Dry Wai`anae Explores Its Wet History
Ordinary citizens flush up to six gallons of valuable drinking water down their toilets with each use and soak their hungry lawns with dozens more, oblivious to the mounting crises that such waste poses to water suppliers. In 1960, the world’s annual water withdrawl was about 500 cubic miles; in 2000 that number had nearly doubled.
Although our global per capita water consumption has slightly declined, skyrocketing demands of agriculture and industry are draining groundwater aquifers faster than they can be replenished.
At the grassroots level, people have been slow in recognizing the looming threat of freshwater depletion, mainly because water management has been conducted by remote government agencies and resource planning experts. Only recently have grassroots environmental movements and international planning made water protection increasingly relevant at the community level.
In Hawai`i, the thriving environmental and cultural discussion around aloha `aina inevitably leads back to water: the source of life, health and wealth in traditional (and future) Hawai`i. A resurgence of taro farming and interest in native ecosystems is spurring some grassroots groups to educate themselves about the islands’ water issues.
Wai`anae, on O`ahu’s dry leeward coast, exemplifies these budding changes. With a population that is still substantially Hawaiian, Wai`anae was historically excluded from the island’s prosperity and even gained a reputation for being O`ahu’s dump site, with various landfills, industrial complexes, and military installations sandwiched between low-income housing developments and scattered farms. The longstanding relationship between land and community that characterized Native Hawaiian culture was overshadowed by the harsher realities of economic and political isolation, but this is all starting to change.
One place where this is obvious is the Cultural Learning Center at Ka`ala, nestled in the heart of Wai`anae Valley. An education and cultural demonstration site founded two decades ago, the Learning Center is an oasis in the valley’s dry, ochre floor. School groups and visitors attend workshops and tours of the native plant garden, grass-thatched cultural classroom, and most importantly, a series of taro patches restored from ancient terraces.
“It’s not enough to feed our community,” notes Lilette Subedi, executive director of the Learning Center, “but it’s what we use to teach.”
Subedi is also a member of Mohala I Ka Wai, a group of community leaders and activists that formed last year to address water supply and demand issues in Wai`anae. Research indicates that Wai`anae Coast’s three valleys once harbored an extensive irrigation system. At least three perennial streams sustained the agriculture and native ecosystems of pre-plantation times, but most of this water is nowhere to be found today.
“In a very short amount of time after contact, our whole ecosystem was disrupted, including the natural pathways of water,” says Subedi. She cites population influxes, the disruption of the traditional ahupua`a system, plantations, cattle ranching, resort development, erosion and flooding as some examples. “The impact of all the diversions and pumping on our water tables was extreme, and we think that part of this can be seen in what we call the receding forest line of our watershed.”
Wai`anae oldtimers remember flowing streams and lusher upland vegetation from their youth, and the broader connections between water supply and watershed health (previously overlooked by agency managers, including the Honolulu Board of Water Supply) are becoming clearer as this bigger, “ecosystemic” picture is pieced together.
The Wai`anae High School Hawaiian Studies Program, which combines archaeology with environmental science and native forest restoration, is working with Mohala I Ka Wai to restore a healthy Wai`anae watershed. Over the past two years, students have identified at least eleven historic streambeds using old maps and geographic information system surveys, but only five have been shown to flow even intermittently in recent decades. Students also compared healthy Waikolu Stream on Moloka`i to Wai`anae’s Kalalula Stream. Both are alike chemically and geologically but differ substantially in terms of their native plant and animal life. If Kalalula’s water flow were restored, students could reintroduce species like o`opu (native gobies) and opae (native shrimp) and replant the native forest that in turn acts like a sponge, attracting and restoring rain.
Watershed-based water conservation is, in fact, emerging nationwide as a more comprehensive and effective form of resource management. Looking at water in terms of source alone often masks the relationships between plant life, soil health and recharge.
“It’s been so dry lately,” says Subedi. “We’re in a five-year drought and our average rainfall has been twelve inches per year. The earth is so hard that even when it does rain heavily, it floods and just washes right back out to the ocean. All this runoff and no recharging of the watershed are becoming more apparent as we look at how ecosystems really work. There was an assumption that if there’s enough rain, the water would come back, but we’re learning that’s not the case.”
Mohala I Ka Wai is now partnering with the Board of Water Supply to survey the region’s dated (?) wells and experiment with the stream in Makaha Valley to observe the impacts of water flow on reforestation efforts. They are also linking with Na Wai O Wai`anae, a group of concerned citizens committed to cleaning and restoring a heavily polluted streambed whose waters are diverted by the Navy in Lualualei Valley.
Mohala I Ka Wai is only just emerging as a response to the realization that fresh water is a precious, limited resource in Hawai`i. But its diverse resources, from kupuna to students, government agencies and community groups, is a promising sign that a more holistic and collaborative approach to solving our water problems lies ahead.
— Catherine Black
Volume 11, Number 10 April 2001