Conservation groups sue Kauai Island Utility

A coalition of conservation groups is suing Kauai Island Utility Cooperative to halt the decline of threatened and endangered birds on the Garden Island. Lawyers for Earthjustice filed the lawsuit in federal court on March 24 on behalf of Hui Hoomalu I Ka Aina, the Conservation Council of Hawaii, the Center for Biological Diversity and the American Bird Conservancy.

The groups claim power lines of the former Kauai Electric Co., other utility structures and utility-owned and operated streetlights are substantially responsible for a 75 percent decline in the number of Newell's shearwaters on Kauai between 1993 and 2008. The lawsuit also claims the utility's operations kill and injure Hawaiian petrels.

The federal government lists the Newell's shearwater, also known as the Hawaiian shearwater or a'o, as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. It lists the Hawaiian petrel, or ua'u, as an endangered species.