A story from today’s Garden Island News, about the Kauai Springs case, reporting that the circuit court has granted the company’s request for a preliminary injunction, preventing the County from putting Kauai Springs out of business while the appeal is being considered.
The case is the appeal by Kauai’s only bottled water company of the Kauai Planning Commission’s denial of a request for a permit to use agriculturally zoned land for a small bottling facility (pictured). The Planning Commission denied the request because it had “concerns” that the State Commission on Water Resource Managment and State Public Utilities Commission might regulate Kauai Springs, despite the fact that both agencies expressly told the Planning Commisssion that they had no problem at all.
A state judge has verbally approved a preliminary injunction to allow Kaua‘i Springs to continue operating a water-bottling plant in Koloa as it appeals a county decision to shut down the facility.
The island’s only water company that draws from a local spring is appealing a decision by Kaua‘i County Planning Commission in March denying its request for a use permit, a special permit and a Class IV Zoning permit.
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Robert Thomas, an attorney with Damon Key Leong Kupchak Hastert, representing Kaua‘i Springs, has said the commission doesn’t have the right to decide on water matters, only land matters.
The company requested approval of the commission permits after a competitor complained it conducted an industrial activity on agricultural lands, Thomas said.
Company owner Jim Satterfield said he secured federal, state and county approvals when he opened his business in 2004.
Full story here.