{"id":11049,"date":"2019-03-03T21:22:29","date_gmt":"2019-03-03T21:22:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.environment-hawaii.org\/?p=11049"},"modified":"2019-03-07T22:01:34","modified_gmt":"2019-03-07T22:01:34","slug":"new-noteworthy-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/?p=11049","title":{"rendered":"New & Noteworthy: Midway Mice, Lahaina Wastewater, and More"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Midway Mouse Plan OK\u2019d: <\/strong>The Fish and Wildlife Service has released a final environmental assessment that clears the way for the eradication of mice from Midway Atoll\u2019s Sand Island by broadcasting the rodenticide Broadifacoum. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the biggest challenges facing the\neradication effort is how to deal with the island\u2019s\npopulation of Laysan ducks, an endangered\nspecies highly sensitive to the toxin. To mitigate\nimpacts to the ducks, the plan is to catch and\nremove them to nearby Eastern Island and hold\nthem in captivity or cut their flight feathers\nuntil such time as the bait with the rodenticide,\nas well as the insects that have taken the bait,\nhave lost their toxicity. That period could last\nas long as 22 months, according to timetables\npublished in the biological opinion released by\nthe service on January 30.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final EA contains information unavailable in the draft, including a table that provides what the FWS terms allowable estimates of the number of ducks that could be injured or killed. As many as 390 adult ducks \u2013 65 percent of the total number of adults \u2013 could be injured in connection with the eradication program, with 198 (33 percent) dying. Sub-adults and ducklings would also take substantial hits, with as many as 135 and 60, respectively, being killed. Also, there would be no breeding for two years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cost of the project, to be undertaken by\ncontractor Island Conservation, is placed at\nbetween $4.5 million and $5 million. The\ncurrent timetable calls for the rodenticide to\nbe applied starting in July.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final EA and associated documents\nmay be viewed at: https:\/\/www.arcgis.com\/\napps\/MapSeries\/index.html?appid=e7bbcf5c\n95804186902ef938f1c020f2. (The documents\nare not available on a government website.)\nEnvironment Hawai\u2018i <\/em>reported on the draft\nEA in our May 2018 edition, available at our\nwebsite environment-hawaii.org.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cert Granted: <\/strong>The U.S. Supreme Court has\nagreed to take up the appeal of Maui County\nfrom a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals finding\nthat the county\u2019s Lahaina wastewater treatment\nplant was violating the Clean Water Act. The\nquestion the court will be addressing is this:\n\u201cWhether the Clean Water Act requires a\npermit when pollutants originate from a point\nsource but are conveyed to navigable waters by\na nonpoint source, such as groundwater.\u201d\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The appellate court ruled last March that the county-owned facility had been violating the Clean Water Act practically since the day it began operations in the early 1980s. The\nplant injects between 3 million and 5 million\ngallons of treated wastewater each day into deep\ninjection wells, where the effluent is mixed with\ngroundwater and is transported to the ocean.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Effluent from the Lahaina facility has long\nbeen suspected of causing algae blooms and\nother adverse impacts to corals and other\nmarine life off Kahekili Beach, popular with\ntourists and residents alike.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Supreme Court will probably not\nschedule oral arguments until its next term\nbegins in October.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plaintiffs in the 2012 complaint against\nthe county that began the litigation are the\nHawai\u2018i Wildlife Fund, Sierra Club-Maui\nGroup, Surfrider Foundation, and West Maui\nPreservation Association, all represented by\nEarthjustice.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Environment Hawai\u2018i <\/em>has published many\narticles on this subject, going back to 1992.\nAll are available online at www.environment-\nhawaii.org.)\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of Earthjustice: <\/strong>Last month, the environmental law firm announced that Isaac Moriwake will fill the vacancy left by former managing attorney for the Mid-Pacific office, Paul Achitoff. Achitoff retired earlier this year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more than a decade, Moriwake has successfully fought for stream restoration on behalf of community groups such as Hui o Na Wai Eha, Maui Tomorrow, and Po\u2018ai Wai Ola. He\u2019s also been a strong renewable energy advocate, representing the Hawai\u2018i Solar Energy Association in dockets before the Public Utilities Commission, among other things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I joined\nEarthjustice over 16\nyears ago, I would never have dreamed of one\nday leading our team in Hawai\u2018i. So I can\u2019t even\nsay this is a \u2018dream come true.\u2019 It\u2019s been one\nlong wave, and I\u2019m just happy to keep riding\nit,\u201d Moriwake stated in a press release.\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Midway Mouse Plan OK’d: The Fish and Wildlife Service has released a final environmental assessment that clears the way for the eradication of mice from Midway Atoll’s Sand Island by broadcasting the rodenticide Broadifacoum. One of the biggest challenges facing … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[451],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-march-2019"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11049","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=11049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}