Earthjustice calls for more time for public comment on Maui County wastewater proposal due to Lahaina fire

Earthjustice officials said they are asking to extend the deadline to Aug. 14 for public comment on Maui County’s proposal to reduce the amount of treated sewage entering the ocean from injection wells at the Lahaina Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Earthjustice senior attorney David Henkin, representing a coalition of Maui environmental groups, said the request to the state Department of Health is being made in light of the inability of the Lahaina community to respond adequately, in light of the firestorm that swept through the Lahaina area destroying residential and businesses in Lahaina.

Hawaiʻi Wildlife Fund, one of the litigants, agrees with Henkin.

“We need the extension because our community is facing life and death situations now,” said the organization’s co-founder Hannah Bernard. “Many people wanted to comment but this Lahaina fire has derailed this.”

Henkin said his organization is also asking for a public hearing to take place where Maui residents can express their views directly to country officials.

The lawsuit was filed in 2012 against the county. In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in favor of environmental groups.

Based on tracer studies from 2012 to 2015, scientists say there is a connection between the treated sewage from the plant to algae growth and the degradation of reef health in the Kāʻanapali North Beach area.

Mahina Martin, spokesperson for the Bissen administration, said the reuse of treated wastewater for a number of purposes, including the irrigation of golf greens, ranges from 18.4 to 38.3% of 4.4 million gallons of Lahaina wastewater.

She said the the county proposal represents a “substantial increase” of 42% over the existing re-use rate.

Henkin said the county proposal says it plans to increase the reuse of treated sewage water but does not require the county to increase the re-use of it.

“The lack of an enforceable requirement to increase re-use is a huge problem,” Henkin said.

Henkin said the county proposal would recycle barely more than half of the wastewater on average, with the rest continuing to go down the injection wells and onto the reef, where it causes violations of water quality standards and destroys the reef.

Martin said the county does not directly discharge its treated water into the ocean. Injection wells are utilized for the disposal of any unused treated wastewater.

“The purpose of injection wells is to create a diffuse flow that interacts with soil and ground water where it receives additional attenuation,” she said.

Henkin said Martin’s claim that the county does not discharge its treated water into the ocean ignores the undisputed scientific evidence that 100 percent of the injected wastewater from the Lahaina facility ends up in the ocean.

“It’s disappointing to hear a new mayoral administration continuing the prior administration’s attempts to muddy the waters… There is no dispute that the Lahaina injection wells discharge pollution into the ocean.”

Bernard said before the lawsuit was filed, her organization tried for several years to get the county to comply with federal clean water act.

“We got nowhere,” she said. “That’s why we had to file.”

For more details, readers may go to Earthjustice.org or the state Clean Water Branch.