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State officials have agreed to hold off on considering a long-term license for millions of gallons of Maui water after Maui Mayor Richard Bissen stepped in and asked the state to work with the county on how water should be distributed.

Bissen on Thursday sent a letter to Board of Land and Natural Resources Chair Dawn Chang urging her to defer issuing a 30-year water license while the county works to build partnerships among East Maui users who have long fought over access to the water supply.

The BLNR was scheduled to take up the issue at its meeting on Friday. But late Thursday Chang said she would take the issue off the table for now, “in deference” to Bissen’s request.

“It’s time for us to work together and not against each other,” Bissen told Civil Beat in an interview Thursday afternoon.

That marks a significant development in Maui’s ongoing water wars that date back some 150 years to the plantation era.

The mayor’s support for public management of water signals what could be a new chapter for the county as it battles for control of a public resource that largely rests in private hands. It builds on a Jan. 28, 2022 the County Council adopted expressing interest in taking over the East Maui water leases.

The seven-member was whether the state should issue a long-term license for up to 85 million gallons per day of surface water from Koolau Forest Reserve, located in East Maui.

But that would have sidestepped the relatively new , put in place by voters in 2022 to oversee water use in the region. The board is finally up and running and has a new executive director who is due to start on Tuesday.

At a meeting of the East Maui Water Authority on Wednesday, Chang said she anticipated the state land board would hold a contested case hearing over the long-term license, which would allow the opportunity for open discussion.

The longstanding diversion of water from East Maui streams has triggered many lawsuits and sparked bitterness among taro farmers, cultural practitioners, environmentalists and others who say a public trust resource like water should not be controlled by large private entities, particularly foreign companies.

East Maui water advocates believe that current license holders . and would likely get the new long-term lease.

A&B, a commercial real estate firm, was formerly one of the Big Five companies that operated plantations and dominated the political landscape during Hawaii’s territorial period and after Hawaii became a state in 1959.

A&B and EMI have received one-year revocable licenses since the mid-1980s to divert water from the forest reserve to central and Upcountry Maui via a ditch and tunnel system owned and operated by EMI. The system was designed for sugar plantations that no longer exist.

EMI is 50% owned by , an agricultural company that bought 41, 000 acres from A&B and grows crops on Maui. Mahi Pono is partly owned by one of Canada’s largest pension funds, the Public Sector Pension Investment Board.

Civil Beat reached out to Mahi Pono earlier this week to talk about the proposed long-term license and the board’s upcoming action but did not get a response.

Many who testified at Wednesday’s meeting of the East Maui Water Authority expressed exasperation with Chang and her staff’s recommendation to the land board.

“This is a gut punch not only to our East Maui community, but to water advocates and communities throughout the state of Hawaii,” said Mahealani Wendt, former executive director of Native Hawaiian Legal Corp. who is a community advocate and poet.  

Bissen said Thursday he was surprised, like many others, that the land board would take up 30-year leases at this point given that the East Maui Water Authority is just starting to fulfill its mandate.

“I don’t think anyone expected it to come up so soon,” he said.

In his letter to Chang, Bissen said deferring action on the license would allow time for Maui County and others to explore “long-term partnership opportunities” to address water needs of both public and private entities.

“The best way to accomplish this end is to come up with a working compromise rather than an expensive, lengthy contested case proceeding,” Bissen wrote.

The mayor said through a spokeswoman on Thursday night that he was “very pleased” that Chang had deferred action on the 30-year water license and that he appreciates the cooperation.

Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by a grant from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.

Civil Beat’s coverage of environmental issues on Maui is supported by grants from the Center for Disaster Philanthropy and the Hawaii Wildfires Recovery Fund, the Knight Foundation and the Doris Duke Foundation.

Read Mayor Richard Bissen’s letter to Dawn Chang: