2011 Hawaii Code
DIVISION 1. GOVERNMENT
TITLE 12. CONSERVATION AND RESOURCES
174C. State Water Code
§174C-58 Revocation of permits.

[§174C-58] Revocation of permits. After a hearing, the commission may suspend or revoke a permit for:

(1) Any materially false statement in the application for the water permit, a modification of a permit term, or any materially false statement in any report or statement of fact required of the user pursuant to this part.

(2) Any wilful violation of any condition of the permit.

(3) Any violation of any provision of this chapter.

(4) Partial or total nonuse, for reasons other than conservation, of the water allowed by the permit for a period of four continuous years or more. The commission may permanently revoke the permit as to the amount of water not in use unless the user can prove that the user's nonuse was due to extreme hardship caused by factors beyond the user's control. The commission and the permittee may enter into a written agreement that, for reasons satisfactory to the commission, any period of nonuse may not apply towards the four-year revocation period. Any period of nonuse which is caused by a declaration of water shortage pursuant to section 174C-62 shall not apply towards the four-year period of forfeiture.

The commission may cancel a permit, permanently and in whole, with the written consent of the permittee. [L 1987, c 45, pt of §2]

Case Notes

The state water code both expressly and impliedly authorizes the commission to issue a water use permit that allocates water in excess of a four-year time frame; paragraph (4) is an enforcement mechanism by which the commission may suspend or revoke a water use permit upon knowledge that a permitted allocation of water, which the commission has expected to be used within a four-year time frame, has not been utilized. 103 H. 401, 83 P.3d 664.

Where it could not be said that closure of hotel and golf course would have no impact on applicant's proposed uses in light of commission on water resource management's findings and conclusions pursuant to the "reasonable-beneficial use" standard set forth in §174C-49 and defined in §174C-3, commission's reliance on paragraph (4), allowing applicant four years to fulfill its proposed uses before the commission may suspend or revoke a permit, was misplaced; as commission failed to consider the impact the closures may have on applicant's proposed uses when it made its proposed use allocation decision, proposed use permit vacated. 116 H. 481, 174 P.3d 320.