A 55-year-old Waianae Coast pig farmer who filed a petition to the state’s highest court for help to save his livestock and his livelihood said he’s not giving up the fight despite being rejected by the Hawaii Supreme Court.

Matthew Reyes has run his once-thriving piggery for the past 22 years on a 1-3/4-acre leased portion of a 5-acre Maili property. But he claims that shortly after Peter Iriarte purchased the property on Sept. 14, 2021, the water line to the piggery was cut — causing more than 100 pigs to die.

“He’s trying to squeeze me out,” Reyes said of Iriarte’s efforts, citing alleged harassment and intimidation, eviction letters from attorneys claiming his lease is invalid, and accusations of violating city permitting rules.

Iriarte did not respond to Honolulu Star-Advertiser requests via telephone calls and emails for comment on the dispute.

Iriarte filed a complaint Aug. 4 in Waianae District Court to have Reyes evicted on the grounds that the lease was invalid because it constituted a subdivision of the property. The district judge found Reyes’ lease with the previous landowner still valid through 2024 and ordered Iriarte to turn the water back on.

But Iriarte rerouted the water line 200 feet away from the piggery and replaced the 1-1/2-inch pipe he cut in several places with a 1/2-inch diameter pipe that Reyes said resulted in a lack of water pressure needed to hose down the pens and water the animals in a timely fashion.

The district court judge ordered the parties to go into mediation, but they were unable to resolve the issues.

Reyes, wanting immediate help with the water situation as he said more of his livestock continued to die, sought relief from the Supreme Court.

The high court rejected his Oct. 17 petition to hold Iriarte in contempt for failing to restore the water line, saying the lower court judge acted properly and that Reyes did not show a clear right to relief, “nor a lack of alternative means to seek relief.”

Reyes said he will not give up in his fight for the farm and his family.

“The emotional, physical stress, frustration and mortality rate (of his livestock) has taken a toll on me and my family,” he wrote to the court seeking a temporary restraining order against Iriarte.

Reyes and his wife, June, earn a living with another piggery in Waianae to support themselves and their five children, and said he could barely afford the $3,800 in initial legal fees to fight the eviction letters.

Iriarte is principal officer of the Operative Plasterers and Cement Masons, Local 630, and used well-known union lawyer Randal Yo­shida to write letters and negotiate with Reyes’ lawyer. Yo­shida told the Star-Advertiser he works for a trust fund affiliated with the Local 630, but declined to identify it or to divulge whether Iriarte actually hired him, citing ethical reasons for not disclosing who his clients are.

Eleven days after Iriarte took over the property, Reyes said a longtime vegetable farmer on a month-to-month lease wrote him saying he was leaving after Iriarte told him he would have to relocate his water line.

To deal with his lack of running water Reyes said he hired people to help haul in large amounts needed to properly wash down his pens and hogs, to provide clean drinking water, and water to prepare swill to feed them. But he said it became too costly.

The result was a devastating loss of many of his 450 pigs, he said.

Reyes and his wife have documented the losses over the past year with photos and necropsy reports on the deaths of animals from little piglets to large, pregnant sows, and breeding boars. The Department of Agriculture’s necropsies show they died of salt toxicosis (elevated sodium in the brain) due to dehydration.

Seeing the photos of the dead pigs brings tears to Reyes’ eyes.

Reyes said he’s lost thousands of dollars. He was forced to sell off many of the remaining hogs at a substantial loss because he could not properly care for all of them without a sufficient amount of water. He now only has about 50 remaining pigs.

Reyes said he is frustrated and puzzled by Iriarte’s actions, as the two were once business partners in a piggery for about six months.

Iriarte has accused Reyes of digging an illegal sump into which the waste flows from the piggery. However, Reyes said the sump was already there when he came onto the property in 2000, and was in place when the previous property owner, who leased the land to Reyes, ran the piggery.

Iriarte alleges in court documents that the city Department of Planning and Permitting has found Reyes’ piggery operation resulted in two violations.

DPP’s spokesman said the agency has two open notices of violation associated with the property, both issued this year. One was for constructing a wooden structure without a building permit. The other was for grading work without a permit.

“Both NOVs were referred for issuance of a notice of order and assessment of fines,” DPP spokesman Curtis Lum said. “Neither (notice of order) has been issued to date.”

The notices list Reyes as the violator and were dated May 13 (structure), and July 11 (grading). Reyes said neither the grading nor the building of 12-foot by 16-foot structure were done by him.

While Reyes lost at the Supreme Court, he’ll get another day in court on Dec. 13 when a trial has been scheduled in District Court.