Maui, companies settle
tainted water suit

By Gary T. Kubota
Star-Bulletin

WAILUKU -- Maui County water board Chairman Robert Takitani says a settlement with several businesses involved in the making or distribution of a chemical linked to cancer and sterility ensures residents will have clean water at lower treatment cost.

"This was done to protect Maui's water supply and to prevent the treatment cost to be paid by Maui consumers," Takitani said.

Details of the settlement, announced yesterday, call for several companies to pay a total of $3 million, plus the cost of removing dibromo chloropropane from any contaminated county drinking wells.

The businesses settling the lawsuit brought by the county included Dow Chemical Co., Shell Oil Co, Occidental Chemical Co. and Brewer Environmental Industries LLC.

DBCP was used on Maui as a soil fumigant on pineapple starting in the 1950s and was banned on the mainland in the '70s when it was found in groundwater. It was used on Maui until 1985.

DBCP has been linked to cancer as well as reproductive disorders, the county alleged.

The county said the chemical has been found in five wells, including two in west Maui, one in Haiku and two at Hamakuapoko.

County officials say they plan to treat the water using granular activated charcoal filters, a process that has been used to treat water containing DBCP in California's Central Valley and Oahu.

The lawsuit was filed in Maui Circuit Court on May 3, 1996.

Dow and Occidental sued Maui Land & Pineapple Co. as an involuntary third-party defendant.