A Vague $1 Million Biosecurity Contract Stirs Alarm Across Hawaiʻi
Hawaiʻi has poured tens of millions of dollars into protecting its delicate ecosystems from an onslaught of destructive invasive species. Yet, a newly minted $1 million contract awarded to a five-year-old engineering firm has triggered sharp warnings from pest management professionals, civic leaders, and researchers alike. Civil Beat reported that the agreement, signed in June, tasks Shizen Consulting Management with figuring out which imports are most vulnerable to hosting new pests. To critics watching the state’s handling of chronic agricultural crises, the deal looks less like a strategic defense and more like an exorbitant waste of public funds.
The state Department of Agriculture and Biosecurity has grappled with severe staffing shortages and tight budgets for at least a decade. Funding was recently injected into the agency to combat worsening infestations of coqui frogs, coconut rhinoceros beetles, and little fire ants. Instead of soothing public anxiety, however, how the agency deploys these new resources has fueled widespread distaste. Wayne Tanaka of the Sierra Club called the Shizen contract sketchy and, at best, gratuitous.
Jonathan Ho, the state Plant Quarantine Branch manager who handled the solicitation, signed off on the proposal the very next business day. Ho defended the award by noting that Shizen’s submission met the bare prerequisites of the state’s procurement request: one measurable objective and one expected outcome. That request was intentionally vague, Ho explained, to grant consultants maximum flexibility.
That ambiguity is precisely what alarms independent scientists. Mark Burgman, director of the University of Hawaiʻi School of Life Sciences and a seasoned ecologist integral to establishing Australia’s Centre of Excellence for Biosecurity Risk Analysis, reviewed the proposal at the request of Civil Beat. He pointed out that while risk assessments can sometimes require offline conversations to clarify intent, the Shizen document contained simply no detail about what was intended, what they are going to look at, or what they are going to measure. There are a million things that they could be doing, Burgman added.
Old Ties and Lingering Questions Over Agency Spending
Compounding the unease are deep historical ties between the contractors and senior Department of Agriculture and Biosecurity staff. Shizen shares key senior staff and an address with its sister engineering firm, EKNA Services, formerly known as Edward K. Noda and Associates. Last year, EKNA secured three biosecurity-related deals worth $678,000, including a $240,000 agreement to conduct two mini pest risk assessments. Ho did not provide copies of those assessments when requested.
EKNA and Shizen Vice President Brian Ishii brings a history with the department spanning roughly twenty years. Ishii previously worked closely with Carol Okada, a formerly retired and controversial figure in the department. Okada signed off on a $350,000 contract with EKNA in 2006 for a separate pest risk assessment, a project that yielded a failed database central to a scathing 2017 state audit of the Plant Quarantine Branch. Okada was reemployed by the department in 2023 after retiring in 2019, remaining on sporadic short-term contracts despite a 2024 statement from the Governor’s Office that she would not be rehired.
Meanwhile, community members battling invasive species on the ground report little to no state presence. Pālolo resident Sidney Lynch, active in an Oʻahu community group fighting coqui frogs, questioned the state’s practical capacity to manage the pests. On Maui, Haʻikū resident John Andrews and his neighbors invested thousands of dollars into buying an industrial sprayer to combat the frogs themselves while the department remained largely absent.
State officials maintain that the risk assessments will result in a methodology for the department to use in the future, especially given that an assessment of its kind was performed in 2006 under an EKNA contract. Yet, as the state moves forward with Shizen, it has notably failed to apply for a separate $90 million bucket of funding for invasive species initiatives. The final report for the Shizen project may also remain confidential, leaving taxpayers and watchdogs in the dark about how their money was spent.
“When reports aren’t released, or we don’t get to understand how contracts turn out, we can’t improve and learn from them,” said Christy Martin of the Coordination Group on Invasive Pest Species. “It’s taxpayer dollars. We’re reliant on agencies in the system to make sure that (contractors) are delivering.”
