The taro lo`i of Ke`anae and Wailuanui in East Maui are surely among the most photographed in the islands, ranking high along with the famous patchwork of irrigated rice and taro fields at Hanalei Valley on Kaua`i or the shimmering taro and lotus fields of Hawai`i’s Waipi`o Valley.
What is not captured by the camera of the tourist as he or she stops at the lookouts along the well-traveled road to Hana is the growing dispute over water that is the life-blood of these fields. For more than a century, vast quantities of water from the East Maui watershed have been diverted to irrigate the cane fields of the Central Maui isthmus. Now, many of the taro-growing residents of Ke`anae and Wailuanui are pressing to have at least some of that water restored to their lands.
In this issue, Environment Hawai`i explores the background to the dispute – one that pits the largest private water supplier in Hawai`i against a handful of Native Hawaiians struggling to keep alive the traditions of their ancestors.
From Lava Flats to Taro Fields
In Native Planters in Old Hawai`i, E.S. Craighill Handy and Elizabeth Green Handy describe the ancient origins of Ke`anae: “In Pleistocene times Ke`anae was a long, broad, sloping valley reaching right back into the caldera of Haleakala, deeply eroded, with a floor of sediments and detritus washed down by the great rains during the era when a glacier covered the top of Mauna Kea on nearby Hawai`i. Then came late eruptions in Haleakala’s caldera, and much lava flowed into Ke`anae Valley, partially filling it then moving on down to the coast and cooling to form a broad, flat peninsula as it spread over the delta of sediment and detritus where the valley with its stream (then a river) met the sea. The fresh lava in the lower valley above this peninsula was continually wet; a great stream flowed through it; it soon became forested, with verdant sloping bogs and swales, planting upland rain-watered taro far up into the forested area.”
While much of the lower part of the valley offered excellent conditions for taro cultivation, Handy and Handy note that it appears not to have been developed for such purpose by the ancient Hawaiians. This, they write, “probably was due to the fact that the energies of the people were diverted to create the lo`i complex which now covers the peninsula.”
According to Hawaiian legend, as recounted in Handy and Handy, the peninsula was first barren lava. But a chief who “was constantly at war with the people of neighboring Wailua… was determined that he must have more good land under cultivation, more food, and more people. So he set all his people to work (they were then living within the valley and going down to the peninsula only for fishing), carrying soil in baskets from the valley down to the lava point. The soil and the banks enclosing the patches were thus, in the course of many years, all transported and packed into place. Thus did the watered flats of Ke`anae originate.”1
Contact
In 1778, Hawaiians in the Ke`anae-Wailuanui area are said to have witnessed the harbinger of great – and devastating – changes to their way of life. In November of that year, a sailing ship was anchored at Ha`aluea, just below Wailua. The event is recounted in “A Cultural Landscape Study of Ke`anae and Wailuanui:”2
“The Hawaiians believed the vessel to be the ‘tower of Lono! Lono the god of our fathers!'” but the ship was the Resolution commanded by Captain James Cook on his second, and fatal, voyage to the Hawaiian islands. Kalaniopu`u, then chief of the island of Hawai`i, “and his retinue traveled to Wailuanui where they set off in canoes to meet the ship anchored offshore. Most of he Hawaiian group stayed aboard the Resolution a few hours, but ‘six or eight spent the night on the ship, one of them being the chief Kamehameha’. Neither Cook nor his men came ashore on Maui – provisions were bartered from Hawaiians paddling out to the ship in canoes – before paddling out to the ship in canoes – before the Resolution continued on its fateful voyage toward Hawai`i island.”
The cultural landscape study notes that in 1790, Kamehameha succeeded in gaining possession of the Hana region at the beginning of his campaign to consolidate power throughout the Hawaiian islands. “Local traditions note that no great battles were fought in the Ke`anae region during the unification campaign of Kamehameha. One reason given for this exemption from warfare, apart from the remoteness of the area, was the productivity of the agricultural fields which, the traditions suggest, acted as a supply breadbasket for warring factions on both sides.”
Sugar
When the concept of land ownership was introduced to Hawai`i in the late 1840s, there were nearly 500 lo`i in Ke`anae and Wailuanui that were claimed by applicants for Land Commission Awards.3 Taro evidently continued to be cultivated extensively by Hawaiians in the area until the mid-1880s.
The revolutionary changes that occurred in the second half of the 19th century – in East Maui as well as elsewhere in the islands – must be set against the backdrop of the rise in the commercial cultivation of sugar cane. The Hawaiian population had been devastated by diseases introduced following Western contact. Sugar planters brought in Chinese workers by the tens of thousands to work on their plantations – workers who, at the end of their contracts, stayed on in the islands to grow rice, open shops, and fill other economic niches.
Signing of the Reciprocity Treaty with the United States in 1876 spurred sugar planters to increase production by extending their plantings to lands far removed from natural water courses. To move the water from the wet side of an island to its dry side became one of the dominant preoccupations of planters in the last quarter of the 19th century – and well into the 20th.
Moving the Water
In 1869, Samuel T. Alexander and Henry P. Baldwin – missionary sons both – purchased a 12-acre farm near Paia, Maui. They made up part of a small but growing army of sugar planters whose ranks, in Central Maui, included Alexander’s brother James, Captain Thomas H. Hobron of Grove Ranch plantation, and Castle & Cooke.
Sugar is a thirsty crop, with up to two tons of water – 500 gallons – required to yield a pound of refined sugar. In 1856, Hawai`i saw the construction of its first, modest irrigation ditch. The ditch, built by William Hyde Rice for Lihue Plantation in East Kaua`i, demonstrated the utility of building ditches to convey water to arid lands otherwise suitable for sugar.
In 1872, the Hawai`i Legislature was asked to provide $30,000 to pay for construction of a ditch to convey water from windward East Maui to cane fields in the drier parts of the island. As Kuykendall reports, “The appeal was rejected, but the idea persisted. In 1873 or the early part of 1874, certain residents of the Makawao district of Maui employed Professor William D. Alexander (brother of Samuel and James) ‘to make a preliminary survey of a proposed route for an aqueduct from some of the Hamakua [Maui] streams to Makawao.'”4
Nothing came of that study, but three years later, on August 21, 1876 – six days after U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant signed the act of Congress putting the Reciprocity Treaty into effect – growers of Central Maui applied to King Kalakaua to remove water “from several streams in Ko`olau, Maui” to sugar fields in Central Maui. Joining Samuel Alexander and Henry Baldwin in the petition were Castle & Cooke, Grove Ranch Plantation, James Alexander, and Hobron.
‘A Very Sparse Population’
An analysis of the request was undertaken by the king’s attorney general, William R. Castle, a son of Castle & Cooke co-founder Samuel Castle. William Castle forwarded his opinion on the matter to Interior Minister William L. Moehonua on September 7, 1876.
“So far as I am informed,” Castle wrote, “this application is new in its nature. It is not for land, nor, as I understand, for an absolute sale or grant of the waters of the streams mentioned in the application. The application is for a license: the license to take and use water, conveying the same in part over several government lands.”
In considering possible legal bars to the granting of the request, Castle mentions Section 48 of the 1859 Civil Code. “Section 48 prohibits … disposing of certain springs and ponds near Honolulu and all other government water ponds, springs, and streams ‘which may be valuable for public use.’…
“It may be claimed that the provisions of section 48 prohibit the disposal of the water asked fore. The answer to this is – that as there are no cities, towns, or villages, and at best but a very sparse population in that region and the waters from time immemorial run waste into the sea there can be public use for which they are so valuable as to prevent a disposal. In addition to which, the provisions of section 48 probably apply only to absolute alienations of title.”5
Castle also addressed the question of whether the use is “contemplated by our law.” “The answer to [that] question seems to me to be very clear. It is asked that water be taken for the purpose of irrigation, in short – for the uses of agriculture – an interest particularly specified as one which the government should foster and encourage and for which a disposal of the public property may be made. The Reciprocity Treaty having passed and a brighter future opening for the country, it becomes the duty of the Government to aid and foster in every possible way the agricultural interests of the country upon which our prosperity mainly depends… Until the government is ready to undertake such work – no obstacle should be thrown in the way of others, who are able and ready to commence such work.”
Grass Grows, Water Runs
In conclusion, Castle recommends granting the request, subject to four conditions: that it be finished “in a reasonable time” (determined to be two years); that “this grant shall not interfere with the rights of tenants upon said lands or streams”; that the government reserve to itself the ability to make further grants of water from the area, “provided however that during the said period of twenty years [the initial term of the license] the supply of water … shall not be diminished by act of the government”; and, finally, “that at any time during said period the government may purchase the said canal, ditch, or other waterway upon payment of the actual cost thereof only..”
By September 30, the plantations had the government’s permission to build the ditch and collect the waters from the designated streams, for which the government would receive payment of $100 a year for 20 years. Barely a month later – on November 2, 1876, the Hamakua Ditch Company, predecessor to East Maui Irrigation, was formally organized. “Construction of the Hamakua ditch, as the aqueduct was called – it was a combination of open ditch, tunnels, and iron pipes – was energetically carried on during the fall, winter, spring of 1876-77,” Kuykendall writes.
“Funds to pay for it were advanced by the plantation’s agents, Castle & Cooke. The first part of the work was completed in the summer of 1877, bringing water from the westernmost of the streams to the sugar cane fields. A celebration of the event on July 4 was described by a correspondent at Makawao:
“The great display of the day was at Haiku, where several hundred Natives and Foreigners assembled to celebrate the completion of the Big Ditch, and to see for themselves the water from the mountain gushing through great iron pipes, emptying itself into the ditch, and rolling on to the valley, and spreading over the cane fields, making the earth glad with its presence. The moot, Grass Grows and Water Runs, was painted on canvas stretched across the principal avenue: flags were flying apparently from every bush – the Wailuku brass band was in attendance and discoursed screech music. Too much credit cannot be bestowed on Messrs. Alexander and Baldwin for their perseverance and energy in completing so great and valuable an enterprise.'”6
The construction of that first ditch had its moments of high drama. Among the events that have etched themselves into the lore of Hawaiian sugar is the way in which Henry Baldwin, who earlier had lost his right arm in a sugar-mill accident, scaled the steep sides of Maliko Gulch. “Setting the siphon pipe in the Maliko gorge required the workers to go down the sides of the precipice on a rope. That they refused to do. Henry Baldwin, clutching the rope with his legs and one arm, then went down, which so shamed the men that they followed him down the rope, then and thereafter, until the job was done.”7
In yet another dramatic turn, the deadline to finish the work within the allotted two years gained urgency when, in 1878, King Kalakaua signed an agreement with Claus Spreckels giving Spreckels the right, on September 30, 1878, to take all East Maui water not taken by the Hamakua Ditch Company. As Wilcox writes, “This meant that if Alexander and Baldwin’s Hamakua Ditch was not finished on schedule, Spreckels could lay claim to that water and possibly the Hamakua Ditch as well. Considering the delays being encountered at Maliko gulch, this was a good possibility. Nevertheless, the Hamakua Ditch was finished in September 1878, a few days within the time limit set by the lease.” That first ditch was capable of carrying 40 million gallons a day and spanned a distance of 17 miles. Its cost was $80,000.
The First of Many
After the first ditch, Spreckels built an even longer, bigger one. “His 1879 Haiku ditch was almost twice as long, three times as large, carried half again more water, and was six times the cost of the 1878 Hamakua Ditch,” Wilcox writes.
The East Maui ditches were expanded, both horizontally – extending out eastward, eventually, to Makapipi Stream – and vertically, with later ditches intercepting stream flows at roughly four different contour elevations. (This allows the system to collect water from groundwater sources feeding the streams below the higher diversions on a given stream.)
Spreckels’ company, Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar, was taken over by Maui sugar planters in 1898. By the turn of the century, Alexander & Baldwin had been incorporated and was one of the major sugar factors in the islands, and the Hamakua Ditch Company (which became East Maui Irrigation in 1908) had united the flows of Spreckels’ ditches with those of Alexander and Baldwin.
Ditch building continued well into the 20th century. Wilcox describes the results: “Among the water entities, none compares to EMI. It is the largest privately owned water company in the United States, perhaps in the world. The total delivery capacity is 445 mgd. The average daily water delivery under median weather conditions is 160 mgd, although this ranges from 10 to 445 mgd. Its largest ditch, the Wailoa Canal, has a greater median flow (170 mgd) than any river in Hawai`i.”8
Changing Times
By 1910, many of the indirect effects of sugar were felt in Ke`anae and Wailuanui. Chinese workers, brought over as labor for the sugar planters, had intermarried with the local population. Starting around 1880, many of the taro fields were planted in rice by Chinese who had moved into the area and married Hawaiian women.
A traveler in the early century remarked on the rice fields. Writing in the Sunday Advertiser Feature Section of September 4, 1910, H.M. Ayres observed: “Ke`anae is a sugarless settlement, rice being the main industry of the place. The natives live contentedly in their homesteads and are unusually well informed on matters of the world, for dwellers in such an out-of-the-world place. It is one of the prettiest settlements on Maui. Across from Ke`anae is Wailuanui, a place well worth a trip over the ricefields, if one has the time.”
By the end of the 1920s, however, rice was no longer grown in the area. Unlike other areas in Hawai`i, where relatively small taro lo`i were consolidated into larger fields for rice cultivation, the agricultural landscape of Ke`anae and Wailuanui remained intact thought the rice-growing years. “Because of the limitations imposed by the bedrock topography, by the location of the `auwai, by the requirement of gravity feed, these fields have remained small compared to other systems in Hawai`i (Hanalei, for example)… All this evidence points to the high degree of historic integrity of the Ke`anae system.”9
Although taro has made a comeback, it is not yet cultivated on anything approaching the pre-contact scale. While at the time of the mahele, nearly 500 lo`i were counted in the area, in the early 1900s, 194 were counted to be in active cultivation (either in taro or other vegetable or fruit crop).
Much of the ancient irrigation system also remains functional. Nowadays iron pipes and other modern materials help carry water to the fields from springs and streams, but the course of the water remains much as it used to be. Recently, however, farmers in Ke`anae and Wailuanui have been expressing more and more complaints about the diversion of water from East Maui streams by A&B and its affiliated companies. In times of drought, the streams and springs below the diversions can be dry or less productive.
Aggravating the problem has been the introduction in the late 1980s of apple snails, a pest that can devastate taro fields. Some farmers in the area try to minimize the snails’ damage by collecting them and growing them in tanks for sale to restaurants. Others have brought in ducks trained to eat the eggs of the snails.
Many farmers believe that the best hope of keeping their lo`i snail-free lies with the increasing the flow of fresh, cold water to their fields. And that, they say, can be accomplished only by restoring at least some of the diverted water back to the streams.
A&B, however, is insistent that it needs all of the flows it now takes to irrigate its lands, recharge the Central Maui aquifer (from which it pumps additional water), and meet its obligations to Maui County, which purchases on average about 8 million gallons a day from EMI. Even with its present diversions, A&B claims, there is not enough water in times of drought.
Despite the claimed water shortage, A&B has been expanding its sugar acreage. In 1977, the plantation had 32,000 acres in sugar, according to Steve Holaday, plantation manager for HC&S. By the year 2000, the company plans to have 40,000 acres in sugar. According to Meredith Ching, vice president for A&B, in 1996 the company had 36,000 acres in production, and in 1997 the figure was up to 37,000.10 “We continue to look for more acreage,” she said. “All of this is part of a program to reduce HC&S’ cost so that they can be competitive on a worldwide basis.”
In addition, Ching noted that the company recently invested nearly $5 million in a mill water drip irrigation project. The project cleans up mill water so it can be used in drip irrigation on additional fields.
- 1. E.S. Craighill Handy and Elizabeth Green Handy, with the collaboration of Mary Kawena Pukui, Native Planters in Old Hawai`i: Their Life, Lore, and Environment, Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin 233 (Honolulu 1972), p. 500.
2. Group 70 International, Ind., Davianna McGregor, Ph.D., and Cultural Surveys Hawai`i, Inc., “A Cultural Landscape Study of Ke`anae and Wailuanui,” prepared for the County of Maui (review draft, December 1994), p. 12. Sources quoted in the following passage are from Samuel Kamakau, Ruling Chiefs of Hawai`i (Kamehameha Schools, Honolulu, 1961), page 97; and Ralph S. Kuykendall, The Hawaiian Kingdom, Vol. I (Honolulu, 1938), p. 15.
3. This is reported in “A Cultural Landscape Study of Ke`anae and Wailuanui.”
4. Kuykendall, The Hawaiian Kingdom, Vol. III (Honolulu, 1938), pp. 62-64.
5. Castle’s letter to Moehonua is quoated in full in Appendix 1 of Carol Wilcox, Sugar Water: Hawai`i’s Plantation Ditches (University of Hawai`i Press, 1997), pp. 163-166.
6. Kuykendall, Volume 3, pp. 64-65.
7. Arthur L. Dean, Alexander & Baldwin, Ltd., and the Predecessor Partnerships (Honolulu, 1950), as quoted in Wilcox, p. 60.
8. Wilcox, p. 120.
9. Cultural Landscape, p. 38.
10. Ching’s statement was made at the June 13, 1997, meeting of the Board of Land and Natural Resources.
Volume 8, Number 2 August 1997