Please STOP this company’s egregious water theft!

[U S Livingston]

 

No water theft! Urge the Hawai’i State Senate Water  Land and Ways  Means Committees to vote NO on HB1326 and HB1171.

SHARE THIS ALERT    facebook       twitter     Stop the water theft bills! Submit testimony in opposition of HB1326 and HB1171! ACT NOW Dear Courtney, Real estate company Alexander & Baldwin — and its allies at the Hawai‘i State Legislature —are working to pass bills drafted solely for the purpose of aiding corporate diverters in their efforts to circumvent Hawai’i’s water code. We’ve got to stop these bills that favor corporate interests over Hawai'i’s Public Trust Doctrine. Tell your state senator to vote NO on HB1326 and HB1171! The two bills are almost identical, HB1326 holds over revocable permits for another 3 years, while HB1171 holds over revocable permits for another 7 years! Revocable permits were meant to be a temporary mechanism for short term needs and thus require much less oversight. Corporate diverters have been abusing this loophole to avoid environmental assessments, and to exploit public water resources for their own private profit.  Alexander & Baldwin is the only revocable permit holder that truly needs HB1326 and HB1171 to pass. In 2016, a court ruling determined that the company’s practice of holding over their revocable permits year after year was in violation of state law. It was looking like Alexander & Baldwin would finally be forced to conduct an environmental impact statement in the process of converting to a long term lease.   Instead, their legislative allies pushed a bill through that gave the company three additional years to comply. But Alexander & Baldwin did not use those three years to convert to a long term lease. Alternatively, the company sold the land to a new owner. In the purchase agreement, Alexander & Baldwin guaranteed to deliver 30 million gallons of water per day from these diversions on state land, or they would refund $62 million dollars of the purchase price. Alexander & Baldwin shouldn’t get special treatment! Tell your senator to vote NO on HB 1326 and HB1171! The only revocable permit holder affected by this egregious corporate giveaway of Hawai’i’s public trust is Alexander & Baldwin, a company that demonstrated it no longer needs the water when it sold its interest in the land. Every justification for this bill has been debunked. The small water diverters are not affected by the 2016 Alexander & Baldwin court ruling, and are not being contested. The up-country water system is not under threat, as the 2016 ruling specifically allows the county usage. The new “land owner” can apply for a permit as the law requires. Generations have passed waiting for water to be restored to their  streams. Native species have been lost and kalo farms have been abandoned. We need your help to defeat this bill written specifically to protect corporate abuse of a precious natural resource. Will you submit testimony in opposition to HB1326 and HB1171 before the deadline? Urge the Hawai’i State Senate Water  Land and Ways  Means Committees to vote NO on HB1326 and HB1171. Submit your testimony today! Thanks for everything you do, Hawai‘i Center for Food Safety Connect with Us CFS welcomes your questions and comments. Please contact us at off...@centerforfoodsafety.org, or at one of our offices. Washington, D.C. Office 660 Pennsylvania Ave, SE, #402 Washington, DC 20003 phone (202) 547-9359 | fax (202) 547-9429 www.centerforfoodsafety.org     ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This material is protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No text may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without express written permission or proper citation. Please credit any and all use of our work product to: Center for Food Safety, www.centerforfoodsafety.org.