​We board Henk’s Tesla and glide silently up to the main house and sit out on the deck, where a pastoral landscape stretches across to Pu‛uanahulu, an ancient guardian of these parts. Before purchasing the ranch from Jerry King, the original house was renovated and set up for retreats, primarily for renewable energy or other sustainability explorations.
  “The very first gathering in the room downstairs was a meeting about hydrogen. I invited the expert on hydrogen from the University of Hawaii. That was the beginning. Hydrogen. It makes sense. It's something you can store long term and it’s portable and cheap to store. Why aren't cars and cooking and all that stuff being done with hydrogen?” asks Henk.
  This question led to the formation of Blue Planet Research with Paul as director. The workshop was dubbed the Blue Planet Energy Lab, beginning an experimental odyssey into energy independence.
Energy Roundup
  The first obstacle to tackle was making use of excess energy produced by renewables such as solar. “If you have an off-grid situation like us, it's built for a cloudy day. In other words, the batteries have to be able to charge to 100% on a cloudy day. But what happens on a sunny day? The batteries are charged by 9 or 10 o'clock in the morning and you've got the rest of the day and all this energy being wasted because there's nothing you can do with it,” says Henk.
  Unless you use the excess energy to split water and create hydrogen fuel. The basic process of creating hydrogen is simple. Plants do something similar every day when they convert light into chemical energy, which is then stored for later use. It’s called photosynthesis.
  To produce hydrogen you need to split water into its two elements: hydrogen and oxygen. One method of doing this is through electrolysis, where running a current through water, causing the oxygen to go to the positive pole and the hydrogen to accumulate on the negative pole. But you need energy to power the electrolysis, so the only economically viable way to produce hydrogen is to use free or very cheap energy, such as excess solar power.
  The lab’s 360 solar panels were producing an abundance of extra energy and Paul and Henk got to work to harness it, developing a battery storage system for the solar energy and using the excess to make hydrogen fuel. 
​  Just outside the lab is a small outbuilding that contains an industrial sized electrolysis system or the electrolyzer, that produces the hydrogen fuel that powers the back-up fuel cells. Two five foot tanks lay on their sides with a series of chambers at their feet, each with a dividing membrane. Oxygen bubbles up on the side with the positive pole and the hydrogen bubbles up on the negative. They are then captured in the two separate tanks.

​Reading and writing have always been at the center of Leesa Robertson’s life. Robertson grew up in Honolulu where she attended Kalani High School. “We were reading the Scarlet Letter and I had a teacher, Mr Butterfield, he believed in me and he helped me really connect with literature on a deeper level. He made me feel good about myself,” said Robertson. This began her journey to the classroom.
    After graduation Robertson earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Secondary English from U.C. Santa Barbara. She returned home and for a time worked in her mom’s real estate business but there was something missing. “I wanted to do something meaningful. I had a teacher that helped me and that's where it started with me, with a teacher. I wanted to help kids experience what I experienced and I wanted to share that with the community. I wanted to share that with public school kids,” said Robertson.
     Robertson spent the next two years obtaining a secondary English teaching credential from U.H. Manoa, met her husband Jay and moved to Hawaii Island. Her first teaching assignment was the ultimate test. “You have to take whatever they give you or they'll put your name at the bottom of the list and they gave me Hookena. Two hours away and I'd just moved here. The kids were laying on the desks, they had boom boxes and that was English class. It was tough. It was a rite of passage,” said Robertson.
    Using a reading / writing workshop model based on Nancy Atwell’s work, Robertson enticed her students to become readers and writers. “I had them read books they were interested in, write on topics they were interested in. Most of them came from Milolii, such a rich culture. I encouraged them to write about their family, their traditions,” said Robertson.
    The next fall, 1997, Robertson was offered a job teaching eighth grade English at Waimea Elementary and Middle School. In the last 20 years she has found a way to balance between her ideals and the daily realities of classroom life.  
    “You learn in school about how kids learn and what kids need and the reality is maybe you have a 150 kids and you have class sizes of 28. When I first started I was spending a lot of time on the weekends just reading and giving kids feedback on their writing. Now I've come to a place where I can still do it but I balance it out with my responsibilities for the mandates and skills that they need,” said Robertson.
    Through all the challenges and changes, Robertson remains a dedicated educator. “I come here every day because I want them to see the power they have as readers and writers and use that to help enrich their lives,” said Robertson.
    But just as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a dedicated team to educate a child. “Most of us have been here a long time and we've all been together through many changes and we all help each other navigate through,” concluded Robertson.

    When it rains, our gardens get much needed nourishment, but runoff from impervious surfaces sends  pollutants such as heavy metals and oil into our waterways and eventually into the ocean. Rain gardens are a way to prevent this happening and Wai’ula’ula Stream, which begins in the Kohalas and runs through the center of Waimea to the ocean has been gifted one.
    On Wed. Feb. 1, extension agent, Lisa Ferentinos from the University of Hawaii Sea Grant College Program (UHSGCP), student volunteers from the Kohala Center’s after school program, Ke Kumu Aina and Julia Rose from The Nature Conservancy and the South Kohala Coastal Partnership installed a rain garden in the northeast corner of the Waimea Shopping Center’s back lot.
    The garden is a shell shaped slope and is made up of a selection of native Hawaiian plants such as ilima, mamaki, uhi uhi, mau hau hele, ti and ohia to name a fewki. “The idea is the plants in the lowest part of the garden are adapted to being wetter. The ones in the upper part are adapted to being draught tolerant and the ones in the middle can handle a little bit of wet and a little bit of dry,” said Ferentinos.
    The run-off will be directed to the garden through a sub-surface pipe. “The idea is the water comes in off the parking lot into this low area. There's a pipe that will help distribute the water. You use the plants to bio-mediate any of the pollutants. The plants will take up the water and anything that's in the water and any water that goes into the stream will be filtered,” explained Ferentinos.
    The rain garden project for Hawaii Island began back in 2014 through a conservation partnership. “The South Kohala Coastal Partnership (SKCP), of which UHSGCP is a member, helped find funding to do an assessment of Waiulaula Stream for the worse erosion hot spots. That was completed in 2014,” said Ferentinos.
    Once five hot spots were identified, “They (SKCP) got funding from the Department of Health Polluted Run- off Control Program to address some of the worse erosion hot spots along Wai’ula’ula Stream,” said Ferentinos.
    Although there are many rain gardens that have been developed on Oahu, Ferentinos has adapted the design of the Waimea garden to fit the conditions. “This one might be the first on the Big Island. There's quite a few on Oahu, but they're at sea level and it's a different situation, different soil, different plants,” said Ferentinos.
    The rain garden is one of many strategies to address run-off along the Wai’ula’ula Stream corridor. The first effort was to plant a strip of kikuyu, for its low maintenance, and native hibiscus along the bank of the stream, directly behind, the center’s courtyard. 
    The next hot spot will be at the Ulu La’au Nature Park, where, Kohala Center’s Ke Kumu Aina program is centered. The group meets on Wednesdays from 1:30 to 5:00 to explore and learn about Hawaii Island’s native plants.
    Ke Kumu Aina Program Coordinator, Mahina Patterson and her students, who helped plant the rain garden, will be on hand to help. “We will install erosion control matting and coconut fiber logs and vegetation to slow down the erosion of the banks. We already have a trial area to make sure that the concept we were considering was workable and we're in the process of ordering the materials and getting the labor contracted to do that site, which we expect to happen in another couple of months,” said Ferentinos.
    The skilled, enthusiastic hands of Ku’ulei Kumai-Ho from Waimea Middle School; Shaelynne Monell-Lagaret from Kanu o ka Aina and Julian Fried from HPA soon have the garden planted and blessed with positive intensions. But the care for the garden doesn’t stop there.
    “In Hawaii there's no such thing as no maintenance. That's a huge challenge with all environmental projects here. We're trying to get school groups to adopt areas that we're doing our projects in. We're trying to get teachers at Parker School and Waimea Middle School engaged. The idea is that each school or class can take on some part that matches up with their educational goals,” said Ferentinos.
    The rain garden is both a little bit experiment and a way to educate the community about how they can help prevent run-off. “Once the plants are established we're going to have a workshop and invite the community to come and learn about rain gardens. We're trying some techniques and plants that haven't been tried before, so once we get an idea of how well it's working then we'd like to invite the public to come and learn about it,” said Ferentinos.
    The effort to prevent run-off is a whole community affair and requires individual awareness of causes and how they can be fixed. “We’re hoping to encourage folks to install rain gardens at their homes to deal with any run off from their impervious surfaces like driveways or roof tops and encourage other folks in the community to consider using rain gardens to have the excess infiltrate rather than run off into the stream,” concluded Ferentions. 
    On Oahu, the Hui o Koolaupoko has been working on several projects to prevent run-off and has created a rain garden manual that can be accessed at: http://www.huihawaii.org/uploads/1/6/6/3/16632890/raingardenmanual-web-res-smaller.pdf
The assessment of Waiulaula Stream can be accessed at:
http://www.southkohalacoastalpartnership.com/uploads/2/5/7/1/25718612/southkohalasca_final_sept2014.pdf

​    Pastor John used his consensus building skills while serving a term on the South Kohala CDP. “He was a representative for our area and it was helpful to us because it presented a lot of things we wanted to see in the master plan that related to our community. We miss his voice,” said Fry.
    Most recently, Pastor John had been working on a project to re-unite adjacent land remnants with the church’s property. “For some reason the land was not recorded as belonging to the church. It was surrounded by remnants that were designated state land and one of those remnants had the old school house. They combined them with the existing church land and that has taken about 15 years,” said Hoover.
    “John really spearheaded that effort. There were quite a few entities, and coastal commissions. It was quite a feat to get that done,” said Fry.
    The project has just gotten underway with the clearing of the brush and overgrown trees to remove fire hazards and allow shoreline access. “The church has agreed to set a community example by taking care of that property. Those parcels of land aren't going to be used for high rise development because they're going to be used for landscaping purposes only,” said Hoover.
    As part of the project, Pastor John also worked to include the property in the Ala Kahakai trail, which will go through the parcel. “That makes sense. An historic trail next to an historic church,” said Hoover.
The Puako Historical Society, an archive of photos and documents, was another of Pastor John’s endeavors. During his time as president of the society, he worked with Mary Morrison and Audrey Woodall to create Puako: An Affectionate History, which tells some of Puako’s special story.
    At the heart of everything Pastor John does is the aloha spirit of inclusion, connection and humbleness. “It's where I learned the meaning of ohana. Technically I knew what the word meant but going beyond that it’s where people can feel it and that can be attributed to what Pastor John has done there. He encourages everybody to accept everybody,” said long time church member, George Winchell.
    It’s an ohana that is spread far and wide. “There were people who met there who came to visit every year. Friendships were developed with people all over the world. That place is very rich in those kinds of relationships,” said Hoover. “One Christmas Eve we asked people to sing one verse of Silent Night in their native language and we counted 17 languages,” he added.
    Much of those warm connections are due to Pastor John’s special abilities. “He knows how to read people and he can treat people differently based on what they need. He knew how to reach out. He's been retired for a year and the church still gets letters asking for his contact information. Notes that say how much a particular sermon meant to them and they want to touch base again,” said Winchell.
    He will be very much missed, but as he said, “I’m of age” and it’s time for him to retire. “It was an awesome experience to be able to be in Puako and be in that little church that has so much history and be a part of that continuing history. I'm really honored to have had that opportunity,” said Hoover.