State Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustee Carmen Lindsey said Maui County should own the major conveyor of water in East Maui and Upcountry areas.

The comments by Lindsey, a former chair of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, were made after an announcement this month that the private agricultural business Mahi Pono has taken over full ownership of the East Maui Irrigation, a system of ditches and tunnels that once conveyed diverted water from streams to sugar plantations for nearly 150 years.

“It should be owned by the County of Maui so that the water can be distributed more fairly with everyone considered, including Mahi Pono,” Lindsey said.

Lindsey said the irrigation system is in bad shape and it’s going to take money to maintain and repair it.

Mahi Pono, which serves as the managing partner of East Maui Irrigation, said the transition to its full ownership will not result in any changes in its operation, staff and service to water users.

“EMI will continue its mission to support farming and to provide water to the County Department of Water Supply for its over 35,000 residents in Upcountry Maui,” Mahi Pono said.

“We look forward to advancing the production of fresh and locally grown food, the creation of meaningful jobs for Maui families, and contributing to a sustainable future for Hawai’i,” the company added.

East Maui Water Authority board chairman Jonathan Likeke Scheuer said the sale of East Maui Irrigation illustrates the problem of continued decision-making about Maui’s single largest water system happening behind closed doors.

“Now, those closed doors will be in Canada instead of Honolulu,” Scheuer said. “My hope is that this is the very last time we will have this kind of surprise news.”

Scheuer said he thinks the solution is to have the East Maui Water Authority, formed by a 2022 Charter amendment, take over the irrigation system.

East Maui Water Authority Director Gina Young said residents delivered a powerful reminder at community meetings last week.

“We live on an island. We can’t import water,” Young said. “What we have is all we have — and it’s up to us to manage it wisely and sustainably now.”

Mahealani Wendt, whose family farms taro in East Maui, said she’s unsure if the shift in ownership will change anything. Wendt said her family is pleased with the state’s establishment of interim stream flows near their taro patches.

She said everybody agrees the ditch system is inefficient and there should be more storage tanks to provide a consistent flow of water, but her family supports the East Maui Water Authority taking over the management of the system, as long as the community can assert its influence over the use of the water.

Mahi Pono, which purchased more than 4,000 acres from Alexander & Baldwin on Maui in 2018, is currently operating under a revocable permit in diverting East Maui streams.

In an announcement in mid-June, the firm Alexander & Baldwin made the announcement to stockholders that it had turned over its 50% ownership of EMI to Mahi Pono.

Alexander & Baldwin said it is focusing its efforts on its commercial real estate operations, while Mahi Pono concentrates on farming operations.

Mahi Pono said as of April 1, it had planted more than 2 million trees and plants on more than 13,000 acres of land, including lime, lemon, oranges, tangerine, coffee, avocado, macadamia nut and watermelon.

The firm said it has also prepared more than 9,000 acres of grass pasture land to support Maui Cattle Company’s grass-fed beef operations.

Products are sold under the Maui Harvest brand are available at select retailers and food hubs across the state including Costco, Safeway, Foodland, Whole Foods, Walmart, Tamura’s, Target, KTA Supermarket, Local Harvest and Farmlink.

According to Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co., a former subsidiary of Alexander & Baldwin, about 115 million gallons of water a day would be needed to transform most of its 36,000 acres into diversified agriculture.

Mahi Pono said it has selected crops that will result in a significant decrease in water use on the farm compared to A&B’s previous crop sugarcane.

“We estimate that our diversified farm will use 50% less water compared to the previous sugarcane monocrop operation,” Mahi Pono said on its website.