Valley isle water legislation opposed

About 60 people, including farmers, Native Hawaiian advocates, attorneys and environmentalists, gathered at the state Capitol on Monday to voice their opposition to a bill advancing at the Legislature that would allow Alexander &Baldwin to hold on to the rights to millions of gallons of water that it diverts daily from East Maui streams even as it plans to shut down its water-intensive sugar cane plantation and lay off more than 600 workers.

House Bill 2501 would allow A&B to retain its water rights while the Board of Land and Natural Resources makes a final determination on its application to lease the water on a long-term basis. The Land Board has allowed A&B to continue diverting water under four revocable permits that are supposed to be temporary, while legal challenges to the water are resolved.

East Maui farmers have been contesting A&B’s permits since 2001, arguing that the diversions are harming kalo, or taro, farming and water ecosystems.

“A generation of farmers has been lost because the opportunity to farm has not been available,” said Mahealani Wendt, an advocate for East Maui taro farmers, during the rally in front of the Queen Liliuokalani statute.

Taro farmers are asking that stream flows be partially restored to 12 streams, a fraction of the total number of streams that A&B diverts water from.

The rally, called “We Are Farmers,” was organized by the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp., Conservation Council of Hawaii and Hawaii Sierra Club.

About 80 groups, including farms, local businesses, hula halau, environmental groups, professors and community associations, also signed a position statement, which was presented at the rally, urging the Legislature not to pass HB 2501.

“Passing HB 2501 would undermine this existing process by giving one corporation an unfettered use of water for no good reason for a period of time that is unjustified,” according to the coalition statement.

In January, Circuit Judge Rhonda Nishimura ruled that A&B’s four revocable permits were invalid. BLNR had been extending the permits on a “holdover basis” for more than a dozen years.

Nishimura said in her ruling that allowing holdover tenants to “occupy public lands almost in perpetuity for continuous, multiple one-year periods” is inconsistent with the “public interest and legislative intent.”

A&B subsequently appealed to the Legislature to advance legislation that would allow the company to hold on to its water rights while the Land Board makes a determination on its long-term water lease — a process that’s been ongoing for the past 16 years.

Maui County, with the support of A&B and the Land Board, is appealing Nishimura’s ruling.

A&B officials say HB 2501 is needed to continue meeting the water needs of 36,000 Upcountry Maui residents and to help turn the company’s sugar cane fields toward diversified agriculture.

“The bill provides certainty that all of the users of the water will continue to have water without interruption, and without having to go through years of litigation,” Rick Volner, general manager for Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Co., part of A&B, said in a statement Monday.

But Marti Townsend, executive director of the Hawaii Sierra Club, said that A&B needs to first demonstrate its need for the water.

“A&B is passing out hundreds of pink slips with one hand and keeping a tightfisted grip on public water with the other,” she said in a statement. “Things don’t work that way in Hawaii anymore.”