East Maui kalo farmers won the water fight. Now they battle climate change and invasive species

KE‘ANAE — Jerome Kekiwi Jr. remembers when kalo farmers in East Maui used to haul sandbags, shovels and picks up the Ko‘olau mountainside to channel what little water they could access from a spring to their lo‘i below. 

There had been plenty of water until Alexander & Baldwin, more than a century ago, diverted the major streams mauka of their properties to irrigate thirsty sugar crops on the other side of the island. In East Maui, the kalo dried up. Farmers moved away. 

In 2018, a historic decision by the state water commission forced diverted water to be returned to East Maui streams, enabling farmers like Kekiwi to grow kalo again. But now, they’re are up against other threats: changing rainfall, persistent drought and invasive species.

They all are taking a toll on the watershed and leaving farmers with less water than expected from the restoration of the streams.

“The harm that’s been done in these Ko‘olau mountains is irreparable,” Kekiwi told the Hawai‘i Journalism Initiative. “It would take generations and generations to fix.”

Kekiwi is the president of the nonprofit Nā Moku ʻAupuni ʻo Koʻolau Hui, a group of lineal descendants in Ke‘anae and Wailuanui who fought for decades to return the water to the streams and is now nurturing over 20 lo‘i kalo on a roughly 5-acre parcel of land in Wailuanui. 

The property relies on water from Waiokamilo Stream, one of the East Maui streams that historically supported kalo cultivation. In 2018 it was designated for full restoration, with no upstream diversions. The lo‘i (water taro patch) are a sign that some water is returning. But Kekiwi said it’s still not enough.

“Right now we making do with what we get because we never have rain all these months,” Kekiwi said. 

Rainfall for most of the state was below average in May, and streamflow levels on most of Maui were below normal, according to a National Weather Service report released Saturday. In March, it got so dry that a state hydrologist said some streams in East Maui were lower than they’d been in 105 years.

The effects are visible in bodies of water like Makapipi Stream, one of the streams slated for 100% restoration in 2018 because of its historic role in supporting kalo. The stream is supposed to be run year round. But on Monday afternoon, it was bone dry, with just a large pool of stagnant water far below the bridge, and a parched rockbed stretching to the ocean. 

Nāhiku resident Moses Bergau Jr. said his family used to rely on the stream, but decades of capturing and diverting water high up in the mountains have dried it up, and the recent lack of rainfall has also desiccated the landscape.

“It has caused a historical effect, not just on the lifestyle of our kūpuna … but for the generations to come,” said Bergau, who represents Nāhiku on the ‘Aha Wai O Maui Hikina, the East Maui Regional Community Board. “We have been displaced. We have been affected psychologically. We have been downgraded to become minimized. People are minimized. That’s what we are today.”

He said it’s not just the streams that need restoration: “We’re hoping to build back up the condition of the people itself.” 

Renee Miller, a lineal descendant of Ke‘anae whose extended family members were impacted by the diversions, said Makapipi Stream was an all-too-familiar sight.

“It’s heartbreaking, and we’ve seen that for years now,” she said.

As the program coordinator for The Nature Conservancy’s Maui Terrestrial Program, Miller notices how the watershed above the streams is changing. The Nature Conservancy works on about 9,000 acres of the Ko‘olau mountains just below Haleakalā National Park. Before, Miller would get rain-soaked and muddy during a visit to the forest. She could squeeze a clump of moss and watch the water drip out. Now, it’s so dry she can feel the plants scratching her. 

“We’re seeing a difference,” Miller said. “The drought periods are lasting longer. … Rainy season is getting shorter, and less of it.”

Miller said invasive species and wild animals also are devastating the native landscape. Miconia, with its large broad leaves, blocks the sunlight and keeping other plants from growing. Himalayan ginger, with its abundant, knobby stems, sucks up the water. Non-native grasses clog up the streambanks.

“Plants that don’t belong here change the landscape and change the whole topography of the island,” Miller said.

Pigs and deer also dig up plants and damage the bark that trees need to absorb water.

Lurlyn Scott, who represents Huelo and Ha‘ikū on the ‘Aha Wai O Maui Hikina, sees the changes, too.

“A lot of people here will tell you that it’s the climate,” said Scott, when asked what the biggest barrier was to fully restoring the streams after the 2018 decision to halt the diversions. “We don’t get as much rain as we used to. … Our summers are longer. … It’s a different climate now.”

In Scott’s district, Honopou Stream was also granted full restoration with no diversions in 2018, “but if there’s no rain in the mountain, there’s no water in the stream.” Scott would like to see native forests restored to capture more rain. And while hoofed animals are a problem, she points out humans also continue to impact the environment.

“We’re like the original invasive species,” she said.

Gina Young, who began in November as the unanimously selected executive director of the newly formed East Maui Regional Water Authority, said we’re in an era of climate change that comes with both opportunities and challenges.

The agency is hosting a series of community conversations in Ke‘anae, Kula and Ha‘ikū this week as it works to put together a watershed plan for East Maui. More than 40 people attended the agency’s visit to Ke‘anae on Monday.

“I want to be community-led so that we’re leading with their knowledge, their input, transparency … and then to make sure we build in community benefits to how we’re managing the water, too, so that it’s not just taking water,” Young said. “We’re understanding those communities and helping them thrive.”

The watershed plan will help the agency get funding and is expected to be completed in the next 12 to 18 months, Young said. They are putting it together with a department that is just starting out with four employees that include a secretary, an information and education specialist and a grants coordinator. Young hopes to add more staff to work in the watershed.

The return of water to the streams and the creation of the water authority signal a new era of water management on Maui, and many credit the efforts of kūpuna in the community like kalo farmers Ed and Mahealani Wendt, who in the 1980s opposed renewing long-term water leases for Alexander & Baldwin to take water from the Ke‘anae, Nāhiku, Huelo and Honomanū areas when the last of its four granted licenses expired.

For years, the state of water rights was in flux as East Maui farmers mounted legal challenges and the state created a new water code and a water commission. In the meantime, the Board of Land and Natural Resources continued to grant revocable permits for the diversion of water from 1986 to 2000, according to board documents.

In 2001, the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation filed petitions to establish minimum streamflow standards for 27 streams in East Maui on behalf of Nā Moku ʻAupuni ʻo Koʻolau Hui — of which Ed Wendt formerly served as president — as well as Beatrice Kepani Kekahuna, Marjorie Wallett and Elizabeth Lehua Lapenia.

But in 2016, A&B shuttered its 36,000-acre Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. operations. Two years later, the state water commission made the landmark decision to restore partial or full streamflow for 25 streams in East Maui. Mahealani Wendt said in the decades-long fight, kalo has disappeared, land has become overgrown and people have died waiting for justice.

“The corporation’s life is perpetual, but the people, they pass on,” she said during the meeting in Ke‘anae on Monday. “The kalo dies. The generations who would have had that opportunity to learn the skills of their kūpuna, they have no choice. They have to walk away. They have to find other ways to survive.”

Ed Wendt said their fight was never with other farmers or Upcountry residents on the county water system — it was against A&B to make sure there was enough water in the streams for everyone.

“Everything we did was within the law,” he said. “We never even fired a shot. We never did lift a hand to anybody. We ate the humble pie. And for those of you who don’t know the humble pie, it’s sour.”

And while water has been returned to some streams, battles continue over the water that the state still allows East Maui Irrigation — which is jointly owned by Alexander & Baldwin and Mahi Pono — to divert through its massive network of ditches and tunnels for domestic use by Maui County customers and Mahi Pono’s farming operations in Central and Upcountry Maui.

Maui County’s charter calls for the water authority to eventually acquire the system and water leases for the area. Young said the department is in early talks with Mahi Pono about the management of the system.

In the meantime, the East Maui community is focused on reviving what it lost years ago. Kekiwi knows restoration takes time. When the water was first released, the streams had to be flushed out. The temperature was too warm and made the taro more susceptible to disease. Now, the streams are colder and the production is better. Kekiwi is grateful to have water, period. He pointed out that just 10 years ago, there wouldn’t have even been water in the lo‘i. Now, he’s determined to succeed regardless of the obstacles.

“I not going to fail our kūpuna,” he said as a welcome rain fell on Ke‘anae Monday evening. “Plus, we love challenges.”