Senators convene working group to address water use
Sens. Kai Kahele and Jarrett Keohokalole will begin overseeing monthly meetings with officials from the Department of Land and Natural Resources in an effort to ensure ranchers and farmers on the neighbor islands, as well as the electric utilities, don’t lose access to public water after the year’s end.
The rush to convene a working group comes after the Legislature adjourned without extending a deadline for an assortment of entities to obtain long-term water leases. Those users, including, among others, ranchers in Kau on Hawaii Island, farmers on Kauai and hydro-electric plants operated by the electric utilities, have for years operated under short-term permits. But in light of a 2015 court decision relating to Alexander &Baldwin’s permits on Maui, state officials have said that there doesn’t appear to be any way for it to continue issuing or extending those permits after this year.
The Legislature in 2016 passed a bill that gave the water users three years to convert their permits into long-term leases, a complex process that includes environmental reviews, watershed management plans, water appraisals and a public bidding process, among other regulatory requirements. But water users said that they couldn’t meet that deadline. A bill that would have extended the deadline by as much as seven years died this year in the Legislature, in large part over controversy involving A&B’s historic stream water diversions on Maui.
The first working group meeting is set for May 29 at the state Capitol, according to Kahele, who sent a letter to DLNR Chairwoman Suzanne Case last week requesting the meetings. The working group is expected to include Case and top officials from DLNR’s land and water management divisions. Other stakeholders, such as officials with the Hawaii Farm Bureau, Hawaii Sierra Club and Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation may also be invited, said Kahele.
Read more: https://www.staradvertiser.com/2019/05/10/hawaii-news/senators-convene-working-group-to-address-water-use/?HSA=a442a73faed556450c39fc43ddad9292c2aeb663