Judge halts Maui LED streetlight retrofit to assess wildlife safety

A state circuit judge has ruled in favor of an environmental group that sued Maui County to stop a lighting replacement project it said would potentially harm wildlife.

Earthjustice in 2019 sued Maui County for retrofitting 4,800 streetlights with more energy efficient LED, or light-emitting diode, bulbs that have high blue-light content. The blue-white light, Earthjustice said, mimics moonlight and disorients endangered seabirds and turtles.

Maui’s Department of Public Works did not complete an environmental review as required by state law, the suit said. Instead, it went ahead and signed a contract committing $1.9 million for the project, then sought an exemption, and already retrofitted 947 streetlights.

On Monday, Maui Judge Joseph Cardoza agreed the county violated the Hawaii Environmental Policy Act, and that all further installations should stop until it has completed the public environmental review process.

A decision on what to do with the 947 LEDs already installed, however, should be determined at a jury trial.

Earthjustice attorney Kylie Wager Cruz said the decision vindicates the two citizen groups she has represented — the Hawaii Wildlife Fund and the Conservation Council for Hawaii.

“The county gave no thought to the law or environmental impacts before plowing forward full-speed with the streetlights project,” said Cruz. “This is precisely the type of reckless decision-making that our environmental review laws were designed to prevent.”

Maui County cannot comment on pending legislation, spokesman Brian Perry said.

Many counties, including Honolulu, are retrofitting municipal streetlights with LEDs to improve energy efficiency as well as save costs.

The Maui Electric Co. in October 2018 announced it had partnered with the county to install about 4,800 of the energy-saving LEDs that would replace high pressure sodium bulbs starting that November.

Earthjustice would like Maui County to either convert the 947 streetlights already retrofitted with the LEDs back to sodium bulbs or to add filters so they cause less harm to wildlife, said Cruz

“We’re not opposed to LED lights, generally,” she said. “We do realize there are cost savings and energy efficiencies associated with that technology, but we know there’s a responsible way to get the job done by using either warm colored LEDs or LEDs that filter out blue light.”

Other choices are readily available, she said, and Hawaii County has been using amber-colored or filtered LEDs for years.

For years, wildlife experts had warned Maui County of the potential harm that bright, blue-white lights posed to seabirds, including Newell’s shearwaters and Hawaiian petrels, Earthjustice said.

The seabirds confuse the lights as moonlight, which guides them out to sea, and often circle them until they fall to the ground from exhaustion. Hawskbill and green sea turtle hatchlings are also confused by the lighting, preventing them from reaching the ocean.

“The county should be taking every precaution to safeguard Hawaii’s wildlife, especially species that are on the brink of extinction,” said Conservation Council for Hawaii board member Julie Leialoha. “The Hawaiian petrel is critically endangered, with bright lights one of the biggest culprits in its decline. The number of documented casualties of seabirds and fledglings during the annual fall out season is too high for the county to simply ignore.”