East Maui Water Authority

Mālama Pono I Ka Wai

Restoring Local Stewardship of Water Resources

By Councilmember Shane Sinenci

The East Maui watershed is a critical part of our survival. It provides billions of gallons of water for domestic use and for agriculture use to Maui County. The Watershed consists of 100,000 acres of Native Hawaiian forests and provides the critical habitat for more than 100 rare and endangered plant species.

The East Maui watershed has 400 miles of freshwater streams and is the largest supplier of water on the island. These areas are 'water banks,' which create and store water for future generations.

Last month, the County Council passed a resolution placing a question on this November’s ballot, to create community water authorities to obtain the East Maui leases and to manage the water coming from the East Maui watershed.

There are several old dilapidated legacy plantation systems like the East Maui Irrigation system, the Wailuku water system, the old Molokai Ranch system, and other systems managed by private companies whose primary mission is not being in the water business, such as the Hana Ranch system.

The ballot question mandates that a water authority be established for East Maui and that it work with the state to obtain the licenses to divert water from four areas in East Maui, including Nahiku, Ke'anae, Honomanu, and Huelo.

The East Maui Community Water Authority will have a community board made up of people that live in the 4 watershed areas. These Board members will have control over what happens in the watersheds. They are tasked with approving and then overseeing a watershed plan designed to create a healthy ecosystem that can sustain our people for generations to come.

Board members are also responsible for creating the priorities for the authority, approving the programs, and hiring and overseeing the water authority’s director.

The Water Authority will negotiate with the State Board of Land and Natural Resources to inform them about the Authority's intent to manage the system without any interruption of service. The Authority will then begin the task of getting grants and engineering studies to fix the system so that it doesn’t waste any more water. This is a lot of responsibility, but with that responsibility comes control— community control.

We need the voters of Maui County to approve the ballot question. I encourage each one of you to learn about the water authority and to talk to your family, friends, co-workers, and anyone else you know about the importance of voting yes. Please encourage them to talk to the people that they know too.

This is a monumental moment in history. For over 100 years, our water has been taken without our approval and managed for the sole good of private interests. It was one thing to have that private interest be a local company with local people. But now that local company has sold the land and is helping the new foreign owner to obtain the rights to our water.

We are at risk right now of a foreign company being given 30 or more years of control over these leases which allows it to take the water from our East Maui community. This foreign interest will manage the water system and take water in a manner that creates as much profit as possible, without any local input.

I introduced the legislation to create water authorities to stop this and to take back control of our most precious resource. In Hawaii, water is held in a Public Trust, in accordance with Article XI section 7 of the Hawaii State Constitution. As public officials we have priority over private interests in our water, to protect the Public Trust for generations to come. But I need your help. We need to be proactive and to get people to support it in the November election and to vote yes on creating community-run water authorities.