LANA'I CITY, Lana'i - Plans to build the largest wind farm in the state on Lana'i are part of a vision to make the island a model of renewable energy, but the project is encountering some headwinds in the form of community concern.
Not all Lana'i residents are pleased with the plans of David Murdock, the billionaire who owns 98 percent of the island, to develop a $750 million wind farm for exporting power to O'ahu via undersea cable.
The proposed wind farm, envisioned with as many as 125 turbines spread over 10,000 to 12,000 acres on Lana'i's remote and unpopulated northwest end, was announced last year with the intention to supply up to 20 percent of O'ahu's electricity demand.
Concern over the plan stems from fears that it could cut public access to hunting and fishing on the northwest end of the island. For some, it's also a matter of trust.
Many residents were upset with Murdock, who has owned nearly all of Lana'i since 1985, when he ended pineapple farming in the early 1990s and used drinking water from the island's main aquifer to irrigate a golf course.
Some residents resent Murdock, the owner of Castle & Cooke Inc., because they say his control of the land and employment of more than a third of the 3,000 people who live on the island amounts to a monarchy.
"The man on the big, white horsey," is what Lana'i postmaster Bradford Oshiro calls Murdock, making a reference to the bosses, or luna, that often exercised rule of plantation life on horseback.
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