Central Maui’s water supply is short by 3 million gallons a day, with users cut off in Waikapū, after two consecutive Kona low storms last month damaged Wailuku Water Co.’s private system, Maui County officials said Sunday.

“That’s a big impact,” Kimo Landgraf, deputy director of the county Department of Water Supply, told ‘Īao Valley residents during a public meeting to discuss the impacts of the storm. 

How long it will take to fix is unclear. The head of the financially struggling water company says it may not be able to afford repairs.

“If it’s going to cost multiple millions of dollars, I don’t have that kind of cash reserves to fund those repairs, which could mean that we are nearing having to file a bankruptcy,” Avery Chumbley, president of Wailuku Water Co., told the Hawai‘i Journalism Initiative on Tuesday. 

Wailuku Water Co.’s 115-year-old sugar plantation-era system delivers nonpotable water to more than 100 customers primarily on farmland in Waihe‘e, Waiehu, Pu‘uohala, Wailuku and Waikapū. The system draws from a watershed known as Nā Wai ‘Eha, “the four great waters,” which together provide 70% of Maui’s domestic water supply.

During the recent storms, the company sustained major damage to its diversions, siphons and ditches. A critical intake that fed the county’s ‘Īao water treatment plant “is probably about 98% full of rock and rubble.” And, a siphon pipe that delivers water to residents south of Wailuku town, including farmers and the King Kamehameha Golf Course, “was totally destroyed,” Chumbley said.

The damages prevent the company from providing nonpotable water to Maui County and to “about 85% of its customers using irrigation water for diversified agriculture or for native Hawaiian traditional and customary practices,” Chumbley wrote in a letter to the Hawai‘i Public Utilities Commission on March 25.  

Some components can be repaired; others will require rebuilding, Chumbley said. He didn’t have a cost estimate for the repairs but said the company is already in a “severe” financial situation and losing money every year. 

Chumbley blames the losses on the company being unable to get a certificate of public convenience and necessity from the Public Utilities Commission, which it applied for 18 years ago. A certificate would allow the company to establish water rates. Right now, about two-thirds of the customers who get water from Wailuku Water Co. aren’t paying anything, Chumbley said. In the meantime, the company has had to sell some of its land to fund its operations.

If the company were to take on the repairs, it would need stream alteration permits from the state Commission on Water Resources Management, and potentially permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Chumbley said.

That’s why he believes the county could move more quickly under the governor’s emergency proclamation for the storms that expires April 13. He said that he has asked the Department of Water Supply to take over the necessary repairs.

“Anything we can do to encourage them to step in and do some of the repairs during that EP (emergency proclamation) would be to their benefit,” Chumbley said. 

However, the county sees Wailuku Water Co. as responsible for repairs. Landgraf said the county sent a letter to the company on Friday outlining “what the county expects them to do to resolve the problem.”

Maui County did not provide a copy of the letter, instead telling the Hawai‘i Journalism Initiative to submit a public records request. Chumbley also declined to provide a copy of the letter. 

“Basically they need to figure out how they’re going to fix this problem, right?” Landgraf said after Sunday’s meeting. “We gave them some suggestions on what they should do.”

Landgraf said the county is getting “very little water” from the damaged intake that provides surface water to the county’s ‘Īao water treatment facility. With Central Maui’s typical available water supply running at about 25 million gallons a day, the loss of 3 million gallons is a decrease of about 12%. 

Landgraf said the loss isn’t enough to impose restrictions on customers, but if it continues for a couple more months, there will be greater impact. 

“There’s been a lot of rain, so everybody’s not really using that much water right now,” he said. 

The county did not immediately respond to an inquiry on Tuesday as to whether it could complete the work more quickly than Wailuku Water Co. under the emergency proclamation. 

Hōkūao Pellegrino, the president of Hui o Nā Wai ‘Ehā, an organization that advocates for protection of the Waikapū, Wailuku, Waiehu and Waihe‘e streams, said he’s been “fielding calls left and right from farmers” who’ve lost water since the storm damaged the system. He estimated that about 80 acres of kalo farms were being impacted by the loss of water.

Pellegrino’s 2-acre Noho‘ana Farm, where he grows kalo, ‘ulu, bananas and other crops, relies on a traditional ‘auwai, or ditch system, for its water. But he said even farmers on the traditional system are impacted because they depend on Wailuku Water Co. to release enough water into Waikapū Stream for their operations. Most of his organization’s board members are currently without water. 

“We’re talking about losing a major food system network on Maui if we don’t get water back online,” Pellegrino told the Hawai‘i Journalism Initiative on Tuesday. 

Miki‘ala Pua‘a-Freitas grows kalo, ‘ulu and vegetables on her 5-acre Kapuna Farms and also does honeybee rescues. She also relies on the traditional ‘auwai and said the system “took pretty substantial damage” from the storm, estimating that about 55 feet of wall was lost. The system feeds about 15 to 20 families on the north side of Waihe‘e River who are now without water in their taro patches, said Pua‘a-Freitas, who’s been pulling out huli (leafy stalk with part of the corm attached) in hopes of saving them to replant when water returns.

“It’s a big hit, because most of my neighbors are all farmers, and we all live like a subsistence lifestyle,” Pua‘a-Freitas said. “The morale is down, but you always got to think about, in hindsight, at least we’re OK, and none of our homes were flooded.”

Repairing the ditch is just part of life as a taro farmer, Pua‘a-Freitas said. The community hopes to get funding to pay for the heavy machinery it will take to mend the system. 

“We’re farming with nature, and sometimes you take blows,” Pua‘a-Freitas said.

Pellegrino says he thinks the county should undertake the repairs because of Wailuku Water Co.’s financial woes, which the community has known about for years.

“It’s not that I want the county to foot the bill for it,” he said. “That’s our taxpayer money, right? But the only logical and quick solution, and honestly the wherewithal, would be the county.”

He sees the dilemma as a reason for the county to acquire the company’s system, which the county has been considering for more than two decades spanning five administrations. 

Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen said his administration has been in the process of trying to acquire the system for the past three years.

“We will be held more responsible for it” than a private, profit-driven company handling a public resource, Bissen told ‘Iao Valley residents on Sunday. “If the government takes it over, it’s a public trust. We owe that to you folks.”

Chumbley said the company is willing to sell and has been in recent talks with the county. 

“The challenge is I’ve had this discussion with five mayors,” Chumbley said. “He’s the fifth one. Can he make it happen? I hope so. I’ve said for a long time that this water system belongs in public hands.”

Chumbley said the condition of the century-old system has been a concern for previous administrations. He acknowledged “it would take some effort and investment” to bring it up to 21st-century standards. 

The system took major hits in 2016 when flooding in ‘Īao Valley “significantly damaged” the intake on Wailuku River, in 2018 when a storm “plugged up a good portion of it” with rocks and rubble, and in 2021 when a boulder was suspected of rupturing the Waihe‘e siphon after a Kona low storm.

When asked if the system has been fully repaired since those incidents, Chumbley said: “It was functional.”

Pellegrino said it’s “no surprise we are in the situation we are in” given the condition of Wailuku Water Co.’s system. He believes the storm has provided a rare window for the county to condemn the system and put it under public ownership. While he said he didn’t want to see “a corporate bailout,” he thought the county should do whatever it needs to do to acquire it.

“This truly is a defining moment for Nā Wai ‘Ehā … and an opportunity that has really never come before us until now, even in the midst of destruction,” Pellegrino said.