As land changes hands, Isaac Moriwake, managing attorney of Earthjustice\u2019s Mid-Pacific Office, said \u201cusually what happens is the irrigation infrastructure continues to get maintained because people see it as a resource.\u201d<\/p>\n
That isn\u2019t what\u2019s happened in Waialua. <\/p>\n
The small farmers there generally irrigate their crops with Dole well water, according to Zaz Dahlin, a member of the Mill Camp farmers\u2019 committee, making it unfair to expect them to maintain a ditch system they don\u2019t even use.<\/p>\n
Is It A Stormwater System Or Not?<\/p>\n
Downstream of Mill Camp farms, the ditch system meets the ocean on white sands next to Kukea Circle, one of the hardest-hit in the recent storms. Several residents believe the water, which flowed in rapidly from their backyards, came directly from the overwhelmed ditches. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe government says it\u2019s the farmers\u2019 responsibility, and I disagree. The water is not coming from the farmers\u2019 land,\u201d developer Savio said.<\/p>\n
Mismanagement of water infrastructure upstream is to blame, he said, whether that\u2019s from other farmers or ranchers who haven\u2019t maintained their berms and ditches, or landowners who have filled them in entirely.<\/p>\n
State Rep. Amy Perruso, who represents the area, said there\u2019s plenty of blame to go around.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole water system is connected,\u201d she said. \u201cAll of these failures to act are compounded.\u201d<\/p>\n
The City and County of Honolulu recognized the area as among those underserved by its stormwater resources<\/a> in its 2023 strategic plan. Its focus was primarily on shoring up urban areas and the miles of irrigation ditches on O\u02bbahu were not specifically mentioned. Streams were, though, and the county recognized \u201cthe patchwork of ownership \u2026 is one of the primary challenges for achieving consistency and continuity in stream maintenance.\u201d<\/p>\n The ditches around Waialua were described as elements of a flood control system by the state Department of Agriculture and Biosecurity in a 2019 report<\/a>, which said the Wahiaw\u0101 system\u2019s \u201cinactive ditches are used to control and store stormwater runoff.\u201d<\/p>\n But on Friday, during a Board of Land and Natural Resources meeting, state engineers said the system was never designed to mitigate floods.<\/p>\n \u201cThere may have been some thoughts for flood control but in general their purpose was for irrigation,\u201d said Edwin Matsuda, head of the Flood Risk Management Section. \u201cSo we don\u2019t allocate any flood mitigative or flood control benefits to them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018You Don\u2019t Let It Flow To The Next Guy\u2019<\/p>\n Standing in the back of a black pickup truck, Dahlin counts culverts, streams, drains and driveways along Farrington Highway. She holds her Hale\u02bbiwa Rainbow Bridge hat as her husband, Kanoa, drives from Mokul\u0113\u02bbia. She scrutinizes the grass, the trees and the trash. She counts close to 20 drains. <\/p>\n They stop at streams, Polipoli, Makaleha, Kapala\u2018au and others. Under the bridges are downed trees, sediment and occasionally larger pieces of trash \u2013 a bike, an air-conditioning unit. The culverts offer evidence of their disfunction during the storm, with water still backed up or surrounded by drying debris, so they didn\u2019t drain properly. The roadside ditch is strangled by California grass and stands of haole koa, kiawe and other invasive species.<\/p>\n The two-lane road was the only outlet for water. On the night of March 19, to ease water flow and protect homes, residents used a digger to destroy a driveway off Farrington Highway, cutting through to another Savio subdivision \u2014 at the same time the government warned people to not use heavy machinery<\/a> to clear waterways. <\/p>\n The 20-odd drainage points Dahlin identified on the couple\u2019s drive are a key issue she wants to see addressed because they all have two things in common: they start at Farrington Highway, which swept trash and vegetation downhill, lifted up vehicles and clogged drains before slathering the land north of the road in silt; and they all seem to funnel into one outlet, namely a beach access next to Kiapoko Place.<\/p>\n The water commission and state Department of Transportation did not respond to interview requests. It is unclear whether the state inspected or worked on the highway ditch, drains and culverts between the three major floods this year, on Feb. 21, March 14 and March 20.<\/p>\n During a community board meeting last week, local residents shared their grievances with Mayor Rick Blangiardi. They said Kaiaka Bay must be dredged, stormwater drains should be cleared and upstream landowners have to be held accountable for negligence. <\/p>\n Drone footage reviewed by Civil Beat shows about 10 landslides along the banks of Kaukonahua Stream, about 3 miles upstream of Otake Camp where two homes were swept into flood waters. When those landslides happened is uncertain, whether they might have contributed to the flood unknown. <\/p>\n \u201cThe old rule was you retain the water on your property, you don\u2019t let it flow to the next guy and the next guy and the next guy,\u201d Savio told Civil Beat. \u201cThe point I\u2019m trying to make is, we think it\u2019s all the ditches\u2019 fault, the ditches weren\u2019t working. And it\u2019s much more complex than that.\u201d<\/p>\n The North Shore has faced chronic flooding for years, but none have been as devastating as those in recent weeks. Lawmakers have sporadically sought solutions since at least 1993, mostly proposing dredging the state-owned tracts of streams, such as Kaukonahua and Paukauila, which run through private, county and state land.<\/p>\n Honolulu\u2019s 2019 strategic stormwater plan emphasized a serious maintenance backlog islandwide and the need for significantly more funds than the then-$97 million annual budget. It was also framed as the kickoff to more years of planning.<\/p>\n All the while, residents of the North Shore say, the situation has continued to get worse.<\/p>\n What About The Future? The Answer Is Messy<\/p>\n Mud cakes the straps of Ghio\u2019s slippers. She puts on her gray zip-up hoodie, then takes it off. She\u2019s hot and cold and overwhelmed by the situation.<\/p>\n She speaks quickly. She\u2019d like a shower, like she had while sheltering at a church during the latest flood. She\u2019s lost two minimally insured vehicles, newly planted crops. She\u2019s thankful her home \u2014 built on 3-foot stilts \u2014 suffered little damage, at least in comparison to others.<\/p>\n She\u2019s trying to raise money for her farmer neighbors, and worried about what needs to be done to get ready for future floods. That includes building real, functional stormwater infrastructure.<\/p>\n \u201cWe really need to work as a state and need to make the systems function better and make sure they\u2019re adequate,\u201d Ghio said. \u201cThese old ditches were during the plantation, or they had huge equipment, and they had labor cheap, and they could maintain that system, but it\u2019s a huge burden for city, county, state, DLNR, to try to do that, even to keep up with the inspections or just trying to keep the vegetation down.\u201d<\/p>\n Like many in the area, Ghio only became aware after the floods that landowners are the ones legally responsible for their own section of the waterways. But \u201cwe all knew the ditch needed to be cleaned out and dredged,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a laborious task which can require delicately scraping sediment from plantation-era concrete channels or digging up large trees. It often means using heavy equipment that small farmers cannot afford.<\/p>\n No one seems to have ever been held accountable for anything related to the ditches, let alone the streams that run toward Waialua. Farmers don\u2019t recall any inspections, violations or even communication from the government. <\/p>\n Perruso said Dole\u2019s mass land sell off contributed to the confusion, and the flooding, along with new housing developments that failed to include effective water infrastructure. Part of the problem, she said, is the county Department of Planning and Permitting has failed to stop the spread of residents \u201cwho say they\u2019re farming, but they\u2019re living, and they\u2019re living illegally<\/a> \u201d on agriculturally zoned land.<\/p>\n \u201cThey don\u2019t have water, they don\u2019t have cesspools, they\u2019re building unpermitted structures,\u201d Perruso said. \u201cSome of the same folks are diverting waterways. A lot of the big players are also diverting waterways. It\u2019s a multi-faceted problem.\u201d<\/p>\n The Honolulu planning department says that it investigates all requests and complaints involving agricultural properties. But, in a statement, it added another wrinkle, saying state condominium and subdivision laws have at times conflicted with county rules, allowing projects to move ahead without the department\u2019s oversight. That, the agency added, means developments may \u201clack the basic framework\u201d to support so many homes.<\/p>\n Bringing these properties into compliance requires \u201ccareful case-by-case evaluation, coordination, and, in many instances, corrective action over time,\u201d the department\u2019s statement said.<\/p>\n The laws are not the problem, Perruso said, it\u2019s the implementation. The state water commission is underpowered and underfunded, and there\u2019s a general lack of political will to increase enforcement. So, at least among Perruso\u2019s constituency, she said, \u201cit\u2019s 100% the wild, wild west.\u201d<\/p>\n Other flood-prone states have created flood authorities, which typically transcend county and state jurisdictional lines to manage all kinds of waterways and infrastructure. In Florida, water management districts are funded by the state and property taxes, and play a key role in reducing the impacts of flooding.<\/p>\n Honolulu studied how such an entity would function on the island in 2020. According to a related report<\/a>, the county\u2019s stormwater program \u201coperates in an \u2018emergency\u2019 and reactive mode and has little capacity to perform work beyond permit compliance.\u201d That report also highlighted a general lack of secure funding for stormwater control. <\/p>\n Taking a watershed approach<\/a>, akin to states like Florida or Texas or some California counties, might help remove confusion and create better management standards, said Dave Dutra Elliot, executive director of Agriculture Stewardship Hawai\u02bbi. <\/p>\n \u201cThe farmers are doing a lot. They\u2019re willing to do more, but it\u2019s unfair. They produce food for the public good, the environmental stewardship they exercise is a public good,\u201d Dutra Elliot said. \u201cWe need the government to step forward and work alongside them, and there are big gaps that need to be addressed for that.\u201d <\/p>\n Last Tuesday, Daryl Robertson arrived at the Mahiko Farm Lots to help Ghio move her SUV out of the road bisecting the agricultural plots. He and Ghio are still bemused by his 20-foot shipping container, which flooding drove more than 100 yards onto his neighbor\u2019s plot. <\/p>\n \u201cUncle and I were joking,\u201d Ghio said, \u201cGod was out here rearranging the furniture.\u201d <\/p>\n Robertson would know, having worked with heavy equipment for a majority of his 69 years of life. He remembers when sugarcane was at the heart of the community, when the irrigation ditches pumped the crop\u2019s lifeblood. So he cleared a nearby ditch culvert with a backhoe after the second of the major floods this year<\/a>, he said, but the third time around \u201cit was just overwhelmed.\u201d <\/p>\n Even after a far smaller rain, Robertson said, that ditch needs clearing. <\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n
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