Stewards of the famed seaweed resources off \u2018Ewa Beach suffered a major blow earlier this year. On September 29, 1st Circuit Judge Keith Hiraoka issued his official order denying a years-long effort by the group Kua\u2018aina Ulu \u2018Auamo (KUA) to replace the late limu expert and teacher Henry Chang Wo, Jr., as the petitioner in a contested case over a state permit for drainage improvements at the mouth of Kalo\u2018i Gulch in \u2018Ewa Beach.<\/p>\n
In June 2014, following a contested case hearing, the Board of Land and Natural Resources granted a Conservation District Use Permit to Haseko (\u2018Ewa), Inc., the University of Hawai\u2018i, the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, and the City and County of Honolulu\u2019s Department of Planning and Permitting. The permit would have allowed the lowering of a sand berm at One\u2018ula Beach Park to allow an increased amount of stormwater runoff to enter the ocean where Chang Wo collected limu and taught community members how to maintain the beds. Represented by the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation, Chang Wo fought the permit in 1st Circuit Court.<\/p>\n
The court remanded back to the Land Board the matter of whether or not the permittees needed to conduct a supplemental environmental impact statement following the sighting of an endangered Hawaiian monk seal on the beach. By the time it did so, however, the board had taken on a number of new members who took some time to familiarize themselves with the case. They did not make a decision by the time Chang Wo passed away in September 2015.<\/p>\n
Shortly before his passing, the NHLC asked the Land Board to allow KUA to take his place as the petitioner in the case. The permit applicants, however, argued that the authority to allow a replacement rested with the 1st Circuit Court, not the board.<\/p>\n
To allow KUA to take Chang Wo\u2019s place as petitioner \u201cwould be to open the back door to KUA\u2019s participation where it would not have been allowed entry through the front door,\u201d their memo in opposition states.<\/p>\n
In their response, NHLC attorneys David Kimo Frankel and Liula Nakama wrote, \u201cIt would be illogical and unfair to interpret [the Land Board\u2019s substitution rule] to allow perpetual corporations and agencies to freely substitute and sell interests, but deny that ability to Native Hawaiians who live, breathe and die.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Land Board ultimately decided that KUA could replace Chang Wo as the petitioner, but the permit applicants appealed to the Circuit Court.<\/p>\n
On September 20, Judge Hiraoka held a hearing and orally ruled that, despite the caliber of the NHLC\u2019s arguments, the Land Board did not have the authority to grant the substitution. \u201cSince the time period to request the substitution [from the court] had lapsed, a new substitution request can no longer be entertained by the court,\u201d KUA reported in a hearing update. Hiraoka also granted the University of Hawai\u2018i\u2019s motion to dismiss Chang Wo\u2019s appeal altogether. His written order followed on October 3.<\/p>\n
For Further Reading\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cLimu Stewards Oppose Plan to Alter Sand Berm in \u2018Ewa<\/a>\u201d, \u201cBoard Grants Contested Case on Kalo\u2018i Gulch Berm Project<\/a>,\u201d Board Talk, October 2012;<\/p>\n \u201cFight Over \u2018Ewa Drainage Project Continues as Limu Gatherer Challenges It in Court<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0October 2014;<\/p>\n \u201cDoes the Kalo\u2018i Drainage Project Need a New EIS<\/a>?\u201d EHxtra, \u201cFuture of Kalo\u2018i Gulch Case Hinges On Limu Group Replacing \u2018Uncle Henry<\/a>,\u2019\u201d November 2015; and<\/p>\n \u201cNHLC: It Would Be \u2018Illogical, Unfair\u2019 To Bar Substitution in Kalo\u2018i Gulch Case<\/a>,\u201d December 2015.<\/p>\n All articles are available at environment-hawaii.org.<\/p>\n \u2014 Teresa Dawson\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Stewards of the famed seaweed resources off ‘Ewa Beach suffered a major blow earlier this year. On September 29, 1st Circuit Judge Keith Hiraoka issued his official order denying a years-long effort by the group Kua‘aina Ulu ‘Auamo (KUA) to … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[428],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-10028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-november-2017","tag-teresa-dawson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nBoard Talk, May 2012;<\/p>\n
\nApril 1, 2015;<\/p>\n