 Today we are going to talk to our senator from the Big Island, and it is big. A senator, Russell Roderman, represents the district of Puna, which of course is all over the map and everybody around the world is talking about Puna, like they know where it is. And so to really talk about Puna, what is going on and what the future holds for Puna, we are going to talk to Senator Russell Roderman. Good morning, Senator. Good morning. Thank you for having me. How are you? Oh, we're doing wonderful. I am so pleased to talk to you today, to talk about Puna and where it is and what is going on. First, tell us about the senator. Give us a little background about you. Well, it has been my second term in office, you know, before getting elected I was mostly a citizen activist, I would say, and my main area of involvement was always environmental issues. On the side, I own a group of natural food stores here on the Big Island and my big hobby is playing music, so politics and music and business, that's my three hats. Oh, wonderful. Now, what kind of a store do you have? We have a group of three natural foods markets, kind of like miniature Whole Foods type stores. No GMOs. Well, we do our best to limit GMOs, we don't add new GMO products, it's very difficult to claim no GMOs if you have any packaged foods these days, so we do our best. Okay. And the name of the store or the stores? The name of the store is Island Naturals. Island Naturals, Market and Deli, yeah. Correct. And where are they located? We're in Hilo. Wonderful. Now, so in natural foods, you're trying not to have GMOs, did I understand that? You know, I don't want to make the discussion about GMOs in natural foods, what we try to do is present healthy, uncontaminated foods, you know, we use organic as much as possible, which means it was grown without most chemical fertilizers or pesticides. So we have healthy Whole Foods that are honestly labeled, that's the important thing. We do try to avoid GMOs, but I think it's more important, you know, issues like organic local health foam are more on people's minds these days, perhaps. Now tell us, these are locally grown foods? Well, we have as much locally grown foods as possible, we always try to increase the amount of locally grown food that we sell. And in our produce department, it's, you know, maybe 60% local, but when you look in the package foods department, most of those things still come from the maintenance. But now, speaking of locally grown, and I guess I'm out of order here, but tell us about Puna, then I can get to the question I wanted to ask you about locally grown. How big is Puna? All of the farms and ranches and things that are in that district and now are being forced into looking different because of Madame Pele. So let's tell us about Puna. A very diverse district, it's very large. As you mentioned earlier, the Puna district is actually larger than the island of Oahu. To give some perspective, we have about 45,000 people that live here, which is about the same as the population of Hilo or Kona, although most people don't realize that. Puna is the fastest growing district in our state and the poorest district in our state. And I think both of those things relate to the fact that land here is still very affordable compared to the average of Hawaii. So when someone's on a fixed income or someone's looking around the state for a place they can afford, East Hawaii and Puna look very attractive because of the cost of land and the cost of housing here. So therefore a lot of relatively poor people have gravitated here and also that's the reason for the fast growing nature of it because it's affordable. So a lot of people couldn't afford life on Oahu, moved to Pahoa and Hilo. It's very, it is really beautiful. The whole island is beautiful. Now of course right now our big thing we're facing is this lava flow, which has affected about a third of our districts and affected some areas very, very greatly and it's frankly devastating and I think it's very hard for people outside of our district to understand what it's like. I know there's no way to know. I've been watching pictures every day and been mesmerized by the flow but it's still almost impossible to really think of what the people are going through with the odor or the sulfur or whatever that is that comes from the volcano. What about the people that had farms down there, the orchids, the vegetables, the coffee? What about those farmers? What happens to them? It's a disaster. There's no way of avoiding saying that it's a disaster because for most of the farmers that were affected by this lava flow they not only have lost their land or the ability to farm their land but they've lost their income and perhaps their livelihood because it's not easy to just start over when you're a farmer. There's maybe a lead time of at least a year before the crops can produce money and you have to find new land to farm and get set up with all the equipment and personnel and everything so it's devastating. One of the things I think people don't understand is most of the folks who've lost their home, many of them have also lost their livelihood so it's much worse than it might seem and of course this applies to all the farmers who have lost their land. Some farms have been inundated, covered by lava. Other farms are inaccessible and others are not safe to be because of the sulfur dioxide in the air and in some of those cases many of the crops have died already so it's different categories of people but their farm is not viable right now for many, many of them. That includes we had both diversified agriculture in Buddha which was a lot of orchards and vegetables. We also had quite a bit of papaya farming and we also had quite a bit of orchid growing. I think we're certainly the papaya capital of the state and possibly the orchid capital of the state. Well I would think the orchids were sold all over the world aren't they? Well they're sold all over the world. The ones that are grown in Hawaii I'd say a lot of them are grown into a district. So a lot of the people who lost their farms were orchid growers. Well now tell me is there a way for you as a senator to look at moving them to another location? The big island is big. Is there a way to redevelop in another location? Because they'll never go back. You know the law was just covering everything. So is there a way for you to move them to new development? I hate to say redevelopment but a new development. Is that possible? Is there? It is possible and I am trying to do that. I'm working on a proposal to relocate both residences, residents and farms. Oh it's still under discussion. My proposal is that we use a large section of state land which is unused and we could relocate people to that and both a residential, new village and also a new agricultural park. Which by the way I already had a proposal for an agricultural park in the same area. Starting a couple of years ago it's moving slowly. If we have the will to fast track that then we could settle a lot of farmers on land out there quickly as a response to this disaster. I'm also working, the main thing I'm working on is long term relocation for people who have been displaced and I'm proposing the use of state land for that although there are several other options of ways we could help people relocate but it's important to me that we develop a plan and begin to move on it soon because people really need a sense of hope, they need a sense of light at the end of the tunnel and try to have a way of picturing what their life is like. I mentioned the loss of homes and I mentioned the loss of livelihood and what's probably hard for people to understand is that there's a tremendous mental stress in the community that's been affected. Some form of PTSD is affecting pretty much everybody that lost their home or was evacuated. So it's very, very stressful and people need a sense that there's a way to move forward. So the biggest needs that we have here are A, short term housing and B, long term housing. I want to emphasize that these are not easy things to solve but we're past the phase where we need food and water and we don't need that anymore, we don't need clothing and tents. What we need is housing. We need short term housing to get people out of the very uncomfortable situations that they're in, either at the shelter or on someone's couch or garage and then we need to move forward on a long term relocation solution because that will take a while and meanwhile we're losing time. I consider it urgent. It is urgent, even just watching I can see the urgency and I'm sure you're correct about the PTSD, even those of us that are watching, it hurts, just watching and knowing what the law is doing while I'm a fan of Madame Pele, it still hurts to see this, to see what is happening to real people in real time. Tell me about the geothermal plant. Now what is going on with that thing? It was in the path of lava and it has been shut down since not in operation and beyond just being shut down they took a lot of precautionary steps to try to prevent hazards when lava hits various parts of it, they've sealed the wells and sealed some of their equipment so that it would be safe if it gets inundated by lava. So right now it's offline, it has been offline since day two of the eruption I think and it's going to be offline for somewhere between months to years if not forever because I mean right now you can't even drive to the place. The electrical connections to it are all gone, the substations are gone, some of their equipment is gone, some of the wells are gone, so you can't even get equipment to it for months at best and we will have to move on in terms of our electrical grid to replace that electricity with other renewable energy and I think that will have happened in the next year or so. I personally don't think they're ever going to reopen that plant because it's surrounded on three sides by hot glowing lava. Even if the earth it should survive this eruption I don't understand who's going to look at that picture and say this looks like a safe place. Yeah we have a picture of that and it doesn't look safe at all. So I can't believe they're ever going to try to reopen that plant but that's a discussion for the future. The problems that Geothermal is having in Hawaii are not political, they're geological and they can't be solved by discussion it will take them a very long time to figure out what to do. Well we need to take a break and we will be back in one minute and then let's look at where we started, the future and other options. Okay? Thank you Major. Thank you. This is Think Tech Hawaii raising public awareness. I just walked by and I said what's happening guys they told me they were making music. Welcome to Hawaii this is Prince Dykes your host of The Prince of Investing coming to you guys each and every Tuesday at 11 a.m. right here on Think Tech Hawaii don't forget to come by and check out some of the great information on stocks, investings, your money, all the other great stuff and I'll be your host. See you Tuesday. Aloha. I'm Marcia Joyner and we are navigating the journey with Senator Russell Roderman from the Big Island from the area of Puna. Is that District 2 or 1? Yes. And it is almost, now how far are you from South Point? From South Point it's 30 miles, 40 miles, something like that. Yeah. A little bit more than that I'm sorry let's say 50. That is the most southern point in the United States. Is that correct? Yes. So you're next. Well you could say that. Yeah. Now we want to talk about the future. Where do we go from here? How do you see this in all of the things that you said needed to be done? Step one, step two, step three, how do we move forward? And what is it that the rest of us can do to support your move forward? Now of course my one thing we talk about all the time on cannabis chronicles is hemp industry. Not marijuana but hemp, growing hemp as an industry. And all of the things that can come from that. And so where are you with this one? On the subject of hemp you mean? Yes, as an industry. Yes, I'm all for it. I think it's a wonderful opportunity for us in Hawaii. I think there'll be tremendous demand for Hawaiian hemp products. And as you may know some of the CBD oil and medicines are made from hemp. And we could certainly make those kind of medicinal hemp products here. I think there's tremendous opportunities for us economically, medically in terms of building materials in terms of fuel and even in terms of seed. We import all of our feed for chickens and stuff and hemp could be a big boon for that. I'm very excited that we're going to get started with it finally. Yeah, well we have a picture of you with Senator Gabbard about hemp and the hemp. The way I see it, the way I'd like to see it, let me put it this way. As a hemp industry from seed to manufacture to export, when we have this whole, I don't know what you call it, where children go away to school and don't come back, at least that's what my experience with all of my sons. And so if we go from seed to growing to manufacturing to export, we have an industry that our children can grow into. They can learn to be farmers, manufacturers, scientists, engineers, all with this industry. So that they get to stay home. They don't have to go to California or Vegas or whatever. Yes, it has tremendous economic potential for our state. And I've been calling for its liberalization or legalization for many years. In fact, for several years, and I will propose again next year a bill that allows counties to regulate cannabis. So that if a county, for example, a big island wants to have more liberal cannabis loss than the state has, I don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to experiment with that. I know you're talking about hemp, and yes, there was just, you know, some moves have happened recently that makes hemp much more possible as a commercial crop, and I'm very excited about that. I think cannabis on both sides of the coin has tremendous potential for our society. Well, you're an environmentalist, and this is one of those little things. Yes. There are those 27,000 real trees that go into making toilet paper just for the United States. 27,000 trees. Just think how many trees we could save if we used hemp to make toilet paper. Yeah. You know, it's just unimaginable that they're cutting down real, beautiful trees. I agree. And as a reminder, the reason hemp or cannabis is illegal was originally from money from the oil and timber industry. And so if we think about how much timber we cut and burned or processed over the last 80 years, instead of hemp, which could have replaced it and how much deforestation we've suffered, it's an environmental crime on a huge scale. And it's about time we reversed it, restored sanity to that. Well, you commented about the counties being able to regulate. Now, in 2006, the Supreme Court said the states, they gave states rights. Now that, you know, that hurts me to say states rights. But nonetheless, they said the states have a right to regulate their medical issues. So the state of Hawaii did that in 02. And what is the holdup? I know that on the Big Island, they're growing seed to see what works best in Hawaii. So what's the holdup? The holdup was legal issues getting the first crops in the ground, you know. I mean, I think there was issues with obtaining the seed legally, obtaining the licenses legally. I'm not sure what to say, Marcia, but I think that the holdups are mostly in the past. That's the good news. It has to do mostly with the federal scheduling of any cannabis practice and schedule one drug. And so you have to get special permission from DEA to import even hemp seeds, which is absurd, but that's the legal situation we have been in the last few years. I believe it's changing very fast right now. So on the hemp side, at least, there's good news. Yeah, well, I'm talking about hemp as an industry. Yeah, I understand. Now, of course, medical cannabis is different. Do you have any dispensaries on the Big Island? Not that are open yet. Ours seem to be the last to open. The two of them have a license to open, but they have not opened yet. So no, the answer is no. And the reason it's called the Big Island is because it's big, and only two dispensaries? Well, I'm sorry. To be clear, two companies got licensed to open dispensaries. They each can open two, so that could lead to potentially four dispensaries on the Big Island. I don't think that that's our limiting factor. It's a legal situation at all. You know, when they did award legal medical dispensary licenses, I think they did it in a convoluted manner that made it much more difficult and much more expensive for the people who want to be in the legal medical dispensary business than what they should have done. I fear they've made it so expensive that the black market will continue to thrive instead, and the legitimate dispensaries will struggle because of the expenses that have been put on them that are absurd. Well, now you're a senator, so you can go back and take a look at that, right, in this next session. Well, theoretically, I mean, really, what, half years ago, the legislature passed a bill asking the Department of Health to make medical marijuana available through dispensaries. We passed a fairly clear bill with a statement of intent, and it somehow got convoluted to say that, well, we're going to make this difficult as possible pretty much, and we're going to make the ways people really want to take it, which is smoking or eating. We're going to make that as difficult as possible. So I think a bureaucracy got in the way of our legislative intent in the process of drafting rules and made it much more difficult, much more limited and much more expensive than it ought to have been. Well, now the Department of Health is in the governor's office, and can they just run a muck like that? Yeah, I don't want to say that they're running a muck. I think there's good people each responding from their own point of view, but the net result is a perversion of what the legislative intent was. We wanted it to be available safely, and instead it's not available inconvenient. It is, and I'm still amazed, like I said, as big as the Big Island is, and you only have two. Now, in the little bit of time we left, everything in Pune is upset, or almost. What about rural health? What about the health of these people? Are there facilities that are outside of that area, hospitals, clinics, whatever, to assist? Because you talked about PTSD. There's some non-government agencies, charitable agencies that are trying to be involved. And of course, we have a hospital in Hilo, but Pune, which I repeat as the size of Oahu, doesn't have a hospital or an emergency room or psychiatric office. We don't have any of the basic services that almost every other district in our state has. And so we're lacking profoundly in basic services. Our whole island has a shortage of mental health professionals, so it's of course much worse than Pune, where we don't have any offices. But we have a lack of all those kinds of services. When I get on the plane Monday morning and from going to Oahu for business, I see a bunch of acquaintances and friends. Almost all of them are traveling to Oahu to see a medical specialist because we don't have the services on the big island. Well, okay, so then at the opening of the legislature, that should be number one, rural health. It really needs to be, not just Pune, but even when you get out of urban Honolulu, when you get out further, that's an issue. So I am asking you to please make that a priority rural health across the state. This modern day, we have to do better than this. We must do better than this. Thank you. It's a priority for me. Thank you. Thank you. And count on it. We'll support whatever you want when it comes to rural health. And I promised you we would end on time and you will come back and let's talk more about rural health and how we can help. Okay. Thank you very much, Marsha. Thank you so much. Aloha.