Why Does A&B need an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to divert East Maui streams?

• Alexander & Baldwin (A&B) has requested a 30-year Water Lease from the HI State Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR).
• The lease application, if approved as is, would give A&B the right to continue to divert East Maui streams flowing through four License areas on public lands, from Honopou to Nahiku.
• Before a lease like this can be approved, BLNR requires an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) be commissioned.
• The EIS is supposed to document all the ways the lease proposal could impact natural or cultural resources, and whether these impacts can be mitigated.
• The BLNR then uses the EIS to determine whether or not to approve a lease.

•  A&B has hired a consultant to prepare the EIS, but the leases are awarded through public bidding, and could theoretically, go to another bidder.
• We can’t count on the EIS to have an impartial view if A&B hires, pays for, and directs the consultants who prepare this document.

Is the lease bidding process really fair, open and legitimate if A&B is the only bidder to have prepared an EIS?

• With A&B in charge of the EIS process, the public cannot trust that the EIS findings will be complete because the consultant is first and foremost accountable to the entity that pays its bills, which is A&B.
• Our communities have waited over 20 years for an EIS that discusses the real impacts of the longtime East Maui stream diversions. Let’s get it right!
• We want the EIS to be as thorough as possible so that the BLNR will have adequate information to make a decision on whether to approve a lease for this area and, if so, what types of limitations or alternative options to a 30 year lease should be considered.

Send your letter to the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) staff asking them to direct the preparation of this EIS.

• This will ensure that core parts of the EIS – the definition of the current environment and the identification of alternatives – be comprehensive and encompass all the possible outcomes for the management of these waters and areas.
• This will also help instill trust that the completed EIS will be impartial and independent of A&B’s wants.
• Your letter will be sent to DLNR, A&B and their consultant company Wilson Okamoto Corporation. You letter both requests a change to the process as well as gives comments on what topics must be covered in the EIS, no matter who writes it.