Diversion of water on Maui challenged
By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Maui Bureau
WAILUKU, Maui — Environmentalists are once again challenging the county's attempt to develop new sources of water in East Maui to satisfy thirsty Central and South Maui, where the bulk of the island's development has taken place.
A lawsuit filed in Maui Circuit Court this week seeks to halt a $50 million project to develop at least 10 wells in Ha'iku and a 16-mile pipeline to produce an estimated 10 million gallons of drinking water per day, enough to satisfy demand for 20 years.
The suit by the Coalition to Protect East Maui Water Resources, Hui Alanui O Makena, the Sierra Club and Ha'iku property owner Mark Sheehan says that the project's environmental documents are flawed and that the county has no right to take groundwater from the Ha'iku area to serve development outside the region.
Newly appointed county water director George Tengan declined to comment on the lawsuit, saying he hadn't seen it yet.
For more than a decade, the county Board of Water Supply — faced with increasing demand on the '?ao Aquifer, Central Maui's main source of drinking water — has been trying to implement the East Maui Water Development Plan. But conservationists and Native Hawaiians objected from the beginning, going to court first in 1993 to argue that pumping groundwater from the area would interfere with stream flows.
A judge ordered a supplemental environmental impact statement, and the final document — which concludes that the wells would not interfere with stream flows — was accepted by the board in November.
The latest suit, filed Monday by Maui attorney Isaac Hall just before the 60-day challenge deadline, contends that the conclusions of the EIS are flawed, in part, because the firm that prepared the environmental documents, Mink & Yuen Inc., is biased and made its conclusions even before starting its study.
The Honolulu firm has "long served as proponents and advocates of developers'' and "favors water resource development with little regard for environmental consequences,'' the suit said.
George Yuen of Mink & Yuen yesterday denied the suit's assertion and said the study is based on hard evidence that is free of bias.
"We are strictly professional,'' Yuen said. "We call the shots as we see them — absolutely.''
The suit also disputes the county's right to take groundwater from one aquifer region for use in another when residents suffer harm — a common law principle that was supported recently by the Hawai'i Supreme Court in its Waiahole water decision.
The residents likely will suffer harm from the project because a well drilled at Kaupakulua demonstrated that the area suffered diminished stream flows, according to the suit. Among other things, it said, there could be an adverse impact on Ha'iku property owners with cesspools.
The suit also charges that the county constructed a court-ordered test well of a size beyond what was required by the court and then failed to comply with the testing protocol contained in the court order.
At the time, former Maui water director David Craddick ordered a production-size test well that would remove any doubt about whether stream flows would be affected.
