Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 25, Number 11, 1 November 2008 — Hope for new life at Kalauhaehae fishpond [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Hope for new life at Kalauhaehae fishpond

By Lisa Asatū Public lnfūrmatiūn Specialist As a boy growing up in small-town 'Opihikao near Puna, Tadayoshi Hara learned about the Hawaiian culture and traditions from a neighboring Hawaiian fisherman. Those lessons helped him

decades later when he heeame owner of a Hawaiian fishpond known as Kalauhaehae, or Lucas Spring, in East Oahu. "I didn't have to stock the fish," Hara said of the āholehole, mullet and awa that used to thrive there and enter the pond as babies during high tide via an 'auwai. "I used to feed them so they stayed," Hara said. Hara would throw net when his friends visited, and shared fish with grateful co-workers, he said, lamenting the pond's demise after a 1990s highwaywidening project destroyed the aquifer that fed it. The state Department of Transportation - whieh owns the pond as well as a nearby Kānewai pond - had planned to sell them at puhlie auehon, raising eoncems of the community group Maunalua Fishpond Heritage Center, whieh works to preserve

sites for cultural education. But DOT Director Brennon Morioka said in an e-mail, "We have stopped the auction process ahnost nine months ago and plan to perform a land swap with the (state Department of Land and Natural Resources) in order to get it out of DOT's hands and into someone else's

hands that is more appropriate to oversee and manage the ponds and the residential parcels." He also said Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona has stepped in and is "trying his best" to broker an arrangement where DLNR would then transfer the property to the University of Hawai'i. The Nahonal Oeeanie and Atmospheric Association has also expressed in becoming a landowner/manager of the parcel if UH is unahle to do so, Morioka said. "Lt. Governor Aiona has shown great leadership on this issue," said Chris Cramer of Maunalua Fishpond Heritage Center. "The state is currently working to ensure these are properly stewarded into the future." Maenette Benham, dean of the University of Hawai'i's Hawai'inuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge, said she

sees great potential for handson learning at the fishponds, where two homes on the Lucas Spring property could be renovated and used for classrooms, community learning and studies on sustainability and fishpond restoration. "We're in the process right now of working with vice chancellor Gary Ostrander's office, putting together a proposal that we hope will persuade the university to consider this as a real resource," she said on a recent

visit to tne site. "These are the last two fishponds on this side of the island," she said. "There are a lot of people now throughout the world who are looking at creating these kinds of freshwater ponds to raise their own fish for sustainable living. And this would be a good opportunity to start teaching that through traditional customary practices." Benham said two classes a semester would be held at Kalauhaehae fishpond and teach everything from fishpond eeology to navigation. The cost for maintenance would be minimal with conununity and researcher involvement, she said, adding, "Well minimal in terms of dollars, but lots in tenns of knowledge and sharing." For Greg Rivera, a fisherman from Kaka'ako, who was fishing on the heaeh where the 'auwai from the fishpond onee connected the two bodies of water, the idea of restoring the fishpond was a good one - both for education's sake and for the fish it would attract. Accustomed to catching 'ō'io, pāpio, 'oama and weke here for the past two decades, he said a healthy fishpond would not only benefit students who want to learn about respecting the environment, the oeean and conservation, but that the whole surrounding ecosystem would improve. "If this pond opens up all the bait fish going eome back in, and when the bait fish eome in, the predators going eome in too," he said. E3

The dean of the University of Hawai'i's Hawai'inuiōkea School of Hawaiian Knowledge envisions Kalauaehae fishpond, whose freshwater spring was damaged after a 1 990s highway-widening accident - as a potential plaee of learning. - Photo: Lisa Asato