“We’re trying to do big things,” state Agribusiness Development Corporation project manager Ken Nakamoto said recently, well aware of the detractors waiting in the wings.
Last month, a consultant for the agency, Brown & Caldwell, unveiled details of a proposed $178 million irrigation system project that would facilitate the agricultural use of recycled effluent, as well as water from the Wahiawa Reservoir, on ADC lands.
Phase 3 of that project would connect the Wahiawa reservoir to a 14-million-gallon reservoir to be constructed on former Galbraith Estate lands in North-Central Oʻahu, providing ADC tenants with more than 5 million gallons of water a day.
Threatening the success of that big thing is not just the estimated cost of Phases 1, 2, and 3, but the instability of the Wahiawa Reservoir itself, as well as the owner’s stated inability to make repairs required by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.
An apparent solution came earlier this year with the passage of Act 218. The act directs the governor’s office to negotiate the purchase of the Wahiawa Irrigation System, which includes the reservoir. It also provides $5 million toward that purchase and $21 million for repairs and expansion of the reservoir’s under-sized spillway.
The reservoir is owned by Sustainable Hawaii, Inc., and Dole Food Company Hawaiʻi. It is considered a high hazard dam by the state.
According to Carty Chang, chief of the DLNR’s Engineering Division, the reservoir is in poor condition, with signs of an unstable embankment. The reservoir can retain up to 3 billion gallons of water. And if the dam were to give way, about 2,500 people living downhill of the reservoir could be affected.
At the October 13 meeting of the Board of Land and Natural Resources, Chang said that a 1978 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers report found that the spillway was undersized. “Forty-five years later, nothing has been done to fix that spillway,” he said. In the meantime, there have been close calls, with evacuation orders being issued by the City & County of Honolulu, he said, adding, “With climate change, it’s not a matter of if, but when. We don’t want another Kaloko [dam breach on Kauaʻi]. Seven lives were lost.”
“The [Wahiawa] dam is anticipated to overtop during storm events approaching the Probable Maximum Flood. The aging concrete spillway structure and main embankment integrity are uncertain and may potentially be compromised during a significant flood event,” Chang’s report to the board states.
In April 2021, the Land Board fined Dole $25,000 for failing to make improvements ordered by the division and set a schedule for repairs to occur. In May 2022, Dole asked for an extension of its performance deadlines, which the board granted.
The Land Board required Dole to meet nine milestones between 2022 and 2025. Fines would be levied for each missed milestone. According to Chang’s report, “Dole successfully met milestones 1, 3, and 4, but was fined $5,000 for missing milestone 2 in January 2023. Milestone 5 on the current remediation timeline is due on November 1, 2023 and requires Dole to submit a dam safety permit application.”
With the passage of Act 218, however, Dole decided that it should no longer have to comply with that schedule. In an August 8 letter to DLNR director and Land Board chair Dawn Chang, Dole general manager Dan Nellis wrote, “Now that Act 218 is law, it is no longer appropriate for Dole to do that which is required of the state, and the current state-mandated timelines should therefore be passed. … [T]he WIS [Wahiawa Irrigation System] is ‘critical’ infrastructure that the state should (and will soon) own to ensure its continued viability. It would also frustrate the entire purpose of Act 218 as leaving the timelines in place would cause the decommissioning of this system and would be catastrophic to agriculture and food production in Central Oʻahu.”
The Engineering Branch’s Chang recommended that the Land Board deny Nellis’s request. He said that Act 218 does not commit the state to acquire the irrigation system or require the Land Board to take any action.
What’s more, Dole’s performance deadlines cover work to be done on two reservoirs, Helemano 6 and Kemoo 5, that Chang said are not included in Act 218 “and should not be considered for regulatory relief,” he stated in his report to the board.
Relieving Dole from any of its dam safety obligations would set a bad precedent, he said. He did offer to allow Dole to pay break up its payments toward the dam safety permit application fee. He also encouraged Dole to release to the state the rights to its studies, planning and design documents for the Wahiawa Dam improvements.
“Dole Food Company Hawaiʻi and their consultant Gannett Flemming have made significant progress on their improvement plans for the Wahiawa Dam. The release of rights to the documents prepared by their consultants (i.e., geotechnical analysis, reports, studies, conceptual and detailed design drawings etc.) would assist the State of Hawaii in their due diligence efforts and potentially reduce the time and cost required for this process. Releasing this information would not incur additional cost and would be a good faith gesture,” he wrote in his recommendations to the board.
To Dole’s statement that the state will soon be acquiring the Wahiawa irrigation system, Chang explained that was simply not the case because the state still needs to complete its due diligence process.
“We just had a meeting yesterday with the ADC. The Phase 1 environmental assessment is not going to be done until June of next year. … Phase 2 would take even longer. We’re not even close to making a decision whether the state is going to acquire [the system],” he said.
He continued that Dole claims it spent $1.1 million for its consultant’s plans to upgrade the dam. “They said that they didn’t want to share those plans unless the state commits to acquiring the property,” he said.
“The appropriate thing for Dole to do is take accountability as a dam owner,” he said. His report also noted, “Until the WIS is transferred to the state, Dole is still the owner and is responsible and liable for their actions or inactions associated with the Wahiawa Dam. …
“If for any reason the deed of the parcels identified in Act 218 are not filed or recorded with the Bureau of Conveyances by June 30, 2026, Act 218 shall be repealed in its entirety. If Act 218 is repealed, Dole will retain ownership of the WIS. If Dole’s remediation timelines are suspended, it is likely that no progress will be made toward bringing the Wahiawa Dam into compliance. This would result in a significant delay to remediate the dam and continue to put the downstream community at risk in the event of a dam safety incident.”
Board member Aimee Barnes expressed her disappointment with Dole. “I know that in prior meetings that we discussed this dam, I have asked questions … to Dole on whether they were planning to kick the can and defer maintenance until such time as the state took over. … It seems that’s exactly what they’re trying to do,” she said, adding that she was concerned that the board had been too lenient.
Dole’s consultant Trisha Kehaulani Watson testified that despite its disagreement with some of the DLNR’s positions, the company would not oppose the Engineering Branch’s recommendation to maintain the performance deadlines and fines. However, she asked that the board consider amending the Engineering Division’s recommendations to allow for the reimbursement of the costs Dole incurred on its plans to upgrade the dam.
Nellis added, “Dole will go out of business if they have to come up with $25 million [to fix the dam], which is why we went to the Legislature.”
Board chair Chang reiterated that the state needs to do its own due diligence and that the Department of Agriculture’s Phase 1 environmental site assessment, which is just a literature review, won’t be completed unit June 2024. The DLNR’s Phase 1 assessment won’t be done until May, Carty Chang later added.
“That’s kind of the reality. DLNR is in no way saying they’re opposing this transfer. … We need to make an informed decision on what are we actually accepting,” Chang told Nellis and Watson, adding that the Engineering Division has already determined that the dam is not safe.
Addressing Dole’s request for reimbursement, Chang noted that the money was just not available for that, since her department had received only $1 million from the Legislature for its due diligence.
The board then went into executive session to discuss legal matters with the state deputy attorney general. When the meeting resumed, Watson reported that Dole was withdrawing its request for reimbursement and supported the Engineering Division’s recommendations.
“We’re here to help,” she said.
At the time of the board meeting, Dole had completed its preliminary designs to upgrade the spillway and was expected to submit its dam safety permit application soon.
— Teresa Dawson
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