Marcel Honore

Last week’s powerful Kona low storms, which caused catastrophic flooding on land, might also have devastated much of Hawaiʻi’s nearshore corals and reef fish, smothering them in tons of mud laced with pesticides and other toxic runoff, marine experts and conservation groups say.Divers have barely started to survey the damage below the surface, as the lingering murky, polluted waters have kept most areas unsafe to enter throughout the state. Still, a worrisome picture is emerging.

Some park users are getting in the faces of city crews and leaving ugly voicemails, demanding the debris be taken elsewhere.

The bill would create a new low-interest loan program to help eliminate some of the 80,000 cesspools leaking millions of gallons of sewage into Hawaiʻi's nearshore waters daily.

The Forest Service is looking to close its Big Island labs — the only ones of their kind, researchers say, that help protect the Pacific's unique tropical forests.

The House and Senate have to work out major differences if the bill is to pass in the next two weeks.

Honu love to eat the aggressive seaweed smothering reefs in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. That's raising hopes, but also concerns closer to home.

The island's latest massacre of endemic shearwaters brings the state's feline problem to the forefront.

Early reports support fears of widespread damage, but without more monitoring the picture remains incomplete.

Some legislators worry the state will lose its case to uphold cruise ship payments and with it millions in environmental funding.

A Seattle visitor was arrested a week after lobbing a rock at an endangered seal on Maui. But cases involving people killing the seals are rarely prosecuted.