In this issue – the first in our 25th year of publishing! – we review cases of recent environmental litigation. Our cover story discusses the critically important decision of a federal judge in a case involving the discharge of wastewater … Continued
The same phrase that gladdens the heart of the visitor industry arouses dread in the hearts of the officials charged with keeping Hawai`i’s environment and important crops safe from marauding invaders. Consider: The coconut rhinocerous beetle. This native of India … Continued
Greed is good. That, anyway, was the mantra of the Wall Street anti-hero. But it serves just as well the owners of the Hawai`i longline fishing fleet and their personal civil servant, Kitty Simonds. Not content to accept the miserly … Continued
Petrel Predation: A new study by scientists from the University of Hawai`i, the National Park Service, and the U.S. Geological Survey has confirmed something long suspected: the endangered Hawaiian petrel, or `ua`u, is a sitting duck for feral cats. The study … Continued
DLNR Eats $230,000 Remediation Bill for Contaminated North Kona Property It’s not unusual for the Department of Land and Natural Resources to request permission from the Board of Land and Natural Resources to write off uncollectible accounts. Rarely does the amount … Continued
The scene outside the Hawai`i County building in Hilo was as colorful as it was noisy the morning of February 12. Groups of Native Hawaiians and others opposed to the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope, many decked out in … Continued
A year ago, the nightly network newscasts were focused on the extravagant spending by the General Services Administration – specifically, a Las Vegas convention for its employees that cost taxpayers $820,000. After congressional inquiries into the event, attended by 320 … Continued
Some of the building blocks of the Ko`olau Loa Sustainable Communities Plan (KLSCP) have been moving targets in recent months. Information about the region’s population, growth trends, and number of potential housing units was either absent from or sorely outdated … Continued
“We ended up on the short end of this opinion…. Minds immeasurably superior to ours will have to do the analysis on this one, at least for now,” wrote Honolulu attorney Robert Thomas in a recent post on his blog, … Continued
The recent decision of the Hawai`i Supreme Court involving a bottling company’s use of spring water has moved the case forward — back into the lap of the county agency that denied it the permits it needed in the first … Continued