In the two years since I was appointed to the Hawaii Commission for Water Resource Management (CWRM) in July 2021, I have witnessed two water crises: the Red Hill fuel spill, and the escalation of conflicts over Maui water management since the Aug. 8 wildfires. These questions keep me awake at night: “What can and should the Water Commission do to serve the public? What am I capable of as a single commissioner?”

In these times, I take guidance from the Water Code, which outlines CWRM’s toolkit for fulfilling our duty to kahuwai pono, to steward our collective waters. The code flows from the State Constitution, which establishes that water is a public trust: “The State has an obligation to protect, control and regulate the use of Hawaii’s water resources for the benefit of its people.”

It continues on to articulate the purpose of the CWRM as “a water resources agency which … shall set overall water conservation, quality and use policies; define beneficial and reasonable uses; protect ground and surface water resources, watersheds and natural stream environments; establish criteria for water use priorities while assuring appurtenant rights and existing correlative and riparian uses and establish procedures for regulating all uses of Hawaii’s water resources.”

“Water governance” describes the work of the Commission — and here’s why that work matters. In a world of increasingly frequent water crises, understanding crises as engineering and management failures misses the systemic problems and potential solutions visible through the lens of governance. For Red Hill, concerns around corroding tanks and pipes “human errors,” and poor “safety culture” are all relevant. But we must not forget that prior to the November 2021 crisis and hospitalizations, many state elected officials and agencies were unwilling or unable to effectively enforce regulatory oversight of the Navy’s Red Hill operations, despite concerns expressed by the Honolulu Board of Water Supply and community groups that the aging facility threatened Oahu’s sole source aquifer.

It took tremendous public pressure to motivate interagency reorganization, communication and coordination, and the shift in Department of Defense operations. Red Hill continues to teach us that addressing a water crisis and preventing future crises requires not only engineering solutions. It requires attending to stakeholder lived experiences, correcting institutional power dynamics, and coordinating effectively across silos to ensure the public’s interests are served.

The Water Commission faces new challenges since the Maui fires. A particularly troubling one for me has been the undermining of the Commission itself following the Aug. 16 decision made without commissioners’ input to temporarily re-assign the Commission’s deputy director, Kaleo Manuel.

Trust can be broken in a minute, yet take months to years to re-establish. Despite Manuel’s Oct. 9 reinstatement, it will take sustained and good faith efforts of all to increase transparency, restore trust, and establish effective working relationships within the Commission itself. The healthy functioning of CWRM is critical for addressing the important questions the public is now asking about water and the future of Lahaina.

Thankfully, between the Constitution, Water Code and case law, we in Hawaii have robust policy tools to enable good water governance, and we have engaged members of the public who pay attention, research and show up to articulate their truths and demand accountability. Our forward-looking tools need attentive and courageous public leaders who will skillfully wield them and weave solutions across stakeholders that bring good water governance to life. Importantly, these leaders need the support of attentive and courageous elected officials.

Good water governance, indeed, to kahuwai pono, means translating our collective values embodied in our existing policies into the flourishing of waters and lands and people, including equitable economic futures. The broader public has never before been so interested and engaged in issues of wai. We are in a moment of precarity and potential.

As the Oct. 24 Commission meeting approaches, we can reflect and commit or recommit to good water governance and skillful implementation of our Water Code for the very challenges it was designed to confront. Courageous and wise leadership will enable the future of collective abundance that our keiki and mo‘opuna deserve.

E kahuwai pono kakou — ola i ka wai!

Aurora Kagawa-Viviani is a member of the University of Hawaii-Manoa faculty and the state Water Commission. The views expressed here are her own.