The state Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR) has a stuffed agenda of items to consider in its last meetings of 2023, today and Friday — so many that two days have been set aside for discussion. Such cramming is not necessarily a good thing, because these issues require alert attention and a willingness to listen to constituents, and change course if necessary.
>> For one: It would be a shame if the board, which directs the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR), were to rush through any decisions that need close consideration, such as the Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation’s (DOBOR’s) misguided idea to eliminate or reduce free parking for recreational users at the Ala Wai Boat Harbor. BLNR should respect locals’ need for ocean access, and leave recreational-use parking as is until plans to repair and make over the crumbling parking lot and deteriorated pier are settled.
>> For another: After decades of debate, a newly limited water allotment to Alexander &Baldwin (A&B) and East Maui Irrigation Co. (EMI) properly reduces the water these plantation successors are permitted to divert from East Maui streams. But now, the proposal includes a bad provision that allows for breaching the limit without public notice or review. A revocable permit for A&B/EMI is agenda item D-8 on BLNR’s list.
The positive development here is that for the first time, DLNR’s Land Division is proposing to reduce the allocation of water allowed to be diverted from East Maui streams by permit to 27.4 million gallons of water daily (mgd), as compared to 40.5 mgd permitted in 2023. The shift is in keeping with multiple decisions by Hawaii’s Environmental Court — most recently this June — that overrode BLNR permits allotting larger diversions. The 27.4 mgd limit is drawn from reported usage in recent years. Given Maui’s struggles with drought, the negative effect past stream diversions have had on the landscape, and the need to preserve wildlife and taro farming supported by the affected streams, the limit is appropriate, and should be adopted.
It’s also positive that DLNR is recommending separate diversion limits for Maui County’s Department of Water Supply and Kula Agricultural Park, a step that encourages water conservation and limits confusion over which entity is using water, and how much.
The catch, which undermines confidence in this historic development, is that DLNR is recommending that BLNR Chair Dawn Chang be allowed to waive the limit without notice to the land board or the public, and no public comment. The recommendation allows A&B/EMI to request more water “solely to the extent needed to provide for irrigation of acreage used for diversified agriculture” — but this could develop as soon as the landowners install a new crop, or because drought conditions intensify. In either case, the process of breaching these hard-fought limits must go before the public, and the full board, to serve the public interest in this water usage.
>> BLNR agenda item F-3 is based on a petition from Kalanihale, KUPA Friends of Ho‘okena Beach Park, Moana ‘Ohana, Ko‘olaupoko Hawaiian Civic Club and For the Fishes: “Rulemaking to Prohibit the Take of Marine Life for Commercial Aquarium Purposes (With Exemptions).” Here, DLNR staff recommends commercial collecting for the aquarium trade continue, contradicting a court order that puts current permits on hold, and arguing it’s the Legislature’s responsibility to ban or allow aquarium collecting. However, reef fish populations, and with them, ocean ecosystem stability, are negatively affected by aquarium collecting, with further stresses from global warming and ocean acidification at play. To meet its responsibility to protect Hawaii’s near-shore resources fully, the BLNR should take up this prohibition.
The BLNR meets at 9 a.m. today and Friday. Submit testimony at blnr.testimony@hawaii.gov; see the agenda and links to watch or comment live at 808ne.ws/blnr122023 Opens in a new tab.
