Maui County wants exemption to pesticide ban at Waiehu golf course, some public parks

A popular local golf course along the Waiehu coast is spurring questions over the best way to keep public spaces in shape while protecting the environment from chemicals and runoff. 

Three years ago, the Maui County Council unanimously passed a ban on the use of toxic pesticides and fertilizers on county land in favor of environmentally friendly, organic products that keep grass green and free of weeds.

The law took effect one year after it was approved, with additional time added for larger facilities to get into compliance — two years for War Memorial Stadium Complex and Ichiro “Iron” Maehara Baseball Stadium and three years for the Waiehu Municipal Golf Course. 

But Shane Dudoit, deputy director of the Parks and Recreation Department, said Thursday that the county could lose the golf course if the council does not approve an exemption to the 2021 ban — until it can find organic products that work.

He said so far the approved organic fertilizer the department tested in June on the practice putting green for the 179-acre Waiehu Municipal Golf Course was stinky and left black pellets that impeded putting.

“If we were to spray any of that down, it will kill the whole golf course,” Dudoit said.

Later this month, the County Council’s Agriculture, Diversification, Environment and Public Transportation Committee plans to continue talks on Bill 131, which not only would exempt the golf course from the ban, but also county parks with grass playing fields, county agriculture parks and property that is subject to state executive order and not county managed or controlled.

Of the more than 2,600 acres of property that the county parks department oversees, Bill 131 is asking for an exemption on 10% to 12% of it, Dudoit said.

The committee discussed the bill on Sept. 26 and deferred the matter until Oct. 24. 

Committee Chair Gabe Johnson said the Parks and Recreation Department did not take the three years it was given in the bill to work on the organic options for the golf course seriously. 

“The golf course we knew would be a heavy lift, so we gave them a full three years,” Johnson said. “We carved out a time for these folks to implement their practices, to find the proper pesticide, herbicide.”

During the summer, many golfers who play the popular 18-hole course with stunning views of the ocean and mountains took action in hopes of preventing the whole course from looking and smelling like the tested practice green near the clubhouse. A petition was created to return to the previous fertilizer with 1,225 signatures collected in three weeks.

Dudoit said Tuesday that the department has taken the ban seriously from the beginning, noting that the current parks administrators joined Mayor Richard Bissen’s administration in January 2023.

But he said the county started using the approved products in 2022. Year two included going organic at War Memorial Complex’s football and baseball fields. And this year included the continued efforts to use approved products at the golf course.

According to Dudoit, fertilizer is applied monthly on the greens and once a year on the fairways at the golf course.

With the golf course located on oceanside property between Waiehu Beach Park and the environmentally sensitive Waiheʻe Coastal Dunes and Wetlands Refuge, Jill Wirt, project manager for Maui Nui Marine Resource Council, said Monday the county needs to give the organic options more time.

Dudoit said the county does not want to abandon organic options, but needs this exemption while it continues to work with suppliers of organic fertilizer and weed control to find a product that is effective, does not smell bad and does not hurt playing surfaces and agriculture.

The county parks director has the right by county code to choose a product that is safe and effective if no effective product can be found from the list approved under the ban, Dudoit said. And so far, he said, none of them just kills weeds.

In 2022, the Maui Nui Marine Resource Council conducted a test of its own on a plot at Keōpūolani Park in Central Maui using a product from Maui-based SoilThrive. Wirt said it was successful, as were tests done at 30 other locations around the island.

The resource council also had $5,000 available in 2023 to do a test plot at the Waiehu Golf Course, but Wirt said the county parks department did not reply to multiple requests to implement it.

Dudoit said the product proposed for a test plot at the golf course was not on the approved list from the 2021 ordinance, so there was no point in testing it. And even if it was on the list, he said SoilThrive could not provide the amount needed to cover the large acreage of the golf course.

But he said he does think “it’s a good product that is going to work down the road.”

Wirt said: “We know that it works. Now it’s up to the properties to start investing in this product.”

She pointed to other county-funded programs that are environmentally and reef friendly, including the use of the organic fertilizers and battery-powered landscaping tools that replace ones run on gasoline.

She said there are many case studies done on the Mainland that find organic products can be effective on grass and agricultural land if given the time and investment to restore the soil microbiology to support the plants, which can’t be done with chemical- or synthetic-based products.

“They’re used to quick fixes in spraying something on a weed or apply fertilizer and it gets green; it works immediately,” she said. “Whereas sometimes these organic practices in organic holistic, mālama ʻāina, or however you want to say it, this isn’t a new idea or new-wave thinking. These practices have worked for generations long before us.”

Maui resident Chris Black, a PXG regional sales manager for Hawaiʻi, was on the back nine Monday and said the course looks great and the greens are in good shape.

“It’s come a long way since I started playing it 20 years ago,” he said.

But Black said the debate taking place about how to keep the course in this type of shape is important due to its proximity to the ocean.

“I’ve worked in golf for 20-plus years and just the runoff from the course going to the ocean can destroy the reef and affect wildlife,” he said. “So as long as it’s managed correctly and nothing is affected in a negative way outside the golf course.”

Jeff Gaines, a greenskeeper at the Kapalua Plantation Course, was playing one group ahead of Black on Monday.

“I think it’s in great shape, the greens are awesome, the fairways are beautiful, and it’s so affordable, especially for the locals,” Gaines said. “I’ve been working at Kapalua Plantation Course for five years and this is one of the nicest conditioned courses I’ve seen on island.”

Green fees at Waiehu, the county’s only municipal golf course, are the lowest on the island.

The views and the rates aren’t the only draws. Dudoit also said the municipal golf course is important for the mental health of many seniors on Maui who play it regularly. In 2017, then-Mayor Alan Arakawa proposed shutting down the golf course because it was losing money, but the community rallied to keep it open. 

“Until we can guarantee that we can keep that course weed-free and playable, we need to continue to use the herbicides that we’re using right now,” Dudoit said.