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State Land Board Chair Dawn Chang said Tuesday that the Commission on Water Resource Management is committed to regulating groundwater and surface water in West Maui to ensure that the resource is fairly allocated.
But Deputy Director Kaleo Manuel, who served as the commission’s executive director, continues to be on the outs despite overwhelming support from a standing-room-only crowd that spilled out of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources boardroom in Honolulu.
Declaring it a personnel issue, Chang said she would not talk about the action to redeploy Manuel in the wake of the massive wildfire that roared through the heart of Lahaina town Aug. 8, killing at least 97 people.
In the immediate aftermath of the fire, Gov. Josh Green suspended the state water code in an emergency proclamation, which led to a suspension of interim in-stream flow standards established by the commission for the Lahaina Aquifer Sector Area water management area last summer.
Manuel was transferred to a different division, and Green, in comments to the media, said the water restrictions prevented the use of water to fight the fire, and suggested he would support the reversal of the designation of the West Maui water management area.
The actions riled Native Hawaiians, Lahaina community members and water activists across the state, and on Tuesday dozens of Lahaina and Maui community members descended on the commission’s September meeting, harshly criticizing Green and Chang.
Moreover, more than 300 pages of written testimony were submitted to the commission, nearly all of it urging the board to reinstate Manuel and to honor the designation of the water management area and its in-stream flow standards that help kalo farmers get the water they need.
In the opening moments of a meeting that lasted for nearly 10 hours, Chang reminded the audience that the water code was reestablished by Green in a subsequent emergency proclamation Sept. 8. She also said the commission’s staff is now working to move the water management area forward.
“I just want to reassure everybody here that the staff continues to work to proceed with the designation process,” Chang said. “Nobody has told us not to do it, so we are continuing to work full speed forward.”
Last summer the water commission designated the entire Lahaina Aquifer region as both a Surface Water and Ground Water Management Area, and the deadline for applications for water access was Aug. 7, the day before the Lahaina fire.
Designation, according to DLNR, gives the commission and CWRM staff “the tools needed to identify actual uses, evaluate impacts and waste, address public trust priorities and balance needs, implement alternatives and plan for drought conditions.”
Native Hawaiians, water advocates and environmentalists, in West Maui and across the islands for decades have been fighting to reverse the way water has been diverted from downstream users, a practice that was started by the large plantations in the 1800s.
During a presentation Tuesday, CWRM staff members described a region in which rainfall and stream flow is on the decline. However, they also suggested opportunities to develop new sources, including recycled water from the Lahaina Wastewater Reclamation Facility.
Many of those who testified accused the West Maui Land Co. of using the fire to take advantage of the situation to take more water than it is entitled to under the suspended interim in-stream flow standards.
Testifiers were also angry that accusations by Glenn Tremble, an official with West Maui Land Co., led to the reassignment of Manuel.
In a letter to Chang and the governor, Tremble essentially accused the deputy director of delaying a request to fill a reservoir on the day of the fire, thus preventing fire crews from having access to the water for fire control. It was later learned that the reservoirs couldn’t be used to fight the inferno because the winds prevented fire-control helicopters from flying that day.
In his letter, Tremble requested that CWRM relax its stream-flow rules during fire emergencies and reexamine an ongoing effort to make them permanent.
“Kaleo Manuel was targeted by developers precisely because he was a pono leader, who consulted with everybody and listened to the kuleanas,” testified Candace Fujikane, University of Hawaii English professor, who grew up on Maui.
“Chair Chang and Gov. Green, if he is hearing this, you have failed us,” added Hokuao Pellegrino of Waikapu. “You chose to believe to follow and act on the false narrative of a corporation that does not have the best interest of our island home of Maui, the community, the land and definitely not our water resources.
“To assume email exchanges between Deputy Director Manuel and West Maui Land Co. were blamed for the destruction of Lahaina? Give me a break,” he said.
Speaker after speaker said the commission would lose trust in the community without Manuel at the helm.
“One way or the other, we’re making history,” said Isaac Moriwake of Earthjustice. “It can be the good kind, the bad kind or the ugly kind, the infamous kind. And this will be a historically defining moment for this commission.”
Chang continued to say that because it is a personnel decision, she would not discuss it.
She added that the commissioners do not support her decision. She also noted that Manuel was simply redeployed within DLNR to its State Historic Preservation Division without loss of pay.
Chang later added that the commission staff is investigating an alleged violation of CWRM regulations by Peter Martin, the principle of West Maui Land Co.
No one was at the meeting from West Maui Land, but Tremble previously told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that it is irresponsible to claim that the temporary suspension of the in-stream flow standards will help developers.
“Based on our experience, it takes time to fill reservoirs for fire control,” Tremble said. “We need to have water available for (the Maui Fire Department) before MFD needs it. For example, MFD used water from our reservoirs to fight the November 2022 fire in Lahaina and above Launiupoko. We know that having water for individual homes for irrigation and fire suppression can help to slow or stop fires.
“Considering the delay in processing our request for additional water for fire control on the day the fire tore through Lahaina and to reduce continued risk to the community, we asked DLNR to allow us to make more water available from the stream and pledged to continue to report the amount used,” he said.
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