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It’s time for leadership in the Lahaina injection wells case

VIEWPOINT

For the past three years, we’ve been continually bombarded with news of the Trump administration’s all-out war against the environment and our planet. These trying times remind us how lucky we are to live in Hawaii — and especially a place like Maui, known to locals and visitors alike for its natural beauty, close-knit community and environmental leadership.

So why on earth is Maui County now allied with the Trump administration and the nation’s worst polluters before the U.S. Supreme Court, leading the charge against the Clean Water Act, one of the cornerstone environmental laws for the entire nation?

That’s the question the county’s elected leaders — Mayor Michael Victorino and the nine County Council members — are going to have to answer for themselves and the people of Maui, and very soon. The council will consider whether to settle the Lahaina wastewater injection wells case in its upcoming committee meeting on Tuesday.

As for the mayor, he’s now made his position clear in recent public statements: total denial, backed with “alternative facts.” Instead of owning up to what’s going on, the mayor hides behind spin, accusing Earthjustice and its Maui community clients of “expanding” the Clean Water Act, and claiming the county’s appeal “is not to ‘gut’ the Clean Water Act” but simply “clarify” it (“Our County,” Opinion, Aug. 16).

To see the real truth, everyone can just read the county’s own briefs. The county is asking the court to rule that polluters can evade the law simply by sawing their pipes 10 feet short of the water’s edge, or sticking their pipes into the ground. The county also insists it and the Trump administration “are in substantial agreement” in their tag-team attack against the law.

As further confirmation, former EPA heads and officials from both Republican and Democratic administrations have filed amicus briefs opposing the county. They explain EPA’s “long-standing and consistent” understanding that the Clean Water Act applies to pollution that reaches surface water via groundwater, like the Lahaina injection well disposals. “For decades,” EPA and states have already issued permits for such polluting operations, likely numbering in the “thousands.”

In contrast, the “newly discovered and misguided” position of the county and the Trump administration “has no basis” in law and “would open a huge loophole” and cause an “enormous and transformative rollback” in clean water protections.

But the denial goes even deeper. The mayor is even trying to deny the environmental harm of the Lahaina plant pollution, ignoring decades of kamaaina experience and peer-reviewed scientific studies confirming that the millions of gallons a day of wastewater sent to the ocean from the Lahaina plant is killing the reefs off Kahekili Beach. To support his rosy alternate reality, he relies on the county’s for-hire consultants, instead of respecting the real science and listening to the longtime community members who have witnessed the degradation firsthand.

The people of Maui elected a new mayor and council last year with the hope that they would make good on campaign promises of aloha ‘aina and environmental stewardship — values that make Maui truly special. At least, these elected leaders owe it to them to get real about the consequences of the county’s actions at the Lahaina treatment plant, and now at the U.S. Supreme Court.

The county still has the opportunity to chart a collaborative path forward at home instead of doubling down on its divisive and dangerous appeal in front of the whole nation. Face the future and focus on solutions, instead of trying to drag the science and protection of the environment decades into the past. If the mayor won’t show such leadership, then hopefully at least five of the nine council members will before it’s too late.

* Isaac Moriwake is the managing attorney of Earthjustice’s Mid-Pacific Office. Earthjustice is a nonprofit public interest environmental law organization and is one of four groups that have sued Maui County over the use of injection wells in Lahaina.

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