World Water Day March 22, 2023 at UHMC

Please join us for a special World Water Day event hosted by the Student ʻOhana for Sustainability and Sierra Club Maui.  Come learn about the efforts on Maui to mālama our wai and how you can get involved!

Wednesday, March 22, 3-6pm on the Great Lawn at UHMC

On World Water Day, weʻll be joining communities across the world to reflect on our own water situation here at home, and what we can do to help take care of our most precious resource, both as individuals, and collectively.  We hope to see you there!

If you would like to volunteer for World Water Day, please email Tara at tapo@hawaii.edu.

 

ALERT: Water Use and Development Plan (WUDP) at County Council October 9 at 9am

The Council vote was postponed from Sept 11 to Oct 9 and Haiku Community Association held a Town Hall on the WUDP on Sept 24.

It became clear at that Town Hall that the WUDP really needs more work to be the plan we need for the next 20 years.

PLEASE TAKE ACTION ONE MORE TIME:
The County Council will hear from the public ONE LAST TIME on the Draft Maui Water Use Development Plan (“WUDP”) before the first of two votes needed to adopt the plan.

Speak up for better water planning this Friday Oct 9 at 9am at the Council meeting.
The agenda Item is CR 20-128.

Please ask the Council to refer the Water Plan back to committee,  so that a few needed amendments can be added before it is adopted.

Please support the amendments proposed by community groups (see list below).

Online Only via BlueJeans link https://maui.bluejeans.com/295235670.

Individuals may provide oral testimony by phone or videoconference. To join the meeting by phone, call 1 408-317-9253 and input meeting code 295235670.

You can also testify with e-mail: county.clerk@mauicounty.us

Sierra Club is proposing amendments that would:

1) Have WUDP include more accurate,  updated and realistic data about ag water demand for the former HC&S Plantation lands.
Alternative scenarios included in the WUDP need to be be based not just on number of acres, but on water use per acre. This information is available.
Current WUDP water use projections of Mahi Pono ag operations using 4,000 gal per acre/day and accepting that 22% of water delivered will be lost as  “wasted water” is not a 20 year sustainable view.

2) WUDP should recommend Maui County amends its “water standard”  for resorts (currently allowing a whopping 17,000 per acre/day) to a more reasonable standard of 4,000 gpd/acre as part of overall water efficiency and conservation measures to help conserve Iao aquifer.
Maui County water standards currently allow resort properties to use up to 17,000 gallons per day per acre of potable water.  O’ahu standard is 4,000 gpd/acre.

3) Include all the updated information tables from the 2019 State Water Resources Protection Plan (WRPP) in the Maui WUDP.
Stream information has changed since 2008, as have safe withdrawal limits (“Sustainable Yield”) for all of East Maui aquifers.
The Ko‘olau and Hāna Aquifer sectors sustainable yield figures have decreased by a total of 66 million gal a day between the 2008 and 2019 WRPP.
Currently there is one 2019 WRPP map in an addendum, but every table in the WUDP has the old 2008 data.This is what will be quoted in environmental documents.

Haiku Community Association is also proposing some very needed amendments to the WUDP about:

1) Updated data and a clearer solution to the Upcountry water meter list;
2)  Public management of the East Maui ditch system;
3) True costs of the proposed Ha’iku wells, and who will foot the bill if local wells and springs are dried up:
4) More details about private water agreements the County Water Department has with A&B and others and how they affect who gets what water

All these  amendments are really needed if the Plan is to give clear guidance to our lawmakers and community over the next 20 years.

Mahalo nui. Please send your thoughts to:
county.clerk@mauicounty.us
and testify if you can with bluejeans or by phone:
https://maui.bluejeans.com/295235670
1 408-317-9253 and input meeting code 295235670

West Maui Reefs Horribly Degraded

These underwater pictures from the reef off of Kahekili Beach Park show the extent of the damage suffered in the last several years. Runoff, global warming and El Nino events have added to the attack on this precious and irreplaceable resource, but a significant contributor is the release of treated wastewater high in nitrogen and phosphorous through the Lahaina injection wells. These “nutrients” stimulate the growth of algae that smother the corals.

Despite the scientific studies showing the damage and decline in the coral reef off of Kahekili Beach Park, along with what everyone using that shoreline area can see with their own eyes, Maui County Mayor Mike Victorino made a press release August 28, 2019 which said:

“West Maui ocean water quality has improved since 2009, …,” Perry said. “If ocean conditions were negatively impacted by recycled water seeping into the ocean from the injection wells, then reef conditions would continue to deteriorate. They have not.”

All photos courtesy of Caitlin Maratea, owner of Banyan Tree Divers in Lahaina.

 

Citizens Deliver Petitions Urging Maui County to Settle Lahaina Injection Well Case

For immediate release: Wednesday, August 28, 2019
Contact: Mahesh Cleveland, Earthjustice, (808) 599-2436 x6621

Citizens Deliver Petitions Urging Maui County to Settle Lahaina Injection Well Case

 

Wailuku, Maui, HI — Today, Sierra Club and the Surfrider Foundation, with support from Hawaii Wildlife Fund and West Maui Preservation Association, delivered two petitions to Maui County Council Chair Kelly King. The petitions, signed by over 15,000 Sierra Club and Surfrider Foundation members nationwide, urges the Maui County government to settle the legal case involving its Lahaina wastewater treatment plant and withdraw its appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.  

The four community groups, represented by Earthjustice, filed a complaint with the Hawaii Federal District Court in 2012, alleging that Maui County was in violation of the Clean Water Act for its injection well discharges of municipal wastewater into the Pacific Ocean just offshore of Kahekili Beach Park in West Maui. The District Court agreed, and its decision was unanimously upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Now, the case is before the Supreme Court, with oral arguments scheduled for November 6, 2019. The County has allied with the Trump Administration in claiming that the pollution of the ocean via groundwater is exempt from the Clean Water Act.  

“This case is being closely and eagerly watched by some of the worst polluters in the country,” says Earthjustice attorney Mahesh Cleveland. “The loophole the County seeks would allow industrial and municipal polluters to evade regulation under the Clean Water Act simply by moving their discharges just short of the shores of navigable waters, or disposing of pollutants via groundwater. A Supreme Court ruling in the County’s favor would have serious negative impacts on water quality nationwide.”

The citizen group plaintiffs, who urged the County to address the pollution at Kahekili Beach for four years before finally filing the 2012 citizen’s suit to enforce the law, still hope the County will address the problem locally at home, without pushing to create dangerous national precedent at the Supreme Court.

“We’re asking the County to fix this problem and give our reefs a chance to recover,” said Hannah Bernard, Executive Director of Hawaii Wildlife Fund. “The County’s refusal to protect an ecosystem in our backyard could jeopardize public health and clean water across the country. But it’s not too late for the County to do the right thing.”

The Sierra Club petition, signed by over 13,000 members across the United States, calls on Maui County to settle the case instead of pursuing the Supreme Court appeal, warning that “one wastewater treatment plant in Hawaii is not worth gutting the Clean Water Act.” The Surfrider petition, signed by another 2,547 citizens, asks the County government to “settle the Lahaina Injection Well Lawsuit and work with the community to find alternative long-term solutions that will protect Maui’s reefs and beaches, and ensure continued protections under the Clean Water Act for all Americans.”

The petitions, delivered this morning to County Council Chair King at her office in Wailuku, come in advance of a Council committee hearing scheduled for next Tuesday, September 3, when it is expected that the committee will hear testimony and vote on a resolution to settle the case and withdraw the appeal.

“The County’s claim that it can lawfully use groundwater as a sewer to carry millions of gallons of polluted wastewater from the Lahaina injection wells to the ocean each day is absurd,” said David Henkin, the lead Earthjustice attorney representing the community groups. “As both the Hawaiʻi district court and the Ninth Circuit have already concluded, the Clean Water Act flatly prohibits such threats to our nation’s waters. If need be, we will present this compelling case to the Supreme Court in November, but it shouldn’t have to come to that. The County still has time to change course and focus on solutions, rather than more litigation.”

###

Earthjustice is a non-profit, public-interest, environmental law firm.  The Hawaiʻi regional office opened in Honolulu in 1988 as the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, and has represented dozens of environmental, Native Hawaiian, and community organizations. Earthjustice is the only non-profit environmental law firm in Hawaii and the Mid-Pacific, and does not charge clients for its services.

See the polluters Maui County has aligned themselves with

On July 19, 11 different groups filed friends of the court briefs in the Lahaina injection wells Supreme Court case. These groups include former EPA Administrators, 13 states, a Native American tribe, craft brewers, and clean water advocates.

On the other side, Maui County has aligned themselves with Republican states and polluters across the country. The dirtiest industries like oil, gas, pipelines, mining, and factory farms are supporting Maui in hopes that they will be able to evade water protections by pumping their pollution into pipes in the ground.

Read Earthjustice’s press release here and take action at bit.ly/lahaina.

Enviros Urge Justices To Uphold 9th Circ. Groundwater Ruling

By Juan Carlos Rodriguez

Law360 (July 12, 2019, 10:52 PM EDT) — Green groups on Friday urged the U.S. Supreme Courtto uphold the Ninth Circuit’s holding that Clean Water Act permits may be required for pollution sources that discharge contaminants via groundwater.

The Hawaii Wildlife Fund, Sierra Club, Surfrider Foundation and West Maui Preservation Association said Congress clearly intended the act to cover unpermitted pollution discharges that “actually and foreseeably” reach navigable surface waters. They said Maui County, which is challenging the Ninth Circuit’s ruling, relies on a misguided reading of the act to support its argument that permits are not required for such discharges.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which has authority to approve the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits at issue, agreed in an amicus brief supporting Maui County that the Ninth Circuit decision should be overturned.

But the environmental groups said Friday, “Either the county’s or EPA’s view … would open a substantial loophole in the CWA, allowing polluters to achieve indirectly what they cannot do directly: discharge pollutants from point sources into navigable waters without a permit.”

The groups sued Maui County in 2012, accusing it of violating the act by not obtaining a NPDES permit for sewage wastewater injection wells that discharged pollution into the Pacific Ocean via groundwater.

In their Supreme Court brief, the groups cited the CWA’s provision that prohibits “any addition of any pollutant to navigable waters from any point source,” and said the county’s wells are point sources, the waste the wells discharge are a pollutant, and the Pacific Ocean is a navigable water.

“The introduction of the effluent to the Pacific is an ‘addition’ of pollutants ‘to’ those waters. And that addition comes ‘from’ the county’s point-source wells: The wells are both the pollutants’ point of departure and a factual cause of their addition to navigable waters,” the brief said.

And the groups said the Clean Water Act does not just cover pollution that enters navigable waters directly from point sources, “without any intermediate means of transmission.”

They disputed the county’s assertion that the CWA only applies when a point source pollutes “directly” to navigable waters and the EPA’s argument that would exclude discharges that occur through groundwater.

“The County of Maui’s attorneys have done a wonderfully Orwellian job of professing support for the Clean Water Act while simultaneously trying to blow a hole in the law that protects our nation’s rivers, lakes and oceans,” Earthjustice attorney David Henkin, who represents the green groups, said Friday.

The Ninth Circuit in February 2018 sided with environmental groups that argued Maui violated the act by not obtaining a federal NPDES permit for the sewage wastewater injection wells.

Maui County argued in its brief that the CWA clearly gives states sole permitting authority over those sources, and asserted that if the circuit court’s ruling is allowed to stand, it would result in a vast expansion of federal power contrary to the act’s intent.

According to the county, the high court should look to two Sixth Circuit rulings, also handed down last year, that split from its sister circuits’ findings and held that a point source permit is not required where pollution reaches navigable waters via a nonpoint source.

There has been some discussion among newer Maui County Council members about whether to settle the lawsuit, which would take it out of the justices’ hands, but there’s been no official action on that yet.

A bill was introduced that would give the council authority to settle the suit, as that power currently lies with the mayor, but it has not emerged from the Governance, Ethics and Transparency Committee, and Maui County Council Supervising Legislative Attorney David Raatz said Friday it’s unclear if and when the bill might proceed.

The Maui mayor’s office and the U.S. Department of Justice did not respond to requests for comment Friday.

The high court in February agreed to hear the case. Oral arguments are scheduled for Nov. 6.

The Hawaii Wildlife Fund, Sierra Club, Surfrider Foundation and West Maui Preservation Association are represented by David L. Henkin and Janette K. Brimmer of Earthjustice, Scott L. Nelson of Public Citizen Litigation Group and Amanda C. Leiter of American University Washington College of Law.

Maui County is represented by Elbert Lin, Michael R. Shebelskie, Colleen P. Doyle and Diana P. Martin of Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP and county attorneys Moana M. Lutey and Richelle M. Thomson.

The federal government is represented by Noel J. Francisco, Malcolm L. Stewart, Judy B. Harvey, Matthew R. Oakes and Frederick H. Turner of the Solicitor General’s Office, Eric Grant, Allon Kedem and David S. Gualtieri of the DOJ’s Environment and Natural Resources Division and Matthew Z. Leopold, David Fotouhi and Lauren T. Maher of the EPA Office of General Counsel.

The case is County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund et al., case number 18-260, in the U.S. Supreme Court.

–Editing by Nicole Bleier.