In our September 2024 cover story, \u201cAbandonment of Water Well Permit Highlights Problematic Growth at Moloa\u02bba Ag Subdivision,\u201d we reported that on October 5, dozens of tenants within the Moloa\u02bba Hui agricultural subdivision on Kaua\u02bbi would be cut off from the well water that they had relied on for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jeffrey Lindner, who held a state permit for the well, had decided he no longer wanted to keep it, given the exorbitant costs and liabilities involved in managing a dilapidated potable water system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Moloa\u02bba tenants pleaded with the Land Board at its August 23 meeting to somehow require Lindner to keep operating the well at least until December, when the neighboring Moloa\u02bba Irrigation Cooperative was expected to have its own well operational.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The tenants \u2014among them farmers, residents, and businesses \u2014claimed that being cut off from water before then would be devastating. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last month, Lindner stated in an email to Environment Hawai\u02bbi<\/em> that the Moloa\u02bba Irrigation Cooperative managed to bring its own well online on September 26.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAlthough the farmers don\u2019t have to worry about losing their crops, there are a lot of legal issues left to resolve. Why didn\u2019t MIC, funded by the state, inform Moloa\u02bba Hui farmers as to the real status of the water [well] construction rather than leave them in the dark, and then create hysteria from what I was doing to get them to testify against us at DLNR? Why was the money coming from the state used to purchase the water tank and well in MIC\u2019s name? The water system is clearly owned by landowners. What right did the county have to approve a subdivision without potable water? \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur pipeline is still blocked from MIC placing their meter in our distribution line, preventing us from serving other locations with irrigation water,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He continued, \u201cThe crisis was averted, mainly for [the Kaua\u02bbi Department of Water]. It is generally understood that the water department would have been responsible for hauling water day and night if the Moloa\u02bba Hui system had failed to come online.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n With regard to some of the lingering legal issues, Lindner\u2019s company, Moloa\u02bba Farms, LLC, years ago sued the Association of Apartment Owners for Moloa\u02bba Hui I and II, the presidents of those associations, Moloa\u02bba Hui Lands, Inc., and its president and CEO over water delivery obligations that were established when the agricultural subdivisions were created.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Intermediate Court of Appeals found in August that the water dispute should be resolved via mediation, rather than in the courts. Late last month, however, the AOAO and other defendants filed applications with the state Supreme Court for a Writ of Certiorari.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Teresa Dawson<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In our September 2024 cover story, “Abandonment of Water Well Permit Highlights Problematic Growth at Moloaʻa Ag Subdivision,” we reported that on October 5, dozens of tenants within the Moloaʻa Hui agricultural subdivision on Kauaʻi would be cut off from the … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,530,28],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-16198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agriculture","category-november-2024","category-water","tag-teresa-dawson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16198","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=16198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}