{"id":11672,"date":"2019-07-31T21:31:26","date_gmt":"2019-07-31T21:31:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.environment-hawaii.org\/?p=11672"},"modified":"2019-07-31T21:31:26","modified_gmt":"2019-07-31T21:31:26","slug":"new-noteworthy-kekaha-violations-waikoloa-reversion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/?p=11672","title":{"rendered":"New & Noteworthy: Kekaha Violations, Waikoloa Reversion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Kekaha Violations: <\/strong>A federal judge has found that the state Agribusiness Development Corporation has been violating the Clean Water Act for years, as the century-old drainage system it owns discharges millions of gallons a day into the Pacific Ocean along the west coast of Kaua\u2018i. The discharged water includes pesticides, sediment, and heavy metals that run off the 7,000 acres of former sugar plantation land that the agency licenses to large farms, piggeries, and other agricultural operations. It also likely includes seepage from a nearby landfill and domestic cesspools. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The law firm Earthjustice sued the ADC in 2018, on behalf of Na Kia\u2018i Kai, the Surfrider Foundation, and Pesticide Action Network. Last month, Judge Derrick K. Watson determined that the agency has been violating federal law every day since it allowed its national pollutant discharge elimination system (NPDES) permit to expire in 2015. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The state claimed that no NPDES permit was required, arguing that the discharges fell under a 2008 exemption called the Water Transfer Rule (WTR). But Judge Watson agreed with the plaintiffs that the exemption doesn\u2019t apply if the water contains pollutants, as the Kekaha drainage system water clearly does. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watson was unmoved by what he called the\n\u201cparade of horribles\u201d put forward by the state\nshould the court find in the plaintiffs\u2019 favor.\n\u201cADC claims that \u2018should the water transfer\ncease, the Mana Plain would be inundated with\nwater, causing extensive adverse effects to the\nPacific Missile Range Facility, Kekaha town\nresidences and commercial businesses, and\nagricultural and other uses on the plain.\u2019 … Of\ncourse, Plaintiffs do not ask the court to enjoin\nADC\u2019s discharge of water from the system;\nthey ask only that the court require ADC to\nobtain an NPDES permit to do so.\u201d\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ADC is now required to obtain and\ncomply with a new NPDES permit.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plaintiffs had also asked the judge to find that the ADC had violated the public trust in its discharges of polluted water to the ocean. Judge Watson did not uphold that claim. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Waikoloa Reversion: <\/strong>More than 11 years after the state Land Use Commission placed 731 acres near Waikoloa Village, on the Big Island, into the Rural land use district, the LUC officially reverted the land back to the Agricultural District, its prior status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The LUC had given the landowner, Waikoloa Mauka, LLC, 10 years from the date it approved the redistricting petition \u2013 June 10, 2008 \u2013 to develop 398 lots, with associated roads, infrastructure, and utilities. With the deadline approaching last spring, and with no visible progress made toward the proposed subdivision, the LUC ordered the owner to show cause as to why the land should not be reverted to its earlier status. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a series of hearings last fall, the LUC\nvoted in November to approve the reversion\nand ordered its staff to prepare a draft findings\nof fact, conclusions of law, and decision and\norder \u2013 the formal legal document that gives\neffect to the LUC vote.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drafting the order took months, but it\nfinally came before the LUC at its meeting on\nJuly 10 in Kona. Since 2014, ownership of the\nland has been held by Waikoloa Highlands,\nInc., but the ultimate ownership still remains\nvested in the same person, Vitaly Grigoryants,\nwho owned it since the original redistricting\npetition was filed in 2006.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
L-R Commissioner Dawn Chang, commissioner Edmund Aczon; deputy attorney general Randall Nishiyama; commission chair Jonathan Scheuer; Dan Orodenker, LUC executive director; commissioner Nancy Cabral. Present but out of the photo: commissioner Gary Okuda, commissioner Lee Ohigashi.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In July, the attorney for Waikoloa Highlands, Steve Lim, raised objections to the commission\u2019s proposed reversion, with most \u2013 if not all \u2013 being objections he has raised as the LUC considered the question over the last year. Commissioners were unswayed. At the conclusion of the July 10 meeting, the vote was six to one in favor of the reversion. Only commissioner Lee Ohigashi, of Maui, voted against the reversion order, while two commissioners were not present. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An Amendment: <\/strong>In our June 2019 article on the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council\u2019s June 2018 meetings on Maui, we reported that the council paid for 48 rooms, yet the list of people who were provided accommodations totaled only 45. According to council communications officer Sylvia Spalding, \u201cThree council members were inadvertently omitted from the list of persons who lodged at the Marriott during the June meetings and was provided in response to your FOIA request. The Council in fact paid for 48 rooms for 48 persons.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kekaha Violations: A federal judge has found that the state Agribusiness Development Corporation has been violating the Clean Water Act for years, as the century-old drainage system it owns discharges millions of gallons a day into the Pacific Ocean along … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[457,18],"tags":[7,3],"class_list":["post-11672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-august-2019","category-new-noteworthy","tag-patricia-tummons","tag-teresa-dawson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11672","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=11672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}