STAND. COM. REP. NO.  419

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                , 2007

 

RE:   H.B. No. 1924

 

 

 

 

Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Fourth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2007

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committee on Agriculture, to which was referred H.B. No. 1924 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE ERADICATION AND CONTROL OF THE COQUI FROG,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose of this measure is to appropriate funds to eradicate and control the spread of the coqui frog in Hawaii.

 

     Your Committee received supporting testimony from the Department of Agriculture, the Mayor of Maui County, the Kauai County Council, the Kauai Office of Economic Development, the Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation, the Hawaii Agriculture Research Center, The Nature Conservancy, the Hawaii Association of Realtors, and fourteen other concerned citizens.  Your Committee also received testimony from a concerned citizen who was opposed to this measure.

 

     Your Committee finds that infestations of the Caribbean tree frog (eleutherodactylus coqui), more commonly known as the coqui frog have been documented in over one hundred fifty sites on the island of Hawaii.  Coqui frog populations are also growing on the islands of Maui and Kauai as well.  This infestation of coqui frogs is in such high concentrations that the sounds they emit have been measured at sustained levels exceeding the Department of Health's maximum permissible sound level of seventy decibels and, therefore, have become a threat to human health and welfare and unreasonably interferes with the comfortable enjoyment of life and property.

 

     This measure provides the means to eradicate and control the coqui frog state-wide to ultimately eliminate or reduce the economic, environmental, and public health threats posed by the coqui frog to the State.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Agriculture that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 1924 and recommends that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Finance.

 

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Agriculture,

 

 

 

 

____________________________

CLIFT TSUJI, Chair