LIHUE — The Kauai County Council has rejected a proposal that would have repealed a law regulating the use of pesticides and cultivation of genetically modified organisms by large-scale commercial agriculture companies.
LIHUE — The Kauai County Council has rejected a proposal that would have repealed a law regulating the use of pesticides and cultivation of genetically modified organisms by large-scale commercial agriculture companies.
The council struck down the bill by a 5-1 vote, The Garden Island newspaper reported Thursday.
Three dozen people testified in favor of upholding the law, citing a right to know what chemicals are being sprayed by companies and a need to test for possible correlations to health problems.
Councilman Ross Kagawa cast the lone vote in favor of repeal. Kagawa introduced the measure with fellow Councilman Mel Rapozo, but Rapozo didn’t vote on it.
A federal court judge ruled the law invalid in August after determining that state laws pre-empted the county law. Two separate appeals have since been filed in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
The county’s costs for filing an appeal have been capped at $12,750. That’s because the county’s law firm, McCorriston Miller Mukai MacKinnon LLP of Honolulu, has said it would waive legal fees beyond the $210,000 the county has already authorized.