Roadkill on H-4
Superferry
might hit whales, won't ship Strykers

by Alan D. McNarie

With a cruising speed of 35 knots (45 mph), the Hawaii Superferry (HSF) is "going to end up killing marine mammals," claims Duane Erway, a member of the Whale National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council. Another member of the council, Terry O'Halloran, points out the group has already approved the Superferry's whale avoidance policy. O'Halloran is also Director of Business Development for Hawaii Superferry.
O'Halloran did not answer a number of questions at two recent public information meetings in Kona and Hilo, the closest thing to formal public hearings on this island.
Both meetings largely consisted of presentations by O'Halloran and officials from the Department of Agriculture's invasive species control program and the Department of Transportation's Harbors Division; only 30 minutes were reserved for questions.
Citizens had questions about possible traffic congestion around Kawaihae Harbor; impacts on recreational uses of the harbor; agricultural inspections to prevent the spread of invasive species; the company's lack of consultation with the native Hawaiian community and the Kawaihae community; the lack of an EIS, and the company's lavish distribution of money to legislators' campaign funds.
On March 28, Rep. Joe Souki, chair of the House Transportation Committee, refused to allow hearings on a state legislative bill to force an EIS for the project, effectively killing it. A state lawsuit by environmental groups to force an EIS was under appeal to the Supreme Court.
The company's whale avoidance policy garnered the most questions.
O'Halloran is currently chair of the sanctuary's Advisory Committee. In 2005, when it endorsed the Superferry's whale avoidance plan, he chaired the Whale-Vessel Collision Avoidance Work Group. In 2006 he joined the Hawaii Superferry Company.
Highlights
* During mating and calving season, the Superferry would shift its routes out of areas where whales are more likely to concentrate.
* During the same period, the ships would slow down to 25 knots in shallow waters to avoid whales.
* Two lookouts would be stationed on the bridge with motion-stabilized binoculars (or night-vision scopes).
How could lookouts spot whales swimming just under the surface, as mother humpbacks and their calves tend to do, Sierra Club activist Cory Harden wondered. Others noted that after high speed ferries began operations in the Canary Islands and at the Pelagos Marine Sanctuary in the Mediterranean, reports of whale collisions and whale strandings rose drastically; 50 percent of the collisions in the Pelagos area involved high-speed ferries.
Videographer Lee Tepley cited a recent Canadian study that as ship speeds increased from 12 to 24 knots, the rate of collision and fatalities rose exponentially.
Tepley has also challenged the Sanctuary Advisory Committee's claim that cruise ships operate at 25 knots. He did a study of the Pride of Aloha's cruise route, and discovered that its average speed was actually around 13.5 knots.
Whale watch expert
Captain Dan McSweeney, who has been conducting whale watch tours and whale research in Hawai'i for 35 years.
"I think that there's a good likelihood that these things are going to be hitting whales," he said.
In ideal conditions, McSweeney said, a whale could be seen for miles, but "in less than ideal situations, they can be difficult to spot." Large swells could hide whole sailboats. Clouds, mist, spray and glare could obscure visibility. Although whales are huge, they're usually under water.
"A whale doesn't really put up much in the way of a lit surface in the day, much less at night," McSweeney observed.
"When they're young, there isn't much showing, in terms of spout..... They can easily be hidden in a choppy seascape," says McSweeny. "It's just absurd to think that they're going to be feeling good about spotting all these whales and avoiding them."
He also challenged the effectiveness of changing routes to deeper water. While the humpbacks were more concentrated in the shallows, they were actually "all over the place out there." He also noted that other whales, including pilot whales and sperm whales, tended to stay in deep water.
He did suggest more effective strategies, like increased training and experience for spotters. At night "infrared would be the way to do it," since whales were considerably warmer than seawater.
And he suggested putting additional spotters astern, since the surest way to know abut a collision is to watch for blood and blubber in the ship's wake.
"I don't know"
Adult humpbacks spout for a few seconds every 15-20 minutes. In between, they travel underwater in an unknown direction at 4 to 5 mph. Assuming that the spotter's binoculars were focused on that point at the moment the whale spouted, the ship would have to avoid an area that could extend to the radius of over 1.5 miles before the next spout.
The chances that spotters would notice the spout depend on wave height, humidity, glare, the area the binoculars could take in at once, and the number of sweeps of the horizon s/he was making per minute. Whether the ship could avoid the danger zone depends on how far away the whale was spotted and how fast the ship could turn.
We asked O'Halloran how much time the Superferry would need to avoid a whale once it was spotted. He didn't know.
"There would be so many variables to that question," he said. He didn't know how fast the ship could turn. He did know that the avoidance policy required the Superferry to stay at least 500 meters from the whales.
Was the spotter's night vision technology based on infrared or amplified light? He didn't know. Had the technology ever been used to spot a whale before? He didn't know but said it spotted a seagull on the water a mile away.
How many degrees of coverage would the spotters' binoculars provide? He didn't know, but suggested we check the Web under specs for 30x50 binoculars; but he wasn't sure what "30x50" meant.
Had HSF explored other technologies, such as aerial spotting, satellite spotting or listening buoys? He didn't know. He said the company had considered forward-looking sonar, but that technology was "not currently available." He also said that the sanctuary advisory committee was looking at land-based observers with theodolites (land surveying equipment) relaying to ships accurate latitudinal and longitudinal locations of whales.
No Strykers
The company did provide some solid information. Most notably, O'Halloran said the Superferry would not transport military Stryker vehicles.
"We have no contract with the military to carry personnel or equipment. We are not negotiating with the military," he said.
This contradicts a Pacific Business News report (03/26/05), in which Superferry chair and chief investor John Lehman, whose firm normally invests in military and aerospace technology, envisioned the Superferry carrying Strykers from O'ahu to training exercises at Pohakuloa on Hawai'i Island. Lehman was Secretary of the Navy in the Reagan Administration, a member of the 9/11 Commission, and is a major player in what Dwight D. Eisenhower once called the "military-industrial complex."
O'Halloran dismissed Lehman's statements as speculation on a possible market that didn't pan out. Long-time peace activist Jim Albertini was unconvinced.
"That is about as reassuring as George Bush saying that he has no immediate plans to invade Iran," he said.
Service to Kawaihae is scheduled to begin in 2009; the voyage should take about four hours and 15 minutes. Vehicles would be prohibited if there was any caked dirt. (But there are no plans for car washing facilities at Kawaihae.) According to Dept. of Ag's Carol Okada, efforts to control the spread of coquis and other pests would focus on the growing areas, not on modes of interisland transportation.
HSF and government officials maintain that Superferry doesn't need an Environmental Impact Statement, because they are not required of cruise ships, barges or other maritime carriers. But Harden pointed out that an earlier high-speed ferry, now bankrupt, had filed an EIS. Others noted that no other maritime carriers traveled at
45 mph.

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