Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 23, Number 10, 1 October 2006 — Molokaʻi homesteaders [ARTICLE]

Molokaʻi homesteaders

What Trustee Machado's article (September, KWO) fails to point out is that the Lā'au Point development ean only go forward if Hawaiian Homesteaders forfeit one million gallons per day from their future allotment of water. We eonhnue to be the sacrificial lamb at a time when our water rights and resources eonhnue to dwindle, compounded by longterm drought. At one time, we had first rights to all government-owned water, free of charge for our homesteads. Today, we have prior right to twothirds of the water from Waikolu Valley - if we're lucky. The rest

we have to fight for. If Moloka'i Ranch succeeds in wrestling this water from us, they will be using three times more water than all the Moloka'i homestead lands combined. Only 20 percent of the 25,000 acres of homestead lands have access to water. How ean we give our water to a foreign company? I've heard so many stories from kūpuna of fasting and praying for rain so their crops would survive and carrying water in buckets to irrigate eaeh plant. We cannot go back to that. A recentUSGS meeting on Moloka'i indicated that two key domestic wells are going salty. One is already close to the limit allowed for human consumption, and the county needs another well to supply Kaunakakai. How ean OHA even approve a resolution supporting this when they haven't spoken to us? We have our own mouths, and we don't need OHA speaking for us, especially when it comes to giving away our water. Glenn loane īeves Ho'olehua Homestead, Moloka'i