Listen • 6:09
New information has emerged in a court battle over water on Maui, and it s prompting the state to reevaluate annual water permits issued to Hawaiʻi developer Alexander and Baldwin.
The company and its subsidiary the East Maui Irrigation Company are allowed to divert 45 million gallons of water a day from East Maui streams under revocable permits with the state.
A Circuit Court judge has ordered a new hearing on Alexander & Baldwin’s water permits after a report found significantly less water was needed than the 45 million gallons of water a day currently allowed. The agricultural need in central Maui is somewhere between 3 and 4 million gallons a day. The county uses a minimal amount of water somewhere between 1 and 2.5 or 3 million gallons a day, depending on how rainy it is, Lucienne De Nies, head of the Sierra Club Maui Chapter, read from the report by the East Maui Irrigation Company.