A delay in state permission to use West Maui stream water may have led to hampering firefighters in their battle to save Lahaina town from last week’s horrific wildfire.
On the day after the fire, the West Maui Land Co. Inc. sent a letter to Deputy Director M. Kaleo Manuel of the Hawaii Commission on Water Resource Management, or CWRM, describing the events and communication problems that resulted in delaying the diversion of streams to fill reservoirs with water being made available to fight the fire.
Glenn Tremble, an executive with West Maui Land, declined to comment on his letter Tuesday, but a copy was obtained by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
According to the letter, although the initial fire was contained at 9 a.m., there were reports of fallen power lines, fierce winds, outages and low reservoir levels, prompting the company to reach out to the commission to request approval to divert more water from streams so it could store as much water as possible for fire control.
Instead of approving the request, CWRM asked the company whether the Maui Fire Department had requested permission to dip into the reservoirs and directed it to first inquire with the downstream user to ensure that his loi and other uses would not be impacted by a temporary reduction of water supply.
Communications were spotty, the letter said, and the company had already tried unsuccessfully to contact the one downstream user.
By around 3:30 p.m., a flare-up had shut down the Lahaina Bypass.
“At around 6:00 p.m., we received CWRM’s approval to divert more water,” Tremble wrote. “By then, we were unable to reach the siphon release to make the adjustments that would have allowed more water to fill our reservoirs.
“We watched the devastation unfold around us without the ability to help. We anxiously awaited the morning knowing that we could have made more water available to MFD if our request had been immediately approved,” he said.
There were reports of the fire moving so quickly and at such temperatures that water was spewing out of melting pipes and depressurizing the lines that also supplied the fire hydrants.
Tremble’s letter said it is unknown whether filling the reservoirs at 1 p.m. would have ultimately made a difference.
But “we know that fires spread quickly. We know that we need to act faster during an emergency. We know that the community we serve relies on the water as a defense from spreading fire. We know that we must have water available for MFD before MFD needs it. We know we can do better. We’re all in this together.”
Tremble went on to request that CWRM relax its stream-flow rules during fire emergencies and reexamine an ongoing effort to make them permanent.
The commission’s Manuel could not be reached for comment Tuesday, but Gov. Josh Green did temporarily suspend the interim flow standards during an emergency proclamation related to the fire.
Last summer the Commission on Water Resource Management designated the entire Lahaina Aquifer region as both a Surface Water and Ground Water Management Area.
Designation, according to the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, 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.”
As part of the designation, in-stream flow standards were developed and designed to leave enough water for all users, including Native Hawaiian kalo farmers.
Native Hawaiians, water advocates and environmentalists, in West Maui and across the islands, for at least a couple of decades have been fighting to reverse the way water has been diverted from downstream users, a practice that was started by the large plantations.
Although Green didn’t address the West Maui Land Co. incident directly, he waded into the topic during remarks at a Lahaina fire news briefing Monday.
“One thing that people need to understand especially those from far away is that there’s been a great deal of water conflict on Maui for many years,” Green said. “It’s important that we’re honest about this. People have been fighting against the release of water to fight fires. I’ll leave that to you to explore.”
The governor added: “We have a difficult time on Maui and other rural areas getting enough water for houses, for our people, for any response. But it’s important we start being honest. There are currently people still fighting in our state giving us water access to fight and prepare for fires even as more storms arise.”
Green already had ordered Attorney General Anne Lopez to conduct a “comprehensive review” of the decisions made before, during and after the fire.
Water advocates took exception to Green’s remarks.
Wayne Tanaka, director of the Sierra Club of Hawai‘i, called them “ridiculous, inflammatory and lacking in actual detail.” Firefighting, he said, is always a priority in the allocation of water, even for those advocating for fairness in the process.
“The real concern is diverters trying to exploit a horrible tragedy to gain control of water resources,” Tanaka said.
Water rights expert Jonathan Scheuer, author of the 2022 book “Water and Power in West Maui,” said Lahaina used to be a wetland and Native Hawaiians managed their water carefully for centuries until the plantations came along, diverted most of it and even created a famine in the mid-1800s.
“The governor appears to be misinformed about the very long history of the state’s failure to fulfill its public trust duties in regard to water,” he said.
Scheuer said he was taken aback by the governor’s remarks. “I’ve never heard anyone suggest water not be available for firefighting purposes,” he said.
In his letter to CWRM, Tremble asked that it immediately grant ongoing authorization to fill the reservoirs when a fire has been reported in the area from Ukumehame to Kahoma.
He also asked CWRM to immediately suspend the interim in-stream flow standards (minimum water levels) and other regulations until the emergency period has ended “to ensure maximum support for fire suppression, cleanup efforts and our community as we recover.”
Thirdly, he asked CWRM to initiate proceedings to amend the various proposed interim in-stream flow standards from Ukumehame to Honokowai “to provide more water for fire suppression and our community as we face dry months in the years to come.”
Earthjustice attorney Marti Townsend said suspending the stream flow regulations — even the interim ones — becomes a windfall for development companies like Tremble’s.
“They can take however much water they like now. Use it however they like. It’s back to the wild west again,” she said.
FINAL 20230810 Cwrm w Maui Fire Ltr From WMLC by Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Scribd
Correction: Jonathan Scheuer name was misspelled in an earlier version of this story.
