In this issue \u2013 the first in our 25th year of publishing! \u2013 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 into injection wells near the Lahaina coast, while a sidebar looks at the potential consequences this could have for Hawai`i County.<\/p>\n
Other litigation reviewed in this article concerns:<\/span><\/p>\n The ATST on Haleakala:<\/b>\u00a0Kilakila o Haleakala, the group opposed to the construction of the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (now known as the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope) had appealed to the Intermediate Court of Appeals a lower court ruling that rejected its challenge of the acceptance by the Board of Land and Natural Resources of an environmental assessment for the Haleakala Management Plan prepared by the University of Hawai`i. The ICA upheld the lower court ruling.<\/p>\n The TMT on Mauna Kea:<\/b>\u00a0Six petitioners involved in a contested-case hearing over a Conservation District permit for the Thirty-Meter Telescope planned for Mauna Kea have appealed a lower-court ruling to the ICA. In a decision issued in May, Judge Greg K. Nakamura of the 3rd Circuit Court upheld the Land Board\u2019s award of the permit for the construction of the TMT.<\/p>\n Waimanalo Gulch EIS:<\/b>\u00a0As a state senator, Colleen Hanabusa brought a lawsuit against the City and County of Honolulu, challenging the environmental impact statement prepared for the expanded operation of Waimanalo Gulch landfill, O`ahu\u2019s only permitted sanitary landfill. A lower court judge rejected her appeal, as did the ICA in a ruling issued May 30.<\/p>\n Federal Panel Mulls `Aina Le`a Dispute:<\/b>\u00a0A panel of the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals heard arguments from the state and from the developers concerning the state\u2019s appeal of federal Judge Susan Oki Mollway\u2019s denial of the state\u2019s request to give members of the Land Use Commission immunity from damage claims by the developers in a litigation still pending in lower courts.<\/p>\n Pflueger, Again!<\/b>\u00a0Jimmy Pflueger refused to sign documents that would give kuleana landowners in Pila`a, Kaua`i, access rights assured in prior court rulings. Despite a series of decisions against him going all the way to the state Supreme Court, Pflueger\u2019s attorneys argued before the ICA that some aspects of the case were still ripe for argument. The ICA was having none of it and rejected Pflueger\u2019s appeal.<\/p>\n Waikiki Setback Appeal Heads to Supreme Court:<\/b>\u00a0Groups opposed to the decision by the Honolulu planning director to allow a new wing of the Moana Surfrider hotel to encroach on shoreline setbacks and height limits are going straight to the state Supreme Court in their appeal of a lower court ruling.<\/p>\n Also in this issue, we report on the latest efforts of Big Island developer Scott Watson to win approvals for his \u201cPepe`ekeo Palace\u201d and wrap up the issue with our regular \u201cBoard Talk\u201d column.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-summary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","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=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}