Hundreds turn out at water planning meeting to demand natural streams be restored - Hawaii News Now

Hundreds turn out at water planning meeting to demand natural streams be restored

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - The state Water Commission got an earful Tuesday as hundreds of Maui residents turned out to demand natural streams be restored. This comes after a warning that damaged water wells in West Maui could lead to contamination in the aquifer.

The West Maui fires inspired a new momentum toward restoring natural streams, and the people who’ve been pushing for that for decades believe they are now being heard.

Hundreds of advocates, many from families that currently and historically have raised breadfruit for sustenance in West Maui, jammed the Cameron Center in Wailuku on Tuesday.

“Please use your voice you’ve been given on this board to speak for people like me, the lineal descendants of Lahaina, every member,” sixth grader Kaliko Teruya said.

They, and especially their children, now point out that restoring streams and native agriculture and forests could also slow the impact of climate change.

“Can you hear us at all? Can you listen to us, kanaka? We need our water for our loi to feed our ohana for the trees that shade over our Keiki to feed our future; there is no future,” said 11th grader Kehaulani Kealoha Franco.

“Without water, there is no Hawaii; without kanaka, there is no Hawaii.”

The commission will determine how to distribute stream and groundwater over the next year.

The body also heard for the first time in two months from reinstated Water Commission deputy Kaleo Manuel, who pointed out that the damage to privately owned wells could lead to contamination of the West Maui drinking water aquifer if the private owners don’t make repairs soon.

“The goal is to get these improvements done as soon as possible based on potential threat to the resource,” said Kaleo Manuel, deputy director of the Commission on Water Resource Management.

“We should have divers down there swimming; those shots should have water shackles taken. And that should be the owner’s responsibility,” said Paul Meyer, Commission on Water Resource Management.

“Right now. We don’t have any authority or funding or staff to actually seal it. And then you know, collect later just in order to protect the resource that is something that we could pursue.”

There was no one there to represent the landowners or the irrigation company owners today.

But experts say they’ve seen the writing on the wall and expect to lose their stream water eventually, and now need to look for other sources like reused wastewater, and better use of the water that they’re given.

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