Hawaiians Unite Against Development

"Development on Kauai has been so unrelenting that Huff's sentiment has become widespread among longtime residents, although until recently it was a quiet simmering."

"In late August, with the arrival of the Hawaii Superferry, the first inter-island car-carrying ferry, the simmering boiled over. Islanders, in the face of Coast Guard gunboats, formed a floating blockade at the harbor entrance and, after a three-hour standoff, forced the $85-million ferry to turn back to Honolulu. The protest had turned into a citizen uprising."

"Kauai was a sleepy, rural, largely undiscovered place until Elvis made it famous in his 1961 movie "Blue Hawaii." Each successive tide after that brought more outsiders."

"When Huff was born, a year after the movie, 29,000 people lived here in settlements connected by a single perimeter road."

"Now, during parts of the year, there are almost that many visitors on the island each day. The tourists must share space with 60,000 residents. The main road system -- a two-lane perimeter highway -- has remained largely the same, including more than a dozen one-lane bridges."

"On the island's south side, in the Lihue area, big-box stores such as Costco, Home Depot and Big Kmart have taken over immense swaths of land (Wal-Mart built on the other end of town)."

"On the west side, mini-cities of condos and houses have replaced small farms. Land still zoned for agriculture has been taken over by multi-acre estates and boutique ranches."

"Across the island, more than a dozen major construction projects, totaling 4,500 residential units, are underway. Plans over the next two decades would add an additional 12,000 homes and condos; the population is projected to grow to more than 85,000 by 2025."