‘Aina Le‘a Suit Dismissed: The state has prevailed in the efforts of DW ‘Aina Le‘a, LLC, to claim $200 million in damages as a result of the Land Use Commission’s reversion of land it once owned from the Urban land use district to the Agricultural district. DWAL had brought the lawsuit against the state in 2017, even though it had turned its interest in the property over to ‘Aina Le‘a, Inc.
Soon after the lawsuit was filed, U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway granted the state’s motion to dismiss, finding that the lawsuit had been untimely filed. DWAL appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which determined the state law regarding statute of limitations was ambiguous and referred the question of timeliness to the state Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that DWAL was within its rights to sue when it did, and so the lawsuit ended up again before Judge Mollway.
This time, the state once more moved to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that, among other things, DWAL had assigned its rights to the property to ‘Aina Le‘a, Inc., as evidenced by the record in Bankruptcy Court. DWAL “responded with obfuscation,” Mollway wrote in her ruling, issued May 25. “Moreover, it has failed to offer any coherent argument in support of its standing or this court’s jurisdiction.”
DWAL sought to amend its initial filing after reviewing the state’s motion for summary judgment, Mollway continued. Only then, she wrote, did DW apparently realize “that it possibly should have included ‘Aina Le‘a as a party.”
(For details on the original complaint, see the article in the April 2017 issue of Environment Hawai‘i.)
Year of the Rat: The new book by Kay Howe might better be called Years of the Rats. Interwoven with her account of the travails of dealing with her son’s affliction with rat lungworm disease and her own dedicated research to address the problem through a formal course of pioneering research, is the shameful history of the response of government officials and legislators.
Were they concerned with the impact of publicity about the problem on tourism, or supporting favored institutions to the harm of the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo, where Sue Jarvi and Howe had been laboring on rat lungworm for years? Maybe it was a combination of both. In any case, the head of the Department of Health at the time, Bruce Anderson, the chief epidemiologist, Sarah Park, and key legislators seem to have conspired for years to undermine efforts to address the growing and devastating parasitic infection.
Howe’s self-published book is subtitled, Disease, Deception, and Discovery in Paradise. A Memoir. It’s a good read, and not just for people wanting to learn more about Angiostrongylus cantonensis. For anyone wanting to understand the way politics in Hawai‘i works to undermine public health – or at least did so in this particular case – the book is required reading.
Hu Honua Denial: The proposed biofuel power plant north of Hilo has been struck down, again, by the state Public Utilities Commission. On May 23, the PUC rejected the application of the Hawai‘i Electric Light Company for approval of the power purchase agreement it had worked out with the nearly complete plant.
The majority of two commissioners found that the project “will result in significant [greenhouse gas] emissions” and that “Hu Honua’s proposed ‘carbon commitment to sequester more GHG emissions than are produced … relies on speculative assumptions and unsupported assertions.”
Hu Honua can appeal to the Supreme Court, as it has done in the past; it can
ask the PUC to reconsider; or it can work out a new power purchase agreement with HELCO that can once more be presented to the PUC.
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