The founder of earth-bound Facebook who in a roundabout way brought the surf industry to its knees in 2006.

The fifth richest man in the world and BFF of the world’s first best waterman Kai Lenny, Mark Zuckerberg, has significantly increased his land holdings in Hawaii, buy a 110-acre site in Kauai for $ 17 million from a company owned by the Pflueger family.

The purchase, KITV reports, “includes most of a reservoir that ruptured in 2006 and killed seven people. James Pflueger was held responsible for the tragedy for his handling of the dam, a section of which erupted after 40 days of almost constant rain. Pflueger was sentenced by a state judge to seven months in prison in 2014 and was released in 2015. He died in 2017 at the age of 91.

“Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chang are committed to doing their part to meet legal requirements and promote tank safety,” said Ben LaBolt, spokesperson for the couple.

“The reservoir is still not repaired and is on the state’s list of high-risk dams.

“The couple plan to expand agriculture, ranching, conservation and wildlife protection work on the land,” LaBolt said. They already had 1,300 acres (526 hectares) on the island.

So what?

So nothing!

So here we have six degrees of contiguity of surfing: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan are paying $ 17 million for the land which includes a reservoir that collapsed in 2006, which killed seven people and led to a tsunami-sized lawsuit that was one of the factors that prompted Grubby Clark to sell Clark Foam.

Too much?

Let’s go back.

According to Mountain tsunami crashes in Kauai city by Malia Zimmerman in The Hawaii Report of March 15, 2006:

Devastated – this is how the people of Kilauea on the north Kauai coast said they felt early Tuesday after a 70ft tall, 200ft wide “tsunami” wave that sounded like thunder , collapsed from the mountain around 5 a.m., sweeping homes and dragging between three and eight people.

The “thunder,” which locals said continued to rise until they heard nothing else, was actually over 300 million gallons. [20 Surf Ranches] of freshwater rushing to the small beachside community from the mountain after weeks of heavy rains pushed the 116-year-old Kaloko Dam through its earth barrier.

A man was swept out to sea by what has become a raging river – his body was found around noon in the mouth of the river leading to the ocean, according to Deputy State General Robert Lee. Between two and seven other people are still missing.

To be fair, the torrential rain that caused the dam to collapse was then a now-legendary 40-day, 40-night biblical period of rain that people still talk about in hushed tones.

A historic flood.

In the end, eight or more homes were destroyed and seven people were killed, including Aurora Solveig Fehring, her husband Alan Gareth Dingwall and their two-year-old son Rowan Gray Makana Fehring-Dingwall. Christina Michelle McNees, who was seven months pregnant. Daniel Jay Arroyo, her fiancé whom she was to marry a few hours later, also died along with Timothy Wendell Noonan, Jr., a friend of the Fehrings, and Carl Wayne Rotstein, the guardian and business partner of the Fehrings.

Zimmerman further reported:

According to numerous media and public records, Pflueger has a long history of manipulating land on his north coast property, which has led the state to initiate criminal proceedings against him, and residents of the area to sue him in civil for subsequent damage to their property.

Pflueger, 79, received the biggest fine in state history for an environmental case and one of the biggest criminal fines in US history, when the 5th Kauai Circuit Court ruled ruled that he knowingly violated water pollution laws and committed 10 felonies.

Pflueger was also ordered to pay $ 7.5 million in construction penalties which he initiated without the proper permits under the Clean Water Act, including $ 2 million for state and federal government, 5.3 million dollars to stop land erosion and restore waterways; and $ 200,000 to replace sumps in the area. . The environmental repair was to be completed in 2007.

Fair dollars!

Pflueger having fun with nature flooded the property and destroyed a reef which is a huge no-no in Hawaii.

He was also held responsible for the dam failure.

According to Wikipedia (verified by the facts):

The dam owner (James Pflueger) carried out leveling operations near the dam without a permit and may have filled the dam’s emergency spillway. Neither the current owners nor the former owners of the dam have adequately maintained the dam. Finally, Kauai County was aware of the unauthorized filing operation, but did not enforce a stop work order.

On November 21, 2008, James Pflueger was charged with manslaughter and reckless endangerment in connection with the dam failure. Pflueger’s attorney claimed the indictment was an attempt by the state of Hawaii to deflect its own responsibility in the case.

On August 4, 2009, it was reported that a settlement between the parties in all civil cases had been reached, pending judicial review. On July 17, 2013, Pflueger filed a plea of ​​no contest for reckless endangerment as part of an agreement with prosecutors. In return for the plea, state prosecutors agreed to drop seven counts of manslaughter.

The story goes on and on, with many twists and turns.

According to Pflueger refuses settlement of victims of Ka Loko dam rupture by Malia Zimmerman in Hawaii Reporter from September 9, 2011:

Civil lawsuits were settled for an estimated $ 25 million in 2009, with another possible $ 25 million from an insurance company. Pflueger chose not to pay this settlement by the September 1, 2009 deadline: “Pflueger’s lawyers have told victims’ lawyers that Pfleuger does not have the money to pay his share of the undisclosed civil settlement, and that ‘he would like a 2 year extension. “

The victims put a lien on the property, which included more than 384 acres along Pilaa Bay. But this property already had a $ 5,000,000 lien filed by Pflueger’s own family trust and another $ 4,000,000 lien from 2001 when Pflueger’s extensive illegal leveling activities on the Pilaa property caused 1,000,000 to sink. tons of mud in neighboring houses and properties and in the once pristine Pilaa Bay.

Is this why Hawaiians sometimes don’t like haole? May be.

Oh what a tangled web that breaks loose, when with nature we try to …

The Pflueger saga goes on and on with costumes and counter-costumes and millions of dollars flying like fruit bats.

So what?

So it was Pflueger who had his okole sued by several parties for tens of millions of dollars who was at least partially responsible for the declaration of Gordon Clark * Blank Monday and the closure of Clark Foam without warning on December 5, 2006.

Grubby was concerned about lawsuits brought by employees who had been cancerized by exposure to all of these toxic chemicals and in particular to something called TDI that could have caused a Bhopal-class disaster in once vacant Orange County and desert that had sprouted around Clark’s once isolated factory. .

And that is why you are still getting used to epoxy.

In a story titled Virgin monday In The New Yorker from August 21, 2006, written by Pulitzer Prize-winning surfer Bill Finnegan, we find the final piece of the puzzle that connects the mudslides to Clark Foam to Zuckerberg:

Then, in the summer of 2005, Clark took a trip to China.

On his return, he spoke to Luis Barajas, his sawmill foreman. “He said, ‘Luis, they got us. They build an Orange County every two days, ”Barajas told me.

Soon after, according to friends, Clark was in Hawaii, mountain biking with Jimmy Pflueger, who is sort of a local Kauai tycoon. During a break, Pflueger told Clark a story. He had gotten into trouble with the state and the EPA over a filing he made without a license. There had been a rainstorm and mudslide and a lot of land had ended up on a coral reef. The state fined him four million dollars.

The worst part, however, Pfleuer said, was the way the government calculated certain fines, dialing the sums daily into a formula that, over time, could break the Federal Reserve.

Clark returned to California. He brooded all weekend, according to a friend. On Monday morning, December 5, he entered Clark Foam and approached the first worker he saw pouring foam into a mold.

“This is it,” he said. “This is the last foam we pour.”

So what?

So this Kauai property with bad voodoo circling it like bats from a belfry, the property that flooded the reef and killed seven people and put a septuagenarian in jail for seven months and cost him millions. he may or may not have paid for and inspired Grubby Clark to unplug, now belongs to Mark Zuckerberg.

This latest purchase is Zuckerberg’s second for 2021.

In March, Zuck paid $ 53 million for 600 acres of prime Kauai land, including a public beach and a working cattle ranch, in addition to the 750 acres he bought in 2014.

Which could be good because Zuckerberg has way too much money and is way too high profile and too careful to flood a reef or drown people and have his ears chased into the stratosphere.

And Zuckerberg has the money to deal with this reservoir well and restore it to what nature intended.

And if Zuckerberg really wants to be a good neighbor, he should turn some of that land into a working cattle ranch.

Hawaiians love a cowboy job, damn it, whether it’s working from horses or throwing hay with one hand, two bales at a time, which they sure can do.

Even the cattle swimming off the beach to the waiting boats, which they did a hundred years ago.

Hawaiians are natural cowboys and if Zuckerberg turned any of this land into cattle land and provided real paniolo jobs and horseback riding opportunities for the kama’aina, they would love him.