The region of Na Wai 'Eha covers the windward side of Mauna Kahalawai in a lush green blanket. The "Four Great Waters" of Waihe'e, 'Iao, Wakapu, and North and South Waiehu, once fed Hawai'i's largest and most productive lo'i kalo. There, water's centrality to Hawai'i's pre-contact culture and agriculture was most evident.
Today, if one turns their back on the arid isthmus of Maui's sugar-coated central plain, it is almost impossible to imagine that the coming crisis of water shortages, saline aquifers, devastated ecosystems and bone-dry stream beds are almost, if not already, here. The lush greenness of our mauka regions betrays the depleted aquifers that lie beneath our feet and often covers over the now trickling streams that once flowed fiercely and fed the land, the ocean and Hawai'i's people in abundance.
Maui is a microcosm of much larger water issues looming on our global horizon. Just as a Na Wai 'Eha once represented all that was possible through a communally managed ahupua'a, today the future of Hawai'i is foreshadowed in how we understand and proceed with restoring and protecting Hawai'i's publically held stream water at Na Wai 'Eha and beyond.
Who Owns the Water? Na Wai 'Eha and Maui Agriculture's Tug of War
John Duey is not who you would expect to find on the frontlines of Hawai'i's most pressing environmental battle: 71 years old, Tea Party member, Rush Limbaugh devotee and fierce critic of President Obama. As we sat in his office, nestled in 'Iao Valley, the rushing of the rain and 'Iao Stream outside, Duey succinctly summed up his position, "I'm a one-issue environmentalist. I'm not a tree-hugger or a crazy zealot. But this is a fight worth fighting."
Duey was one of the founding members of Hui O Na Wai 'Eha, who along with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and Maui Tomorrow, represented by Earthjustice attorneys Kapua Sproat and Isaac Morikawe, filed a petition to the Water Commission for the restoration of Na Wai 'Eha's stream flow. For over a century the water flowing down Hawai'i's streams have been diverted to feed the water hungry crops of commercial agricultural operations. The infrastructure, developed in the heyday of the plantation era, diverts over 80 percent of Na Wai 'Eha, leaving these streams with little to no water, except during heavy rains. For over a century, Hawaii Commercial & Sugar (HC&S) and Wailuku Water Company (WWC) grew rich off of Na Wai 'Eha's "free" resources, watering some of Hawai'i's most productive sugar fields. While the sugar fields of central Maui remain, the rest quickly morphed into golf courses and real-estate developments, as Wailuku Sugar sold off its land holdings and began delivering its last remaining valuable resource to interested customers under its new name: Wailuku Water Company.
While the diversion of water might have been copacetic during the plantation era, the 1978 constitutional convention brought with it a radical provision that designated Hawai'i's water resources as a public trust to be responsibly managed and maintained by the installation of a Water Code and the Water Commission. This was reaffirmed in the 2000 Waiahole ditch case, where the state was once again charged with the duty of protecting Hawai'i's publicly held water resources for present and future generations.
In both instances, the burden of proof and responsibility was shifted to off-stream users and those who divert water for their own public gain. "Takers now have to justify their takings, showing not only why they need the water they are taking from the stream, but they are doing so efficiently and that there are no alternative sources," explained attorney Isaac Morikawe. In the case of Na Wai 'Eha, neither HC&S nor Wailuku Water Company have adequately demonstrated need, efficiency or lack of viable alternatives.
HC&S and Wailuku Water Company assert that the diverted water is essential for the economic viability of their businesses and that without maintenance of the current distribution of stream water they would be forced to shut down (Avery Chumbly, president of Wailuku Water Company, declined comment for this article). They have repeatedly maintained that they have the public's best interest in mind and that they are simply delivering a resource others are demanding. This response has turned this issue on Maui into an environment versus jobs showdown. Yet when the water is not used, it is wasted. During the contested case hearings, Earthjustice attorneys, community members and Na Wai 'Eha residents repeatedly documented instances where water was dumped in ditches, along roadsides and in fallow fields.
"HC&S has viable alternatives to destroying these streams, but prefers to use stream water because it is cheap or free," said Irene Bowie, Executive Director of Maui Tomorrow, in a press release during the contested case process. "There is nothing cheap or free about the priceless natural and cultural value of streams flowing mauka to makai, and private companies aren't entitled to maximize their profits off of public water."
Traditional Rights and Practices: Putting the Culture Back in Agriculture
Hokuao Pellegrino and his family have been living on their kuleana land in Waikapu, the first ahupua'a of Na Wai 'Eha, for over 150 years. The 12 lo'i kalo that they are restoring at Noho'ana Farm are 450 to 500 years old. In the 1930s, however, when Wailuku Sugar was at its peak, his family was forced to stop cultivating kalo, as the stream that fed their land was diverted and ran dry. According to Pellegrino, the kupuna of Waikapu say the stream ran dry from as early as the 1900s until the 1980s.
It wasn't until 1998 that Hokuao started to farm dryland kalo with his father, eventually leading to the restoration of their historical lo'i and the foundation of Noho'ana Farm. "When I grew up here, I always remember the river flowing. But 'flowing' to me didn't come with a concept of how water levels compared to what my ancestors remember," described Pellegrino. "When we started this, I had no idea that the amount of water we would need to re-open all 12 of our lo'i would be so much more than I was used to seeing in the river."
The diversions, which cut across all of Na Wai 'Eha, threaten the cultural traditions of kanaka maoli and Hawai'i's taro farmers. Pellegrino continued, "Hiking up into the mountains, I would always see the diversions but I had no idea what they meant until I started farming kalo and learned more about my heritage and my link to this 'aina and Na Wai 'Eha. It was only then that I discovered that the amount of water I was used to seeing in the Waikapu stream growing up was only five percent of what originally flowed there.
"At the time of the Mahele of 1848," explained Pellegrino, who has done extensive research on Waikapu, "a conservative estimate of 1,400 lo'i kalo on roughly 1,000 acres were present. Today there is only enough water to cultivate a total of eight lo'i on less than one acre at any given time in Waikapu. It is almost impossible for us to live off our land, let alone sustain our community."
Diversions not only reduce the amount of water that reaches downstream users like the Pellegrinos and the other four kalo farmers along Waikapu stream, but by decreasing the overall volume of water in the stream, diversions lead to overall water warming, which makes kalo, a plant which requires cool, clean flowing water, more difficult to grow. "I am always astonished as I look through old photographs of valleys completely cultivated in lo'i kalo and the pure ingenuity of our ancestors in managing their water resources in a way that was pono. Kalo cultivation was and still very much is a way of life. It is the reason why we are here today as Hawaiians," said Pellegrino.
Today, the Pellegrino family, one of many families supporting Hui O Na Wai 'Eha, has developed their lo'i kalo farm into a cultural learning center for people of Hawai'i and abroad. Over 1,500 children and adults visit the lo'i every year. Much of the kalo harvested goes towards supporting the Waikapu community.
"We want to sustain the Waikapu community with 'ai ponoÐhealthy foods," stressed Pellegrino. "Our central mission is to put culture back in agriculture. As we restore our cultural landscapes, especially kuleana lands, my hope is that people will be inspired once again to become responsible stewards of our 'aina and learn to understand, value and practice the traditional farming methods of our ancestors."
Just as our fresh water and streams connect our mountains to the sea in an intricate maze of symbiotic ecological relationships, so too does the water link us to Hawai'i's past and the practices that underscored the traditional Hawaiian way of life. "The only way to achieve and continue perpetuating our culture, agriculture and lifestyle rests on restoring Na Wai 'Eha's stream flow," opined Pellegrino.
Mauka to Makai: Preserving Ecosystems, Watersheds and Wetlands
Stream diversions have had a devastating impact on the overall health of Maui's watersheds and the native ecosystems that have evolved to depend on continuous mauka-to-makai stream flow. The 'o'opu (gobies), 'opae (crustaceans) and hihiwai (limpet) all spend their larval stages in the brackish waters near shore and return to the streams for the majority of their lives, transforming as they migrate. If there are long dry reaches, like those caused by diversions, native stream species will not be able to migrate up stream or their larvae will not reach the oceans. Further, as diversions decrease the overall stream volume and the water warms, invasive species thrive.
Native stream species are a part of a complex interconnected food chain, integral to stream and ecosystem health. The influx of stream water into the ocean also supports fishponds, wetlands and other near-shore ecosystems where the growth of limu is critical to the entire ocean food chain.
"As the higher end of the in-stream food chain, these species are a prime indicator of the healthy functioning of the stream ecosystem from top to bottom, like the canary in a coal mine," explained Isaac Morikawe. "'O'opu, 'opae and hihiwai are also valued by native Hawaiians and others as resources for subsistence gathering. These animals are an inseparable part of native Hawaiian culture and are the subject of many ancient Hawaiian stories and legends."
"Maui's water problems are not just about the way their water is managed, or mismanaged for that matter. As the story of Na Wai 'Eha demonstrates, the future of our water will also depend upon how we understand what grows and what does not grow on our land and the health of these sensitive ecosystems based on its inhabitants. Na Wai 'Eha and Maui's watershed are more than the sum of their partsÐthe value of native species and plant life demand our protection.
David vs. Goliath
Of all the fresh water used on a daily basis around the world, 70 percent is used for agricultural purposes, while only 10 percent is used for personal domestic use (the remaining 20 percent is used for industrial purposes). This sheds new light on the debates surrounding water conservation. Despite the heavy pressure on Maui's aquifers for residential and commercial domestic use, the fact remains that the majority of Maui's fresh water ends up in fields growing cropsÐcrops that are water hungry. Sugar is one of the thirstiest crops, needing more than ten thousand gallons of water per day, per acre, and sugar can't even feed us. Growing commodity crops for export or fuel makes little sense when we import 85 percent of our food, the cost of which rises proportionately with the cost of oil.
A sustainably managed watershed is central to the future of agriculture and food security in Hawai'i. As the supply of readily available potable water decreases, our communities will be forced us to decide whether or not this future will continue to privilege large agricultural operations like the monocultures of Hawai'i's plantation past, or if it will turn to the diversified small farming operations which use less water, less pesticides, and produce more food per acre.
"Reclaiming the land with perennial cropping systems and animals is our mission," said Vincent Mina of Maui Aloha 'Aina and The Hawai'i Farmer's Union of Maui County. "We want to restore and create resiliently in our agricultural system, not this monocrop madness that uses extractive fossil-fuel based fertilizers to grow cheap food and bio-fuels while tightening up the 'aina, depleting it of its structure."
Mina recently demonstrated the inability of sugar cane soil to hold water to Maui's City Council, advocating for the restoration of soils through permaculture and diversified organic farming. Unfortunately, recommendations like these too often fall on deaf ears, seen as extreme and unrealistic alternatives to industrial agriculture. For years, Big Ag has taken water away from native stream species, small farmers and traditional users. Make no mistake, bio-fuels agriculture will be no different. If Na Wai 'Eha forces us to do anything, it should force us to rethink Hawai'i's relationship with agriculture.
Flowing Forward
In April 2009, after a lengthy study commissioned by the Water Commission, Hearings Officer Lawrence Miike once again reaffirmed the mandate of the 1978 Constitutional Convention and Waiahole ditch case, recommending the restoration of 34.5 million gallons per day to Na Wai 'Eha, about half of the total stream flow. Unfortunately, and to the continued detriment of the local community and ecosystem, on June 10, 2010 the Water Commission issued its final ruling. The majority (Commissioner Miike was the only dissenting voice) decided to reduce the amount of restoration to only 12.5 million gallons per day, leaving 'Iao and Waikapu Streams in their completely dewatered state.
"This is a miscarriage of justice and it will not stand," said Earthjustice attorney Isaac Moriwake. "In the 21st century, the Commission majority is still letting plantation politics, rather than the law, rule our most precious resource."
Dissenting Commissioner Lawrence Miike issued a detailed and strongly worded opinion criticizing the majority for turning the Commission's public trust responsibilities "on their heads." Miike concluded, "By this decision, the majority has failed in its duties under the Constitution and the State Water Code as trustee of the state's public water resources."
"Hui members are shocked that the Commission majority rewrote the final decision based on politics, not the law, and over the strong objection of the only Commissioner to sit through months of proceedings and review all of the evidence," said Hui O Na Wai 'Eha President John Duey. "Even though the Commission majority was swayed by plantation pressure, we believe the law and history will vindicate us."
Na Wai 'Eha is also not the only area where water rights are being contested. Citizens of east Maui recently reached a compromise with the Water Commission and the Department of Land and Natural Resources, which restored water to 27 streams there. Like Na Wai 'Eha, however, the process was tedious and lengthy, taking over seven years, a process that the Water Code stipulates should take only 180 days. Community groups in west Maui and on Moloka'i and Big Island are considering similar moves towards reclaiming the water that once flowed freely in their streams as well. Kapua Sproat, Ka Huli Ao and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs recently published Ola I Ka Wai, a legal primer on the use and management of water resources in Hawai'i, intended for those wanting to better understand their rights within the current legal framework.
As the primer and Na Wai 'Eha demonstrate, Hawai'i is uniquely positioned to respond to the issues of water rights and privatization: our constitution and Water Code clearly establish that water, and all of Hawai'i's natural resources, are publically held and cannot be privately owned. Yet according to Earthjustice attorney Isaac Morikawe, this broad mandate is lacking in "staff, funding, and most importantly, political will." Our publicly held right to water and other natural resources need to be asserted and protected and Na Wai 'Eha is a powerful example of community and individual involvement. Na Wai 'Eha not only teaches us about the complexity of waterÐits ecological, historical and cultural importance in Hawai'iÐNa Wai 'Eha is also the story of people and communities coming together to fight for what is lawfully theirs, refusing to take a history of colonial resource exploitation as a roadmap for the future. Na Wai 'Eha is a story of democracy that promises all of us a future where resources can and will be managed by the people and for the people. As Arundhati Roy, internationally renowned anti-globalization activist, wrote, "It is important to remember that our freedoms, such as they are, were never given to us by any government, they have been wrested by us. If we do not test them from time to time, they atrophy. If we do not guard them constantly, they will be taken away from us. If we do not demand more and more, we will be left with less and less."