Maui County voters will be asked to vote on charter amendments, including a proposal to a create a county regional “water authority” to take over the East Maui Irrigation system. Voters should reject it because it is bad economics.

EMI has been supplying the county water for Upcountry, at almost no cost, for the last 60 years.

Maui County Council wants to step away from that good deal and instead proposes the county taking over the management of the EMI collection system, as well as the massive watershed rainforest that extends from Makawao to Hana, and responsibility for supplying water to Upcountry.

Maui County Water Supply Department has explicitly warned the council that the proposal does not consider the significant costs and the problems it will create. The council has chosen to ignore that warning. One of the problems with the proposal is that it does not delineate the relationship between the existing county water department and the proposed water authority. Who is going to be in charge of what?

One of the major reasons the council has made this last-minute proposal is to attempt to prevent the partnership of A&B and Mahi Pono from being awarded a 30-year water lease from the state Water Commission for state lands in East Maui. The council believes the lease should be awarded to the county instead, shifting the responsibility for this major system to Maui County taxpayers.

No one knows how much that will cost or where those funds would come from.

Dave DeLeon

Haiku