The groups reached a settlement with the County of Kauaʻi and Department of Health after filing a lawsuit in 2022 to enforce the Clean Water Act, capping a series of suits to protect West Kaua‘i coastal waters
Hawaiʻi’s Agribusiness Development Corporation operates a 40-mile drainage ditch system that each day funnels millions of gallons of polluted drainage waters from the Mānā Plain into the ocean near Kekaha and Waimea. The open ditches weave past thousands of acres of pesticide-intensive genetically engineered seed operations, a landfill, a wastewater treatment plant, and populated areas…
Defendant Agribusiness Development Corporation (“ADC”) has been violating, and continues to violate, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, also known as the Clean Water Act (“CWA”), 33 U.S.C. §§ 1251–1388, by discharging polluted drainage waters from the Mānā Plain drainage canal system it owns, operates, and maintains, including but not limited to the canals, two pumping stations, and seven drainage ditch outfalls in West Kaua‘i, Hawai‘i.
Earthjustice, on behalf of community groups Na Kia‘i Kai, Surfrider Foundation, and Pesticide Action Network, sent notice to the state Agribusiness Development Corporation that it intends to sue the agency for illegally polluting ocean waters on Kaua‘i’s west side.