Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 25, Number 8, 1 August 2008 — Protecting the limu [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Protecting the limu

'Ewa Beach resident fights proposed drainage projects on 0'ahu's south shore

By ī. Ilihia Giansan Publicatinns Editar Growing up in 'Ewa Beach, Miehael Kumukauoha Lee reniembers gathering limu with his 'ohana for food and medicine. "(Limu is) part of our cultural heritage that goes back to the Kumulipo," said Lee. "Food and medicine are part of our heritage. The seaweed is needed for the fish. If the fish don't have limu to eat, they go away," he said. Today, he says, two drainage projects planned within several hundred yards of eaeh other by developer Haseko threaten the once-abundant natural resources of the One'ula Beach area, also known as Hau Bush. Lee is currently party to two cases

pending before the state Board of Land and Natural Resources challenging pennit applications by Haseko to construct the Pāpipi and Kalo'i drainage systems with outlets in One'ula Beach Park, on the grounds that the contaminants in discharged water would hurt the area's limu. The Pāpipi Road project is designed to help ease the flooding that residents there have been eoping with for decades, said Haseko spokesperson Sharene Saito Tam. The roughly three-quarter-mile system is proposed to run from 'Ewa Beach Elementary School down to the oeean on land that Haseko will give the city to expand One'ula Beach Park. The larger of the two projects is the Kalo'i Regional Drainage

hnprovements Project. "(The project) benefits the entire 7,000-acre Kalo 'i watershed from the mountains above Makakilo, thru the agricultural lands owned by Iames Campbell Co, UH-West O'ahu, DHHL (state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands), D.R. Horton, and 'Ewa Villages," said Saito Tam. The proposed Kalo'i regional project will widen an existing emergency drainage ehannel running from flood-prone 'Ewa Villages to One'ula Beach Park. The system includes a series of open grassy areas to handle stonn water as it flows through. Saito Tam said that a "significant amount" of rain would need to fall to fill up this network of retention/detention basins before the water would flow over the sand berm along the shore and enter the oeean. Lee, represented by the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp, says that the discharge from the drains will further destroy liniu that has already been in decline for the past four decades. At the center of the contested

case are studies commissioned by eaeh of the parties. A study eommissioned by Haseko found that there would be no adverse impacts on the area's limu stock. The Native Hawaiian Legal Corp. also had a study done that showed that stonn water discharges have significant detrimental effects on both the quantity and varieties of liniu. Both

sides find fault in the methodology of the other's studies. Lee says that water percolates into the ground, minimizing the need for such large-scale drainage systems, as long as there are open areas in developments without eoncrete or asphalt. "I'm just asking that they leave the open space to deal with their runoff," he said. □

NŪ HOU - NEWS

Miehael Kumukauoha Lee gathers limu at One'ula Beach Park, where developer Haseko is proposing to discharge stormwater from Pōpipi Road and the entire Kalo'i watershed, from Makūkilo down. - Photo: Courtesy of Native Hawaiian Legal Corp.