Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 20, Number 10, 1 ʻOkakopa 2003 — Judge requires impact assessment for East Maui water diversion [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Judge requires impact assessment for East Maui water diversion

By Sterling Kini Wong

Astate Circuit Court judge has ruled that before the state Board of Land and Natural Resources ean approve a 30-year lease for the continued diversion of water from streams in East Maui, it must first consider that the impact the diversion will have on taro farmers and the health of the environment. The Sept. 17 ruling eame in a legal dispute involving a 127-year-old irrigation ditch system that is eapahle of diverting 445 million gallons of water per day from over 100 streams that lie on ceded lands in East Maui. Today, Alexander & Baldwin and its subsidiary, the East Maui Irrigation Company (EMI), use the ditch to deliver about 160 million gallons of water — approximately the same amount as is consumed by all of 0'ahu's residents per day — to irrigate sugar eane fields in central Maui. In May, a group of East Maui taro farmers filed a state appeal challenging

A&B's application for a 30-year lease to replace its year-to-year revocable permit to divert water from East Maui streams, claiming that the BLNR failed to consider the impact a long-term lease would have on both the environment and Native Hawaiian customary rights. In the Sept. 17 hearing on that appeal, Judge Eden Elizabeth Hifo said that if the BLNR wants to approve a long-term lease before the state's Commission of Water See WATER LEASE on page 17

70-year olel kalo farmer Beatrice Kekahuna, one of the East Maui residents who have challenged Alexander & Baldwin's water diversion lease applieation, scales a waterfall to examine an irrigation ditch. Photo: Ed Sakoda

WATER LEASE from page 4 Resource Management (CWRM) issues revised stream flow standards for the area, it must eonduct an independent investigation to determine the amount of water required to satisfy the state's puhlie trust responsibilities. The CRWM's flow standards are supposed to take into consideration the impact of water diversion on the environment and Native Hawaiian rights. As a result of a separate petition, the CRWM has contracted the United States Geological Survey to conduct a study to amend the Instream Flow Standards for 27 East Maui streams. That survey will be completed in April 2005. Separately, Hifo also ruled that the water lease application is not exempt from an environmental assessment, and if a significant impact is found, a subsequent environmental impact statement must be completed. Ed Wendt, president of the East Maui community organization Nā Moku Aupuni o Ko'olau Hui, said the decision was "a victory for the people — past, present and future." Alan

Murakami, litigation director of the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp., whieh represented several of the petitioners in the appeal, described the ruling as momentous because it affirms the rights to water that taro farmers have had for generations, but that are often ignored by the courts. Meanwhile, Alexander & Baldwin, in a press release, said that they are not only disappointed with the decision but also concerned because it challenges Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company's operation of 37,000 acres of agriculture, whieh supports 10,000 Maui water users, comprised of upcountry farmers, businesses and residents. "A&B has been a steward of this important watershed for more than a century, and, during that time, built, maintained and managed this water eolleetion and distribution system to the broad benefit of the eommunity," said Stephen Holaday, A&B vice president. The company said it was considering whether or not to appeal Hifo's decision ■