One of the most memorable sights in Waipi`o Valley is Hi’ilawe Falls. From a side cut into the valley, Hi`ilawe Falls drops nearly 1,300 feet straight to the valley floor, Hawai’i’s; longest free-falling waterfall. As part of the Kukuihaele development, Hamakua Sugar Company has developed plans for a new lookout to the falls, to be built along the valley rim in the area set aside for a conservation easement.
The lookout proposal was generally welcomed. However, several people noted that at the same time Hamakua Sugar was proposing to provide a new lookout, it was also continuing stream diversion practices that have dramatically reduced the volume of water in the falls themselves.
Hamakua Sugar Company has informed the state Commission on Water Resource Management that it diverts 912 million gallons a year -or 2.5 million gallons a day from Hi`ilawe Stream, above the falls. The water is channeled to the Lalakea Reservoir, which the sugar company says was used to provide water for drip irrigation of about 200 acres of cane land when supplies from the Lower Hamakua Ditch were insufficient. It apparently was last used in 1989. Water from the reservoir now is “wasted,” to use the term of Mink and Yuen – that is, it is allowed to flow to sea without being put to any good use.
According to a water resources study by Mink & Yuen, Inc., appended to the Kukuihaele Land Use Plan, the Lalakea Stream System (terminating in the reservoir) follows the Lalakea Stream channel for most of its length. It is thought to have been built in the 1900-1910 era as water supply for fluming of harvested cane to the mills.”
Hi`ilawe Stream is “the initial and major source diversion,” Mink & Yuen report. “The intake consists of a 50-foot wide concrete masonry dam across the streambed.” A second intake is identified, “probably from Hakalaoa Stream. A small dam upstream from the mainline… crosses the stream with an elevated flume. Connection is by a small ditch.”
Concerns over the stream diversions were expressed at the time the development proposals for the Kukuihaele area were heard by the County Council. In the council’s meeting of November 20, 1991, Christopher Rathburn, a resident of Waipi`o Valley and secretary of the Waipi’o-Kukuihaele Ohana Hana Like Community Association, said the matter of Hi’ilawe Falls “is very important to me and other members of … the association and other Residents of Waipi`o.” The cascade is a very important scenic and cultural waterfall, probably the tallest waterfall in the state and the most important waterfall in the state, as can be seen in songs, legends, or just by looking at the waterfall.”
Rathburn pointed out how the plantation had not used water from Hi’ilawe Stream for at least three years and voiced his association’s concerns that now it might be put to use watering golf courses. A far better use, he stated, would be to return the water to Hi`ilawe Falls.
In response to Rathburn’s comments, Council Member Helene Hale said that when she visited the proposed lookout site several weeks earlier, there had been no water in the falls. “I’ve been there many many times and I have never seen that area without water,” she stated. Is this a common occurrence? … I was told there was a drought and that’s the reason.”
Rathburn concurred that in periods of drought, the falls dried up. But then he provided a hit more history.
“Hi`ilawe Falls is actually twin falls. I believe the one on the left is called Hakalaoa Falls. This waterfall washed out in the Lower Hamakua Ditch which crosses the falls in, I think it was 1988, possibly 1989. Hamakua Sugar’s response to that was to cut a channel from one gully to the nearby gully, which is Hi`ilawe Falls, and divert all of the water that once flowed over the twin waterfall into Hi`ilawe Falls.” (The Mink & Yuen report confirms that “one section of a tunnel in Waipi’o Valley at Hakalaoa Falls was lost in a landslide in 1989.”)
The recommendation of Mink & Yuen was that wells he drilled for potable water supplies. Water from the Lalakea ditch system could be used to irrigate golf courses, the report suggested, as could treated sewage effluent (with Department of Health approval). Goundwater is available in sufficient quantity to allow for irrigation use as well, the report stated, but pumping costs would he a deterrent.
Whether the ditch systems can legally be used for irrigation of lands other than those in cane cultivation is another matter. The Mink & Yuen report touches on this issue. “Some experts feel that owners of lands served by the Hamakua and Lalakea ditches have riparian or appurtenant rights. Others feel that these rights are valid only when the lands adjoin a natural water course, and their position is that since the ditches are artificial watercourses (man-made), riparian and appurtenant rights do not apply.”
The matter may be moot, in any event. The Kukuihaele Land Use Plan indicates that the developers have determined “that groundwater development is the preferred alternative to meet both potable water and irrigation requirements.”
Volume 2, Number 11 May 1992