Years of advocacy to protect Kauai seabirds pay off

Feds spell out actions utility must take to reduce seabird deaths and injuries

From The Center for Biological Diversity

KAUAI, Hawaii— Conservation groups that have worked for years to pressure the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative to comply with the Endangered Species Act welcomed the news that, on Friday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a permit detailing the actions the utility must take to reduce the number of imperiled seabirds it kills and injures each year and to offset unavoidable harm.

The KIUC promised to seek the required permit when it acquired Kauai’s utility in 2002, but for years it refused to implement the measures needed to prevent the deaths of two seabird species protected by the federal Endangered Species Act: the threatened Newell’s shearwater and the endangered Hawaiian petrel . 

From 1993 to 2008, the population of Newell’s shearwaters on Kauai declined by 75 percent, in large part due to birds striking power lines and becoming disoriented by the utility’s streetlights. 

The KIUC’s delays prompted Earthjustice to file a federal lawsuit in March 2010 on behalf of Hui Hoomalu I Ka Aina, Conservation Council for Hawai‘i, Center for Biological Diversity and American Bird Conservancy.

“This is an important step in protecting the increasingly rare, native seabirds that nest on Kauai,” said Makaala Kaaumoana of Hui Hoomalu I Ka Äina. “We regret only that KIUC has taken so long to do something meaningful about the nearly 200 endangered and threatened seabirds its power lines and streetlights kill and injure each year.”

In May 2010, two months after the conservation groups went to court, the U.S. Justice Department indicted the KIUC for criminal violations of the Endangered Species Act for killing the protected seabirds without a permit. The utility entered into a plea agreement shortly before its trial was scheduled to begin in December 2010.

“It’s unfortunate that two lawsuits were needed to get KIUC to take responsibility for its actions,” said Marjorie Ziegler of Conservation Council for Hawaii. “Corporations operating in Hawaii should understand their kuleana (responsibility) to protect our precious natural heritage.”

The permit requires the KIUC to carry out actions described in a “habitat conservation plan.” These include a schedule for the KIUC to lower its power lines, obscure them with fast-growing trees, or attach them to bridges to minimize bird fatalities in key flyways — Kealia, Hanapepe and Kapaa.

“We’ve been asking KIUC to implement these common-sense protective measures for years, but the utility refused,” said Peter Galvin of the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s gratifying to see they are finally being required under the habitat conservation plan.”