The Advertiser's story, "Planning begins for Hawai'i undersea cable system," is very timely but covers only part of the costs.

At a meeting of the Hawai'i Energy Policy Forum held at the state Capitol, HECO has stated that a third component beyond building the wind farms and the undersea cable would be needed, and this would cost $300 million to a lot more to build.

This component consists of a number of land-based transmission lines that would interconnect between the interisland cables and transmission substations on Maui, Läna'i, Moloka'i and O'ahu. In addition, some transmission systems would need to be upgraded and/or built.

The undersea cable would go to the Käne'ohe Marine Air Corps Station, but the nearest transmission substation is by the H-3 and Kamehameha Highway and is about five miles away. A 138-kV transmission line would need to be built, presumably overhead, along the H-3.

For redundancy and reliability, a southern interisland cable to O'ahu would also be needed. This could go to Honolulu Harbor, Pearl Harbor or the Kahe area. One likely substation that could be reconfigured would be the Iwilei Transmission Substation near Costco.

Transmission lines would also be needed on Maui. The closest coastal interface is on the southern shore. The current proposal is to go to the north shore of Maui, that is, to the Kahului area. There would need to be a substantial upgrade to the Maui electrical infrastructure.

The Moloka'i coastal area near where the transmission lines are proposed is very sensitive.

Moloka'i residents are also very concerned about what their island will look like. The original proposal was to build an overhead high-voltage transmission line from the north shore wind farms to the south shore nearest Läna'i. This alternative has been replaced, but the details are sketchy as the location of the Moloka'i wind farm is still up in the air.

None of these land-based systems has been analyzed in any great detail. Instead, the state is proposing to do an environmental impact statement on the interisland cable component, which could serve no purpose by itself, since it would not be connected to either the wind farms or the electric grids.

Läna'i would need to upgrade its road system, to handle large vehicles. The dirt road leading to the mystical Garden of the Gods rock formations would need to be widened to two to four lanes and paved.

Piecemealing or segmentation of an environmental impact statement is illegal.

If the Superferry and the rail transit proposals taught us anything, it should be that seeking to undermine the state's EIS law will lead to disaster.