Conflict over water use on historically drought-ridden Maui has been part of the land-use policy landscape for decades and by now is a permanent feature, owing to the challenges presented by climate change.

The specific legal clashes over annual permits to use the island’s stream water have flared again. Circuit Judge Jeffrey Crabtree issued an order May 28 to compel a contested case hearing on the newest water permit to East Maui Irrigation; the permit allows the diversion of up to 45 million gallons a day.

The environmental advocacy group Sierra Club had asked the state Board of Land and Natural Resources for the hearing to make its case, but was denied. The land board then approved the permit, but Sierra Club successfully appealed in Circuit Court.

The order was a welcome judicial intervention. The water-management and agricultural issues here are complex, and the contested-case hearing should help to clarify how Maui’s limited water resources could be used most productively and efficiently.

East Maui Irrigation is a subsidiary of landowner Alexander &Baldwin Inc., both entities asking to retain the permitted use of 33,000 acres of public land and the diversion of the water.

Crabtree, who had sided with the land board and A&B in similar suits over permits issued in 2018 and 2019, said he is prepared to revoke this one by June 30 unless there is a formal request to stay that order.

A&B has not yet issued a statement, after requests from the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. However, it seems clear the judge wants to hear why the permit should stay in place while the still-unscheduled contested-case hearing proceeds. If A&B has solid agricultural plans justifying the use of so much water, that case should be made in the public-hearing setting.

To this point, the permit opponents have not been convinced. Marti Townsend, director of Sierra Club of Hawai‘i, said there is no indication of agricultural activity of the scale that would require 45 million gallons a day to be taken from about 13 East Maui streams.

The job of putting the lands to agricultural use, tapping the water supply, belongs to Mahi Pono, a farming company that in 2018 bought 41,000 acres of farm land in Central Maui from A&B.

Townsend said that in pursuing the earlier permit challenges in court, plaintiffs were able to derive some measure of the agricultural activity, including the cultivation of various orchard and row crops.

“They are only really using between 3,000 and 5,000 gallons a day,” she said.

The rational argument is that if the full allotment of water is not yet needed, there is no purpose to a permit for drawing many times that amount. Using that much more than is required does not make for a healthy aquatic environment, Townsend rightly said; neither does it support any productivity for downstream farmers.

Of course, Hawaii state policy is to increase its local food production, so if there is a prospect for a boost of that magnitude, it should be supported, within the boundaries of efficient water management. Mahi Pono will get the opportunity to explain its timetable for stepping up production and present its plan for making the most of the available water.

For its part, Sierra Club has asserted that reservoirs used in this operation could be made more conservationist by being lined. There surely can be other approaches, but preventing the waste of precious water is the bottom-line concern.

The judge rightly observed that new issues related to stream diversions have come up and merit a thorough hearing. Judicial fairness and good stewardship of resources are the goals here, and a hearing would advance them both.