Hawaii senators convene working group to address water use for ranchers, farmers and utilities

Sens. Kai Kahele and Jarrett Keohokalole will begin overseeing monthly meetings with officials from the Department of Land and Natural Resources in an effort to ensure ranchers and farmers on the neighbor islands, as well as the electric utilities, don’t lose access to public water after the year’s end.

The rush to convene a working group comes after the Legislature adjourned without extending a deadline for an assortment of entities to obtain long-term water leases. Those users, including, among others, ranchers in Kau on Hawaii Island, farmers on Kauai and hydro-electric plants operated by the electric utilities, have for years operated under short-term permits. But in light of a 2015 court decision relating to Alexander &Baldwin’s permits on Maui, state officials have said that there doesn’t appear to be any way for it to continue issuing or extending those permits after this year.

The Legislature in 2016 passed a bill that gave the water users three years to convert their permits into long-term leases, a complex process that includes environmental reviews, watershed management plans, water appraisals and a public bidding process, among other regulatory requirements. But water users said that they couldn’t meet that deadline. A bill that would have extended the deadline by as much as seven years died this year in the Legislature, in large part over controversy involving A&B’s historic stream water diversions on Maui.

The first working group meeting is set for May 29 at the state Capitol, according to Kahele, who sent a letter to DLNR Chairwoman Suzanne Case last week requesting the meetings. The working group is expected to include Case and top officials from DLNR’s land and water management divisions. Other stakeholders, such as officials with the Hawaii Farm Bureau, Hawaii Sierra Club and Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation may also be invited, said Kahele.

Kahele said the meetings could take place as often as twice a month and his goal is to have a clear path forward by the end of the summer.

The working group’s goals are to ensure water permit holders are able to renew their permits at the end of the year; to assist with implementing the current statute relating to water leases; and to evaluate any statutory changes that need to be made next year to help clarify the process for obtaining leases, according to Kahele’s letter to Case.

While DLNR officials said it’s ultimately the responsibility of water users to work through the process of obtaining a lease, legislators have been critical of DLNR this year, saying the agency hasn’t done enough to clarify and expedite the process for obtaining those leases. As of earlier this year, DLNR had yet to finalize the criteria for watershed management plans and was still wrestling with how to appraise stream and ground water.

DLNR spokesman Dan Dennison said Wednesday that the department has written to all the small farmers to confirm the amounts and uses of their water applications and to confirm the steps in the process. He said the department has also been working on watershed management requirements.

Ige told reporters last week his administration is focused on resolving the water issues.

“I committed to the farmers that we will be working with them,” he said. “We will make sure that the DLNR has the resources that it needs to work through the process. But I think people are forgetting that we are trying to issue long-term leases for water, that has never been done in the state of Hawaii. So this is a process and because it is water it has to be done right.”

But state officials have not provided any specifics on how they will ensure water keeps flowing to ranches and farms after the end of this year.

Randy Cabral, president of the Hawaii Farm Bureau and a Kau rancher who is among those at risk of losing water, said he doesn’t see any way to work through the long-term lease process by the December deadline.

“I doubt very much that that can happen,” he said.

Still, Cabral said he hopes a solution can be worked out and hopes to meet with the governor soon.

“It would be pretty bad if they decide to cut the water off for a lot of people,” said Cabral. “So hopefully that won’t happen.”

The Ige administration, in a memo to the Legislature last month, estimated it could take another three to five years for water users to go through the regulatory process of obtaining long-term leases.