{"id":1477,"date":"2014-09-30T05:25:32","date_gmt":"2014-09-30T05:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/teresadawson.wordpress.com\/?p=1370"},"modified":"2014-09-30T05:25:32","modified_gmt":"2014-09-30T05:25:32","slug":"letters-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/?p=1477","title":{"rendered":"Letters"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Kaua\u2018i Water: Another View<\/div>\n

<\/b><\/p>\n

We are writing to correct misinforma tion in your article on East Kauai irrigation systems that appeared in your Janu ary 2005 issue, \u201cHawaiians, Conservationists Challenge Diversion of Streams in East Kauai.\u201d<\/p>\n

We take exception to your first paragraph which begins, \u201cIt\u2019s a familiar tale: A small group of diversified farmers demands that stream water continue to be diverted…. little or no thought is given to appurtenant or riparian rights….\u201d<\/p>\n

The actual origin of the Water Coop is available on our web site, [url=http:\/\/www.eastkauai-water.org\/,]www.eastkauai-water.org\/,[\/url] where it states, \u201cAt the request of Kaua\u2018i County Farm Bureau, a community meeting was held November 15, 2000, and attended by approximately 80 residents con cerned about the irrigation system. Following the unanimous expressed desire of the resi dents to preserve the system as integral to the area\u2019s rural nature and essential to farmers, a committee was formed to evaluate the system and explore means to take over its operation.\u201d<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t think 80 residents at a publicly announced meeting constitutes a \u201csmall group of diversified farmers.\u201d The system is not being run for a small group of corporate farmers, it\u2019s being run by Kapa\u2018a farmers and ranchers for the direct benefit of our commu nity. Your mistaken and highly negative open ing paragraph colors all the rest of the article, which is drawn from DLNR staff reports and meetings. Those have their own problems, especially the erroneous conclusions about the Coop finances. We are not on the verge of going out of business, especially after the rent break.<\/p>\n

There are no issues of appurtenant or riparian rights on our system because there is essentially no downstream development from the diversions where an issue has come up. We realize there are important such issues on other systems in the state, and support the fair distribution of water. We are prepared to abide by instream flow standards when they are set.<\/p>\n

We were a bit taken aback at the knee-jerk opposition of your magazine to diversified agriculture. Either we develop diversified ag riculture in Hawai\u2018i or we import all our food by ship and plane from the mainland and other countries. That\u2019s a direction we doubt is \u201cenvironmentally sound.\u201d Agriculture re\u00adquires water, as the Hawaiians with their complex water systems knew full well.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, while your story title states \u201cHawaiians challenge…,\u201d that is not quite accurate. Yes, there were general concerns raised at the hearing on our rent appeal by a Hawaiian representative, but at the immedi ately following hearing, on KIUC\u2019s applica tion for Blue Hole diversion the Department of Hawaiian Homelands was insisting part of that diverted water be set aside for them. It would be delivered to their four hundred acres of land makai of Kalepa Ridge by the Coop\u2019s system. So, far from challenging the diversion, DHHL sought to be sure they got the water they would need for agriculture on their lands.<\/p>\n

There was no appreciation of two impor tant byproducts dependent on the water system: Fern Grotto and Wailua Reservoir. As mentioned in the article, Hawai\u2018i Nature Center has a plan to set up a center at Wailua Reservoir to teach about the environment, among other things. It is less obvious to the casual observer, but many of the streams coursing through the Kapa\u2018a area are actually carrying irrigation water on its way to farm areas. Without the irrigation system, these streams would be dry much of the time.<\/p>\n

This is all to say that if you want to see some environmental impact, shut down this East Kauai system, watch Fern Grotto dry up, Wailua Reservoir drain and be filled with paperbark trees and the nourishing streams of Kapa\u2018a stop flowing, leave aside forget all possibility of farming some 4,000 acres of prime agricultural land in favor of importing all food.<\/p>\n

— \u2014 East Kauai Water Users\u2019 Cooperative<\/p>\n

Volume 15, Number 10 April 2005<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kaua‘i Water: Another View We are writing to correct misinforma tion in your article on East Kauai irrigation systems that appeared in your Janu ary 2005 issue, “Hawaiians, Conservationists Challenge Diversion of Streams in East Kauai.” We take exception to … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[132],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-april-2005"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1477\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}