Environmentalists Urge Land Board To Deny A&B Water Use Permits
Alexander & Baldwin wants a one-year renewal of its use of East Maui streams. The Sierra Club argues it doesn’t need the water.
A dispute over water rights that dominated the last legislative session is expected to continue Friday at a聽Board of Land and Natural Resources hearing.
The Sierra Club and other聽groups are聽urging the board to deny and its subsidiary, East Maui Irrigation Co., renewal of permits to divert stream water in East Maui.
They accuse A&B of wanting to continue to “control聽a public resource聽just to make private profits,” as they argued in an email alert this week to supporters.
With the expected closure of another of its subsidiaries, Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar, later this month, A&B doesn’t have a use for the water, the Sierra Club says.
“There will be no more sugar plantation in Central Maui, and nothing is being grown there in its place,” said Marti Townsend, director of the Sierra Club of Hawaii.
Diversion of the water by A&B has happened for decades to the detriment of Native Hawaiian and other taro farmers in East Maui.
A&B has said the permits are needed to ensure the continued operation of the East Maui Irrigation ditch system, which the company said is聽“essential” to provide water for its 35,000 Upcountry Maui residents and farmers.
The water also eases聽the transition of sugar fields to diversified agricultural crops, “thus keeping the Central Maui isthmus in agriculture and open space,” the company said in an emailed statement. “We believe these uses are in the public interest.”
A&B also has a new law on its side, , which allows it to ask the land board for the permits if certain conditions are met.
Crafted by powerful Maui legislators, the law allows the company聽three more years of holdover status聽for聽pre-existing water permits as long as it is “consistent with the public trust doctrine.” A&B聽said it hopes the land board will find the permits “to be consistent” with the doctrine and grant them the extension.
Current pending applications before the land board are covered under the law. It聽also requires an annual report to the through 2020.
As for what it needs the water for, A&B said this:
Our water use has decreased over the course of the year, with the ramp down of our sugar operations. We are only diverting what we need, and water we don鈥檛 need remains in the stream. However, as we pursue new agricultural uses for the lands, we need assurance of the continued availability of water.
The company said that HC&S is engaged in bioenergy crop trials of sorghum, corn and oilseed crops as well as “expanded acreage of cultivated pasture for livestock.” It says it is also asking Maui County to聽establish “a sizable agricultural park, on prime agricultural land, for small farmers.”
Townsend said that A&B can continue to service Upcountry Maui without diverting streams. In her view, what the company is really trying to do is keep Central Maui property聽values high for potential sale or development.
A&B did not respond to accusations of pecuniary interest. Instead, it stressed diversified ag expansion.
“To achieve this, it will be essential that prospective farmers have assurance that there could be an affordable source of irrigation water, to support their investment in new agricultural activities,” the company said.
The 146-year-old company has聽interests in real estate development, commercial real estate, agriculture, natural materials and infrastructure construction.
The Sierra Club and its allies are asking supporters to submit testimony to the land board by Thursday afternoon’s deadline, and to show up in force Friday morning at the hearing.
While the water permits item is not listed until later in the day on聽, the Sierra Club told Civil Beat it聽hopes the item will be moved to the top of the agenda for the meeting聽that begins at 9 a.m.聽in order to accommodate A&B opponents flying to Oahu from the neighbor islands.
