While the Hawai`i Water Plan attempts to plan for future water use, it does not speak directly to the issue of water rights. However, water rights are of critical importance in that they limit options for future water use policy. … Continued
In 1988, the Hawai`i Legislature asked the Commission on Water Resource Management to study Hawai`i’s streams, with an eye to identifying those that “appropriately may be placed within a wild and scenic river system, to be preserved and protected as … Continued
One of the biggest compromises made to achieve enactment of the Hawai`i Water Code in 1987 was the provision for a system of designating so-called Water Management Areas. The original idea of the state Advisory Study Commission on Water Resources, … Continued
The notion of sustainable yield might fairly be said to be the most important concept in the Hawai`i Water Plan. It is defined in the Water Code as “the maximum rate at which water may be withdrawn from a water … Continued
November 6, 1990, 7:30 p.m. As most people were glued to their television sets, watching election returns (slo-o-o-wly) roll in, at Barbers Point, Captain Ronald Pouch had other worries. The 700-foot-long tanker in his command, the Star Texaco, had just … Continued
Just as this issue was about to go to press, news broke of the grounding of the Star Connecticut. The opportunity was too good to pass up. We junked the stories on the effects of oil on Hawai`i’s wildlife and … Continued
On August 4, Congress finally passed the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, ending nearly two decades of squabbling over what the nation’s laws dealing with oil spills would be. Congressional Quarterly called it “possibly the harshest action Congress has ever … Continued
Hawai`i is one of the 20 or so states having no statutory limit on liability in the event of an oil spill, which makes it – at least in theory – able to recover more than the liability ceiling set … Continued
This reconstruction of events the evening of Tuesday, November 6, was stitched together from testimony given to the Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board in hearings under their auspices November 13, 14, and 15. The Unmooring 6:49 p.m. … Continued