Should the presence of plastics be part of the criteria for whether waters off of Hawaii’s shorelines are polluted?

Environmental groups last week filed suit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, saying plastic is undoubtedly a criterion and that the EPA has failed to protect 17 coastal water bodies around Hawaii from wide-scale plastic pollution under the federal Clean Water Act.

The suit, filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii and Surfrider Foundation in state district court, names EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler and Region 9 Administrator Mike Stoker as defendants.

“The beaches where our keiki gathered shells are now covered in plastic,” said Maxx Phillips, the center’s Hawaii director. “Waters where our families fish are filled with toxic debris. Marine life in our coral reefs is choking on microplastics. It’s a crisis we have to address before it’s too late.”

Phillips said numerous studies have shown widespread plastic pollution in Hawaii’s coastal waters, affecting seven species of sea turtles as well as seabirds and fish. The plastic pollution ranges from microplastics — itty-bitty pieces of plastic measuring less than 5 millimeters — that are accidentally ingested by marine life, including sea turtles, birds and fish, to massive piles of plastic waste along Kamilo Beach — better known as “plastic beach” — on Hawaii island.

The lawsuit said studies indicate that 17 bodies of water around the isles — including Kamilo Beach as well as waters off of Tern Island, Molokai, Kauai and Nanakuli Beach on Oahu — should have been included in a list of threatened or impaired waters under the Clean Water Act.

The challenge stems back to 2015, according to Phillips, when the Hawaii Health Department was identifying “impaired waters,” or bodies of water that failed to meet state water quality standards, to the EPA, as required on its 2016 and 2018 lists.

At the time, the center urged the department to include scientific studies and data on plastic pollution as criteria for those lists. But the department failed to do so, and did not identify the 17 coastal water bodies, it said, and the EPA approved those lists in 2018.

The EPA said it does not comment on pending litigation.

Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii, a grassroots nonprofit, is a party in a lawsuit for the first time.

After organizing numerous beach cleanups, the group’s executive director, Rafael Bergstrom, said it was time to take larger-scale action at a government level. Every year, the problem only seems to get worse despite the cleanups, he said, with a denser wave of plastic making its way into Hawaii’s coastal waters.

“Sustainable Coastlines has been working on the issue for almost a decade now,” he said, “and ultimately the problem, despite us getting so many people involved and having so many volunteers come out, just continues to escalate.”

He and volunteers have seen firsthand the giant heaps of nets and microscopic fragments on Hawaii shorelines. In places like Kamilo and Kahuku, the plastic just washes up again after major beach cleanups.

“I think it’s great to have the community come out and clean up, but ultimately our end goal is to have plastic-free beaches and oceans,” he said. “That’s not going to happen unless much larger-scale actions are taken.”

Under the Clean Water Act, the EPA is required to designate as “impaired” all bodies of water that fail to meet state water quality standards. Once designated as impaired, officials must take action to reduce the pollution.

Plastic pollution affects every level of the marine ecosystem, said Phillips, from the smallest critters up the food chain to humans. Microplastics can absorb environmental toxins, she said, and get eaten by fish and other marine life, which are eventually be consumed by humans.

“The Hawaiian islands sieve out the dangerous and toxic plastic pollution from the Pacific Ocean, causing nearshore waters to be heavily polluted with plastics,” said Carl Berg, a senior scientist with Surfrider Foundation, in a news release. “Microplastics and the toxic chemicals that adhere to them are dangerous to marine life at all stages in their life cycle as they ingest it, or simply because they are living in a toxic soup. Plastic should be considered a pollutant to all recreational waters, and EPA should force polluters to stop putting public health at risk.”

While most of the plastic pollution comes from Asian countries that process American plastic waste — in the form of urban runoff and industrial activity — surveys have found a significant percentage also originates within the state, the lawsuit said.

“If we don’t turn the tap off on plastic and start holding not only our agencies and regulators accountable, but also the manufacturers accountable, we’re never going to see an end to it,” said Phillips. “We have to act before it’s too late.”