A federal judge Friday granted an injunction delaying the Maui County moratorium on genetically modified organisms while he considers arguments in the case.
Judge Barry Kurren said attorneys for both Maui County and the large agricultural concerns affected by the voter-approved initiative agreed Thursday to postpone the starting date of the law until at least Dec. 5.
In issuing the order, Kurren is saying the plaintiffs have shown they could potentially suffer irreparable harm if the law goes into effect, Kenneth Robbins, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told the Associated Press.
Monsanto and a Dow Chemical subsidiary sued the county Thursday to stop the ordinance. Also listed as plaintiffs in the federal suit are local individuals, groups and other businesses, including a Kula farm and the Maui Farm Bureau.
Maui voters narrowly passed a ballot initiative creating the ordinance Nov. 4. The ordinance was expected to take effect after the election was certified in a few weeks.
Kurren is the same judge who ruled against Kauai’s anti-GMO Ordinance 960, saying it was pre-empted by state laws regulating pesticides and cultivation of GMO crops. Kurren is also weighing arguments in a suit against Hawaii island’s Bill 113, which bans cultivation of any new genetically altered crops, including GMO papayas, unless registered with the county.
Maui County spokesman Rod Antone said Friday that county officials will abide by the order.
"It’s hard to enforce the law until we can settle the legal issues surrounding it," he said.
In the meantime, county officials will continue to work on figuring out how to implement the moratorium if and when it needs to be enacted, Antone said.
On Wednesday five members of the Shaka Movement, the group responsible for getting the Maui initiative on the ballot, filed suit in Maui Circuit Court in hopes of having the legal standing determined in state court on Maui.
Shaka Movement attorney Michael C. Carroll said his clients were surprised and disappointed by Friday’s federal court agreement.
"But it doesn’t affect the issues that need to be decided in the case. We look forward to having the opportunity to raise our position in federal court," he said.
Carroll said the Shaka Movement will file a motion to intervene in the federal action Monday, and he remains hopeful the federal court will ultimately agree the issues should be decided in a Maui court, where the original complaint was filed.
"The Maui Court is best equipped to decide this case, as the focus of the case concerns a Maui ordinance," he said.
Earlier, Monsanto said the company likely would move to dismiss the Maui case.
"The legal validity of the ordinance under existing state and federal laws is the real issue; and that issue will be decided by a federal court in a different suit that actually reviews the merits of the ordinance," the company said in a statement.
The Shaka Movement’s suit also asks that the county take "proper measures" to implement the new law, including adopting appropriate rules, obtaining the necessary funding and consulting with the plaintiffs.
The five Shaka Movement leaders named as plaintiffs in the suit are spokesman Mark Sheehan, Lorrin Pang, Lei‘ohu Ryder, Bonnie Marsh and Alika Atay. They contend the seed companies use Hawaii as an outdoor laboratory to test genetically modified crops, many of which are engineered to resist herbicides and pesticides. That means repeated spraying of chemicals near neighborhoods, schools and waterways, they say.
In the federal case, Monsanto argues that the initiative conflicts with state and federal laws that support the lawful cultivation of GMO crops. They also said the initiative violates Maui County’s charter, among other things, by appropriating money despite limitations on using the initiative power for that purpose.
The new law renders multimillion-dollar investments valueless, according to the suit, and will deeply hurt the county’s economy and the hundreds of employees who work in the industry.
