Maui County has struck an agreement that would allow it to acquire a critical private water system that supplies thousands of residents and hotel guests, and would put nearly all of West Maui’s drinking water under public control. 

Mayor Richard Bissen announced Monday that the county has reached a memorandum of understanding with Maui Land & Pineapple Co. to acquire its ditch system in Honokōhau, the watershed encompassing a large portion of West Maui, multiple wells and land to develop more sources of water. The land also can be used for building new police and fire facilities. 

“Nothing else we do in the county moves without the water,” Bissen told the Hawai‘i Journalism Initiative on Monday morning. “It’s just a historic opportunity.”

The acquisition, which requires Maui County Council approval, would increase public ownership of West Maui’s drinking water systems from 45% to 93% and is part of a broader county effort to secure additional private water systems in Olowalu and Launiupoko, the county said in a news release this afternoon. 

Negotiations to purchase the system have been going on for a year, Bissen said. According to the news release, the memorandum is a “formal declaration of intent that establishes a framework” for the acquisition, which would include:

• Honokōhau Ditch System, including its ditch and associated tunnels, siphons, pipelines and key reservoirs.
• Puʻu Kukui Watershed, a long-term ground lease for the 8,661-acre watershed preserve to maximize rainfall capture and retention for surface water and groundwater systems in West Maui
• Four Honokōwai aquifer wells in the Kahana ahupuaʻa
• Three Honolua aquifer wells in the Honokahua ahupuaʻa
• Two proposed, new Honolua aquifer well sites in the Mailepai ahupuaʻa
• Proposed 50-acre, approximately 120-million-gallon reservoir site to support the county’s Mahinahina water treatment facility
• Kahana Pump Station

The acquisition would also cover an existing Upcountry well in Pi‘iholo, land for additional well sites and water storage, and non-water infrastructure assets that include a Moku‘ula land parcel, Kahana roadway and land in Hāli‘imaile for a police substation and a fire station. 

Maui County is currently a customer of Maui Land & Pineapple. Kimo Landgraf, deputy director of the Maui County Department of Water Supply, said the county has about 3,900 service connections serving about 12,000 customers (an average of three people per connection). Some of the connections include hotels. 

“One of the reasons we are supportive of the county as the steward of these systems is because they have the largest team on the island to maintain and operate water systems,” company CEO Race Randle told the Hawai‘i Journalism Initiative in an interview with county officials. “They have experience all over West Maui, including all of the areas that these systems are located.”

Hawai‘i Water Service also purchases water from Maui Land & Pineapple and delivers it to about 1,500 customers in Kapalua. Bissen said Hawai‘i Water Service’s contract would still be honored after the acquisition, but they would be purchasing water from the county instead of Maui Land & Pineapple.

Maui Land & Pineapple also contracts the nonprofit Aloha Pu‘u Kukui to maintain the watershed for the next three years before oversight of the contract transitions to the county.

The cost of acquiring the water system and staffing estimates are not available yet, the county said. The purchase price and conditions are still being negotiated, and the Maui County Council must approve the acquisition. 

Landgraf said $30 million has been set aside in the fiscal 2027 budget for the acquisition, “but that doesn’t mean that’s the set price.” The $1.6 billion budget passed first reading on Friday and is awaiting a second and final reading. 

The county also has created 10 unfunded positions, and once it acquires the water system, “we will figure out how many people we need, and then we will bring those people on board,” Landgraf said. He added that the department could pull from its current staff of about 240. 

Maui County Council Chair Alice Lee told the Hawai‘i Journalism Initiative on Monday afternoon that the council put the funding in the budget as a preliminary measure to allow the price negotiations to move forward, but “this is not a done deal by any stretch of the imagination.” She said the council still wants to see a “bonafide appraisal” and the potential repairs needed to the system.

“If it’s in serious disrepair, I don’t know that it would be in the county’s best interest to buy it,” Lee said. “However, on the other side, if it just needs normal repairs from wear and tear, and there are no significant liabilities or … unforeseeable problems, then we need to seriously consider purchasing it.”

Lee said the council will “need to weigh everything, not only the potential liabilities and the condition of the system, but does it have additional water for future use?”

“The idea is not to just get control over a system that has no more water to give,” she said.

Putting private water systems into public ownership has been a key tenet of Bissen’s administration, a priority he has emphasized this year at his State of the County speech, a post-disaster meeting in ‘Īao Valley and a campaign campaign event in Pā‘ia as he seeks reelection. The mayor has said that public ownership would create more accountability for water resources.

He said in the news release on Monday that the county’s acquisition of Maui Land & Pineapple’s system would “improve water resiliency and support critical affordable housing projects, traditional and cultural practices, emergency response, agriculture needs and environmental protection.”

During the Lahaina fire in August 2023, “had we been connected all as one water system, the private and the public side, that would have obviously opened up more capacity or surge,” Bissen said.

Now, Landgraf said, if the county owns the system, “we’re going to be able to manage all the water in the whole area now, right? So we know where it is and what’s happening with it and where we need to deliver it to.”

The acquisition of land would also allow the county to develop more wells and create more storage that could set aside more resources for housing and other needs.

West Maui has faced record levels of drought over the past year, limiting the water available for new housing projects and agriculture. Honokōhau Valley kalo farmers say their crops are dying. TY Management, the owner of two Kapalua golf courses, sued Maui Land & Pineapple Co. last year, claiming that the company had failed to maintain its system and deliver enough water for the courses, which dried out and forced the PGA Tour to cancel the annual Sentry golf tournament.

Maui Land & Pineapple countered that TY Management improperly used water meant for fire protection to irrigate its golf courses during water restrictions, and said that the problem isn’t its system but a lack of rainfall. 

TY Management had even floated the idea of acquiring Maui Land & Pineapple’s system and turning it over to the state, but community members were skeptical of the idea, and even Maui Land & Pineapple had said they were not aware of the plans before TY presented them to the state water commission in February.

Randle disputed the claims that the system is in need of repairs and said the lawsuit was not a factor in the company’s decision to sell the system to the county. He said even before the lawsuit, the company was in talks with the county and other potential buyers. The sale of the water system to the county has the chance to create more housing and stability for residents, Randle added.

“We see this as a huge opportunity to collaborate with the county because we’re very aligned on the desire to keep Maui families here and look at ways that those who have left can return,” he said.

Bissen said the lawsuit would not affect the county’s prospective acquisition. But neither he nor Randle were sure how the acquisition would affect the lawsuit and whether the county would become the defendant.

This is a developing story.