There are some disadvantages to living on an island far from the mainland. Things can take longer to get, and that isn’t always bad. There are some things you either can’t get, or cost more to ship than to buy. Several times more. Sometimes the shipper blames USPS, when the item is mailable and even qualified for fixed price Priority Mail.
Some things that are slow to get here, are just as well. We have a much lower rate of COVID-19 than most places because we can regulate who comes here. No one can drive or walk here, our state line is 2,000 miles wide. Sure, our quarantine could have been done better, but that is true of everything. Thankfully, our food supply has been reliable, even if the lines are long. On the other hand, traffic is light. At this point, the only thing I need but can’t get is isopropyl alcohol. Our public servants do an amazing job in spite of the limitations.
Mainland cities get much of their water from reservoirs, maybe hundreds of miles away, but mostly using technology Julius Caesar would recognize. We have very little surface water. Most fresh water is hundreds of feet underground, so deep that it takes oil industry technology to get it, but water doesn’t sell for $20 a barrel. Putting a pipe underground here costs $2 million a mile.
Hawaiian Electric has to have enough capacity to meet all demand, and no ability to wheel power from a neighbor, unlike mainland utilities. The voracious weed growth here makes transmission line maintenance a constant effort. Supplying a powerplant with fuel delivered in truckload batches cannot compare to the efficiency of being right on top of a mine, well or pipeline. West Hawaii Today needs four months-worth of paper on hand, just in case.
Every police department seems to need a half million-dollar SWAT van. In Honolulu, they can divide the cost between a million people, $0.50 cents each. Here we have only 200,000. Small mainland departments can share. If a mainland police department is overwhelmed, they can call the Sheriff, State Police or Highway Patrol for instant help. Such help, if we can get it is four hours away, or four days. Fire protection is equally challenging what you have here is all there will be. Mainland fire departments count on help from neighboring agencies. The nearest real aerial tanker is 2,600 miles away. Fortunately, we have a lot of dozers and backhoes, in backyards.
We get lectured about sustainability. Grow your own food. I was even told that if I won’t, too bad, starve. That’s the same logic Stalin used to force Ukraine farmers onto communes, where they starved anyway. We are shamed that 80% of our food is imported. It’s really very simple. The international food industry is so efficient that you can buy almost anything nearly ready to eat cheaper and maybe better than you could do it on your own. It makes economic sense to grow food where it grows best and ship it where its wanted. Modern transportation can incredibly inexpensive. Subsistence farmers work hard, have little variety in diet. Some get almost all their nutrition from a single crop and often have periods of extreme hunger, or outright starvation. We get anything we want any time we want; well almost.
While we are lectured about individually producing food locally, we collectively obstruct any efforts to do so. Animal husbandry, for milk or meat is too smelly and noisy. Food crops might use smoky tractors, chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Plowing might cause runoff. Vacation rental pays better. Hotels earn more per acre than crops, until now. Why can’t we all live an idealized version where food grows in our backyard and magically appears in our pot. Because the real world is complicated. Accept the things you cannot change, then change the thing you actually can.
Ken Obenski is a forensic engineer, now safety and freedom advocate in South Kona. He writes a biweekly column for West Hawaii Today. Send feedback to obenskik@gmail.com