Make room for WWII veterans at Punchbowl

The Department of Veterans Affairs owes it to the aging vestige of the Greatest Generation to come up with a way to keep them and their families apprised about the small number of grave sites available at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

For decades, word was that there was no more room for in-ground burials at Punchbowl, but it turns out that’s not the case. There are several dozen such grave sites — made available as unknown soldiers are disinterred, identified and reburied elsewhere — but veterans groups were not notified. The president of one such group, the 442nd Veterans Club, has written Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki to complain about the oversight. Given that the disinterment of unknowns is an ongoing process, more sites may open up and a standard notification process should be developed. The dwindling number of World War II veterans — many in their 90s now — deserve a chance to make Punchbowl their final resting place.

Biofuels should be cheaper for ratepayer, too

The pragmatist in all of us wants to love the idea of wood-based fuel pellets as stand-ins for fuel oil in the generators that produce Hawaii electricity. A Houston-based producer of the compressed fuel is starting talks with Hawaiian Electric Co. about this.

What’s not to love? They’re cheaper than oil and burn with fewer emissions. They potentially could be produced here, with home-grown materials, a boon to agriculture as well.

But the cynic — or realist, depending on your point of view — wants to see the bottom line. How much would ratepayers have to fork over to make this work? We’ve been burned before, so to speak.