Hawaii’s highway system is ranked 47th in the nation, according to a study released yesterday by Los Angeles-based think tank Reason Foundation.

Hawaii bested California, Alaska and Rhode Island, which were the three worst states for highways. The study looked at road conditions during 2008.

Hawaii is ranked worst in the nation when it comes to urban interstate conditions, with about 25 percent of freeways with poor mileage conditions.

But the isles did perform well when it comes to fatality rates. It has the 12th safest roads when it comes to fatalities, with about 1.04 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles driven. Hawaii also has the best rural interstate conditions.

"It also reported an improvement in the deficient bridges from 44.8 percent reported deficient in 2007 to 37.96 percent reported deficient in 2008," the report states.

The isles also have the smallest state-owned road system, logging in 1,005 total miles across the four counties.