The state Department of Agriculture could get $20 million for efforts to control invasive species.
Last week, the Senate Committee on Ways and Means allocated the funding in House Bill 2619. That money would go toward more than 100 new and existing DOA positions related to the state’s management of invasive species.
“They need more inspectors at the ports, but they also need some of the other work that goes on and what's laid out shows that they are getting some of their specialist positions back through — a noxious weed specialist, plant pathologist and things like that. … They're the ones trying to manage the things that we already have,” said Christy Martin, the program manager for the Coordinating Group on Alien Pest Species.
The agriculture department is in charge of checking packages at ports to prevent invasive species from getting into Hawaiʻi. It’s also one of the state’s primary agencies for managing existing pests.
But the department said it needs more staff to do that increasingly demanding work. It’s said that the number of inspectors has stayed the same over the last decade, but the number of parcels needing inspection has jumped.
It previously said that it has 90 inspectors, and 19 million parcels arrived in the state last year.
In written testimony on a previous version of HB2619, the department said implementing its biosecurity program to manage invasive species like little fire ants, coconut rhinoceros beetles and coqui frogs would require up to $20 million for an increase in staffing and planning for a biosecurity facility.
Brian Miyamoto, executive director for the Hawaiʻi Farm Bureau, noted that a 20-year-old Legislative Reference Bureau report said $50 million would be required annually to fully implement an invasive species program.
“That was in 2002 — it is 2024. The projection now is almost $100 million a year. If we don't stop invasive species from coming in, as well as try to address, control and eradicate those that we have now, we will have the invasive species that we have today and from yesterday. We'll have to deal with those tomorrow along with new invasive species that are continually coming in,” he said.
HB2619 can be scheduled for a conference committee hearing, which is one of the final steps for a measure in the legislative session.
