Another lawsuit has been filed over the Lāhainā fires. This one accuses developer Peter Martin and his water subsidiaries of marking dry conditions worse, contributing to the fire.
Martin owns the West Maui Land Company, which bought large swaths of former sugar plantation land, including a vast network of water irrigation ditches after the plantation closed in 1999.
The lawsuit argues the conditions that led to the fire were made worse by these subsidiaries, diverting streams and over-pumping groundwater to feed West Maui Land’s real estate developments.
Maui attorney Lance Collins filed the lawsuit on behalf of Kauaʻula natives Keʻeaumoku and Uʻilani Kapu, and their non-profit Nā ʻAikāne O Maui, which lost its headquarters in the Aug. 8 fires.
"None of the other lawsuits that have been filed, I mean a couple of them have now named most of Peter Martinʻs companies, but none of them have named the irrigation or water companies. And nobody is asserting that the diversions and then when they had to switch from the diversions to the pumping of the skimming wells that that was a contributing factor to the fires," Kapu said.
"We basically are saying that his misuse of water resources was a contributing factor to the fires and that he should be liable for it."
Martin did not respond to HPR's request for comment for this story.
Martin and his companies have been named in several lawsuits related to the Lāhainā fires. But this is the first claiming Martin should be held liable for misuse of water resources that contributed to the fire.
Read the lawsuit below:
