Wire Leader Ban: The National Marine Fisheries Service has published a final rule that, effective May 31, will ban the use of steel wire leaders by Hawai`i longline fishing vessels that target tunas. The leader is the part of the gear between the longline and the hook.
The Hawaiʻi Longline Association initiated the action following the determination of oceanic whitetip sharks as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 2018. The use of monofilament leaders instead of wire leaders is intended to improve the survival of oceanic whitetip sharks that are unintentionally caught by the longliners.
As the NMFS rule states, “wire leaders are difficult for sharks to bite off and free themselves and difficult for fishermen to cut from deck height as compared to alternative monofilament leaders.”
The new rule is expected to result in a decrease of more than 30 percent in the number of oceanic whitetip sharks that die after being hooked, NMFS says.
Waipiʻo Valley Litigation: In addition to the federal lawsuit that was filed in March against Hawai`i County over the closure to the general public of the road leading into Waipiʻo Valley, another lawsuit was filed last month in state court. The plaintiffs include a community group, Mālama i Ke Kai ʻo Waipiʻo, and several individuals. Named defendants are the county, Mayor Mitch Roth, who ordered the steep road closed in late February, citing safety concerns, and county Public Works director Ikaika Rodenhurst.
Even before the second lawsuit was filed, the first one was voluntarily withdrawn from federal court. Within a week of it being filed in federal court, attorney Ron Kim notified the court on April 1 that the plaintiffs were voluntarily dismissing their claim against the county.
Both the lawsuits claimed that the engineering study that Roth cited in justifying the closure is flawed. And both sought to have Roth’s emergency closure order invalidated.
In other respects, however, the lawsuits differed. The first lawsuit argued that the closure amounted to an unconstitutional taking, with businesses that rely on Waipiʻo Valley traffic having suffered harm. The second argues that the road closure violates the protections found in the Hawaiʻi constitution of rights to access beaches and also the right to a healthful environment, among other things.
The state lawsuit has been assigned to 3rd Circuit Judge Peter Kubota. No hearing date had been set as of press time.
ʻAina Leʻa Hearing: A big date is coming up in federal court in the case involving DW ʻAina Leʻa’s $200 million claim against the state. On May 24, U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway will hear the state’s motion for summary judgment, asking the court to dismiss all claims against the state and the Land Use Commission.
The case, filed in 2017, asks for damages stemming from the LUC’s vote to revert about 1,000 acres of land in the Big Island district of South Kohala to Agricultural from Urban. The state The LUC action was overturned in 3rd Circuit Court, a decision upheld by the state Supreme Court.
Years later, DW ʻAina Leʻa brought its claim against the state, which countered that the case was barred by the statute of limitations. An appeal to the 9th Circuit resulted in the question of the statute of limitations being thrown back to the Hawai`i Supreme Court, which in December 2020 ruled in favor of the interpretation of the statute of limitations put forward by DW ʻAina Leʻa.
Environment Hawaiʻi has published numerous articles on this and related litigation. Check them out using the search engine on our website, www.environment-hawaii.org.
Correction: In a story in our April courts roundup, “DOH, Sierra Club Agree To Drop Greenhouse Gas Case,” we incorrectly suggested that the Department of Health did not pay the Sierra Club’s attorney fees of $11,379.81, when, in fact, it did.
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