The city’s legal counsel is brushing off recent suggestions that Honolulu rail officials haven’t done enough to comply with federal flood-risk standards. Whether that move will lead to another rail lawsuit remains to be seen.
In a letter sent last week to John Carroll, the Honolulu attorney representing the local group Do Rail Right, the city’s Department of Corporation Counsel contends that the project does not need to produce a supplemental environmental impact statement that addresses concerns over tsunamis, storm surges and sea-level rise linked to climate change where rail runs through low-lying coastal areas.
Do rail right, a group of some 20 local residents, contends that if the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation had to produce such a statement, it would inevitably force the agency to move stretches of the transit line mauka.
Carroll sent a letter to HART board Chairwoman Colleen Hanabusa last month, contending the rail agency hasn’t done enough to address the potential risks. If HART doesn’t revisit the issue, members of the group say, they’re prepared to sue in federal court.
However, in her Thursday letter, Deputy Corporation Counsel Lisa Hirahara told Carroll that the rail project doesn’t need a new supplemental EIS on flooding, in part because the Federal Emergency Management Agency has already submitted comments for rail’s original EIS.
Records provided by the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation show that FEMA sent its rail EIS comments to the Federal Transit Administration back in 2010. That FEMA letter basically noted that the city participates in the National Flood Insurance Program, so it’s required to follow “minimum, basic” federal flood plain building requirements.
Hirahara’s May 5 letter to Carroll said “the project has and will full(y) comply with NFIP standards.” It further stated that the project isn’t affected by President Barack Obama’s 2015 executive order aimed at taking more action against flood risks, even though Carroll and Do Rail Right argue otherwise.
Carroll told Hirahara in an email that Do Rail Right would respond in about three days. The group does not aim to be “obstructionists, rather citizens who want the project completed with all the requirements, Federal State and County and common sense” (sic).
In another email sent to group supporters and the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Thursday, Carroll said that Do Rail Right is considering “what, other than going to court, we can do to ensure compliance.”
Hanabusa Response by Honolulu Star-Advertiser
