Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 20, Number 9, 1 September 2003 — East Maui kalo farmers challenge state land board decision granting long term lease to A&B [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

East Maui kalo farmers challenge state land board decision granting long term lease to A&B

By Sterling Kini Wong Beatrice Kekahuna, 71, said that during her father's time, the streams in Honopou on Maui's east coast onee carried enough water to support all 25 of her father's lo'i. But in the 1970s, she said, the amount of water being diverted to sugar eane fields increased, leaving East Maui kalo farmers with virtually nothing. Kekahuna opened two lo'i in the 1980s, but so little water reached her lo'i that the kalo corms spoiled. She finally gave up. "I didn't want to do it anymore," she said. "All that hard work going down the drain, all the wasted kalo, for nothing."

The issue of water diversion in East Maui began with the construction of an irrigation ditch system in 1876 that was designed to divert water from 40 streams in East Maui. Today, that irrigation ditch is eapable of diverting 445 million gallons of water per day from 110 streams. "Big Five" conglomerate Alexander & Baldwin and its subsidiary, the East Maui Irrigation Company (EMI), use the ditch to deliver approximately 160 million gallons

of water per day, about the same amount consumed by all of 0'ahu's residents in a day, to irrigate sugar eane fields in central Maui. Ed Wendt, president of the Ke'anae community group Nā Moku Aupuni o Ko'olau Hui (Nā Moku) and a Wailuanui resident, said this is the worst he's ever seen the streams in East Maui. Wendt said that the mass water diversion, whieh is the single largest diversion in the state, is adversely affecting farmers' ability to grow kalo for subsistence and commercial gain. On May 5, Kekahuna, Marjorie Wallett and Elizabeth Lapenia, along with Nā Moku and Maui Tomorrow, filed an agency appeal of the Jan. 24 Board of Land and Natural Resources order, in whieh the board adopted the contested court hearing officers' findings and conclusions in the Oct. 21,

2002 contested case hearings. Oral hearings will be held Sept. 17 at 1:30 p.m. in Honolulu before Judge Eden Elizabeth Hifo. The intervenors are challenging the BLNR's decision to consider A&B's May 14, 2001, application for a 30-year lease to replace its year-to-year revocable permit to divert water from East Maui streams. They elaim that the BLNR order paved the way for the BLNR to consider A&B's lease without providing required puhlie notice, while failing to consider the environmental impact of the diversion of water and without providing eonstitutional protection to traditional and customary Native Hawaiian rights. According to the BLNR order, traditional and customary Native Hawaiian rights and the effect that water diversion has on the environment will be taken into consideration when the Commission

of Water Resource Management (CWRM) establishes its Interim Instream Flow Standard. As a result of the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation's petitioning on behalf of the interveners, CRWM in May 2002 contracted the United States Geological Survey to conduct a survey to amend the instream flow standards of the East Maui streams. Steve Gingerich, USGS research hydrologist, said that study is in its beginning phases and will not be completed until April 2005. He said one impact they have already noticed is that the diversion of water has created a barrier for the upstream migration of native fish, hindering their ability to repopulate streams. Deputy Attorney General Linda Chow said that any lease that is awarded subsequent to a puhlie auetion will be subject to the amount of water CWRM determines after its consideration of the USGS study. Chow said the BLNR has no intent to abridge the rights of Native Hawaiians. Chow also said that the BLNR is following proper procedure in considering A&B's applieation: "A&B's application did not circumvent puhlie process, instead it served as a catalyst to get the process rolling. A&B is going to eome in as any other bidder would." Wendt explained that a 30-year lease is problematic because it leaves nothing left for future generations of East Maui. "With all this talk of nationhood, what is a nalion without its resources? " Wendt said. "The problem with this lease is that Hawaiians have to wait 30 years before we talk about water in East Maui." ■

Ni'i Hnn

Farmers Elizabeth Lapenia, Marjorie Wallett and Beatrice Kekahuna are fighting for water essential to cultivating kalo crops on their kuleana land.

: " . ----- ■ - ..Xj^ : - i3 A youth worker tends a lo'i run by the community-based eeonomie development group Nō Moku Aupuni O Ko'olau.whieh is appealing the state land board's decision on the East Maui water lease.

"O D" o o Q O 3 en O a Q