The state Supreme Court has been asked to intervene in a longstanding dispute over whether a 24-year-old environmental review should clear the way for a planned resort expansion at Turtle Bay.

If the high court decides to take the appeal, as it should, the state will get clearer direction of how environmental law should apply to development that has languished on the drawing boards for years.

And although the Kuilima Resort Co. project is at the center of this case, there are other projects with environmental impact statements prepared long ago. The original proposal for Makena Resort on Maui, for example, was based on an EIS completed in 1974.

Last week, environmental groups Sierra Club and Keep the North Shore Country made the strong case in their final appeal that the original Turtle Bay EIS no longer provides the comprehensive review that's needed.

It did not project traffic impacts beyond the year 2000, they argue, and the document never mentioned how the expansion could affect the threatened green sea turtles and the endangered Hawaiian monk seals, which in recent years have been spotted more frequently in the area.

The plaintiffs contest a decision by city officials not to require a supplemental EIS when Kuilima applied for a subdivision permit in 2005. The city and the developers contend, with the backing of lower courts, that if the design remains unaltered the original EIS will suffice.

Complicating matters is that the developers and the city struck a unilateral agreement on this project, which itself has no expiration date. Abridging that agreement now would surely invite further legal challenges.

But the court needs to offer clear guidance on what effect environmental changes over time should have on the validity of an EIS.

Lawmakers should consider enacting clearer rules for considering supplemental EIS requests. An administrative appeal in a public setting, similar to a contested-case hearing, would make the process more transparent.

In a state where vacant land is at a premium, allowing projects to lie fallow for years without the option of revisiting the environmental studies is not rational land-use policy.