East Maui stream issue coming to a boil

Taro growers renew protests over water diversions

By CHRIS HAMILTON, Staff Writer
HUELO — East Maui taro farmers plan to be out along the Hana Highway this morning to protest what they call Alexander & Baldwin Co.’s unfair 130-year-old practice of diverting water from streams in order to sate its sugar cane fields.

The protest, which organizers Troy McConnell and Lynn Scott promised will be peaceful, is their second in a month. It will begin at 9 a.m. at Twin Falls.

“Downstream residents and taro farmers who have practiced taro farming for generation after generation for hundreds, if not thousands of years, have been robbed and denied the lawfully deeded water, which allows their taro to grow,” according to the Honopou Stream Association.

The association is one of several grass-roots groups that have banded together for protests to coincide with the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp.’s petition before the state Commission on Water Resource Management calling on the commission to restore streamflows to 27 East Maui streams.

The farmers say that Alexander & Baldwin’s farming divisions — East Maui Irrigation Co. and Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Co. — are diverting too much water and failing to provide adequate flows for stream life and for downstream farmers. An A&B spokeswoman contacted by The Maui News on Friday did not respond to a request for comment.

A&B representatives have maintained that the diversions are necessary in order to maintain the company’s sugar operations, which provide hundreds of well-paying jobs and tax dollars, provides electricity to Maui Electric and allocates water to Maui County for Upcountry farmers and residents.

During a public meeting last month on the streamflow petition, A&B officials denied charges that the company is banking water for future development of its more than 35,000 acres of sugar cane. If sugar cane is no longer grown on Maui, the water rights will revert back to the state, the officials said.

More than a hundred people met in Haiku with water commission staff to review issues in the petition filed seven years ago. The petition asks the commission to comply with the state Water Code by setting instream flow standards for the East Maui streams being diverted by EMI from Nahiku to Honopou.

East Maui taro growers complain that EMI diverts all the streams mauka of Hana Highway with an outdated and poorly maintained system comprising 74 miles of ditches and tunnels. EMI collects up to 234 million gallons of water a day and the gulches only fill with water during downpours.

The farmers also argue that restoring the streams will breathe life back into the forests and help restore stream fauna that rely on free-flowing streams to breed and grow.

According to water commission Deputy Director Ken Kawahara, the East Maui petition was delayed because the commission is understaffed. But the staff is assembling a report on the issue, which it intends to present to the commission.

Written comments from the public on the East Maui streamflow petition will be accepted until June 10.

Drafts of the instream flow standard assessment reports can be found online at www.hawaii.gov/dlnr/cwrm/ or at the public libraries in Hana, Kahului and Wailuku.

Public comments can be sent to the Commission of Water Resource Management, state Department of Land and Natural Resources, P.O. Box 621, Honolulu 96809 or send e-mail to dlnr.cwrm@hawaii.gov.

According to the streamflow group, a new online documentary about the East Maui issue on can be found on Hawaii Community Television Public Access titled “Water Wars.” It can be viewed at www.hemowai.tv.

The effort is generating support from other areas as well.

Native Hawaiian cultural rights advocate Walter Ritte said similar water rights protests are in works on Molokai, mirroring the efforts of the East Maui taro farmers.

“It’s terrific,” Ritte said. “It’s way overdue.”

• Chris Hamilton can be reached at chamilton@mauinews.com.