Energy Justice on the Waiʻanae Coast: A Tour with the Pua Kaiāulu Summer Program
By Lauren Ballesteros-Watanabe | Reading time: 5.5 min
This summer, we had the extraordinary privilege of hosting an energy justice tour and talk-story at the Land Use Commission for the Pua Kaiāulu summer student internship program.
Based on the Waiʻanae Coast, Pua Kaiāulu is aimed at engaging high school youth on important community-wide issues with local organizations and advocacy groups. This year's theme was "beloved community," exploring how land use intersects with issues like houselessness, militarization, and energy. A major goal of our contribution was to instill a sense of kuleana (responsibility) in the participants, empowering them to see themselves as active shapers of their community's future.
Although we were there to share about Oʻahu’s energy system, which is a topic that seems foreign to even most adults, we ended up learning just as much from their experiences and the care and vision they have for their moku. It was a transformative experience all around, highlighting the importance of engaging youth and their potential leadership in energy advocacy.
The Energy Justice Tour
Over the years we have found that talking about our energy system can feel “abstract” for most folk. We are used to turning on our lights and paying our electric bills; that is the extent of our relationship with the energy system. But in Waiʻanae it’s different. The infrastructure and the impacts of our energy system are very much felt every day; whether it be a huge power facility or solar farm, the energy system is ever present.
We designed our "Energy + Land Use Tour" to provide an interactive, on-the-ground education about the impacts of local energy systems, good and bad, and the purpose and of land use decisionmaking. The tour aimed to help students understand the complex trade-offs of energy projects, introduce them to the state's controversial proposal to import Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), and offer examples of community-led alternatives.
The 3.5-hour bus tour took students to key energy sites along the coast, transforming each location into a classroom.
Site 1: Campbell Industrial Park (HPOWER & Kalaeloa Power Plant)
Here, students discussed the history of "dirty" energy in their community. The conversation examined HPOWER, a waste-to-energy facility that burns trash but creates toxic ash, and then the Kalaeloa power plant. Both facilities have been in operation since the 90’s, and have raised longstanding environmental justice concerns. Facilitators introduced land use districting and zoning as the processes by which industrial facilities, and their resulting environmental and health burdens, have been concentrated in Waiʻanae. Students were prompted to consider how their voices and the voices of their community should be included in such processes, in order to ensure much more fairer and just land use decisions for future generations.
Site 2: Kahe Point Beach Park
Looking at the Kahe Power Plant and the coastline, the group discussed the state's proposal to build new infrastructure for LNG. This included visualizing the Floating Storage and Regasification Unit (FSRU), undersea and on-land pipelines, and increased tanker traffic that would be required to import this new fossil fuel energy source. Students explored the potential impacts, from marine habitat destruction to greenhouse gas emissions to public health and safety risks for those living next to LNG plants and pipelines. The discussion highlighted how Waiʻanae is once again being considered an energy "sacrifice zone."
Site 3: Waiʻanae Comprehensive Health Center
From an overlook of the moku, the tour concluded by offering a vision for a different future. Facilitator Sebastien Selarque of Shake Energy presented community-led energy planning, using their work alongside Molokaʻi communities as an example of what this could look like. He [and Shake Energy intern Sienna? Was that her name/title?] helped to make complex energy planning concepts like grid infrastructure, energy markets, and regulatory processes accessible and understandable. Sebastien emphasized that the true leadership comes from the community itself, and challenged the students to envision the kind of energy future they wanted for their coast and their "beloved community," as well as reflect on their own kuleana in Hawaiʻi’s transition to renewable energy.
Following the presentation, the students participated in a profound pōhaku (stone) exercise designed to help them reflect deeply on their individual roles, visions, and leadership in the energy movement. Each student was given a stone to hold as they considered thoughtful prompts about their personal connection to energy justice, what kind of future they wanted to build, and how they could contribute to change in their community. They were then invited to place their pōhaku together with others, symbolizing how individual efforts and visions can form a powerful, collective ecosystem of energy knowledge, planning, and self-determination.
The Takeaway: A Call for a People-Centered Energy Transition
The problems we discussed—dirty energy, environmental injustice, and the siting of polluting infrastructure in low-income communities of color—are a direct result of failed policies and processes that have put profit over people. However, the current renewable energy transition presents a critical opportunity to build a more democratic, distributed, and people-centered energy grid. This can only happen if the communities most impacted have a seat at the table.
Talk-story at the Land Use Commission
Another highlight of our time with the Pua Kaiāulu program was facilitating a conversation between the students, Daniel Orodenker, the Executive Officer of the Land Use Commission, and Kū’ikeokalani Kamakea-ʻŌhelo, a commissioner who is also its designated cultural practitioner. The group was able to learn about the history and intention of the Land Use Commission, as well as ask important questions on how land-use decision-making affects their daily lives and ways that they can engage and activate others.
What became apparent in this "talk story" was a mutual passion for bringing more cultural knowledge and values to decisionmaking and a recognized gap in how Western systems operate, or rather "overlay," an indigenous system. Mr. Orodenker shared how the work and composition of the Land Use Commission have evolved over time to bring more cultural knowledge, values, community-level leadership, and moral clarity to the decision-making table. In his words, they have gone from what was once a "rubber stamp for development" to honoring their responsibilities as trustees of the public trust to protect our resources for present and future generations.
Commissioner Kamakea-ʻŌhelo also offered powerful words in response to a repeated question from students: "How can the LUC help with land back efforts?" To this, he shared his family’s fight for land back and how personal it is for him: "ʻĀina back begins with you." This means that how we collectively treat ʻāina across the state is a reflection of how we treat our homes, our communities, and our beaches every day. Then we translate that to how we engage our systems; he himself, a farmer by trade, came to the Commission to "be the change." This resonated with the group as many are active on issues, one mentioned her passion for getting more involved in pressing ʻāina back efforts such as the upcoming military leases and participating in ʻāina restoration and cultural practices to restore the valley to a thriving ecosystem.
Accepting Our Kuleana to Our “Beloved Community”
With our involvement in this year's Pua Kaiāulu program, we set out to help Waiʻanae youth understand how deeply the energy system is connected to their everyday lives. Energy burdens extend far beyond the siting of polluting infrastructure—they also show up in the rising cost of living, both rooted in policies that too often prioritize profit over people.
At the same time, the transition to renewable energy presents an opportunity to build a democratic, distributed, and community-centered energy system. We wanted to encourage youth to see themselves as future leaders whose voices, lived experiences, and knowledge can help shape the resilient community-centered future we so desperately need.
Through our time together, the youth not only proved that they have the values and vision to navigate their community, and our island, toward a much more just, fair, and sustainable future - but reaffirmed to us that Hawaiʻi’s future, in their hands, is a bright one indeed.