Whiskey is for Drinking, Water is for Fighting

ACTION ALERT: East Maui’s streams once again need your help! Click here to submit testimony by this Thursday, November 7, in opposition to a premature proposal to launch a contested case hearing over a license to divert 85 million gallons of water per day.

Governor Green Bashes Water Protectors (Again), Ignores Community Calls (and the Law) in appointing a “Loea” to the Water Commission

by Wayne Tanaka, Chapter Director | Reading time: 3 minutes

The fight for our water, and our future, has taken another ugly turn this month, as Governor Green ignored the requests of 74 organizations and community leaders to follow the requirements of the water code, and appoint a Native Hawaiian water management expert, or loea, from a list provided to him in February of this year. (Read the letter, the Governor’s (non)response, and our still-unanswered reply to his letter here).

In a televised interview, Governor Green all but admitted that his failure to pick a name from the February list was not based on his original excuse – that the law somehow precluded him from doing so – but on outright outlandish allegations from the “community” (read: corporate landowners) that nominees and celebrated Hawaiian leaders, namely Hannah Springer and Lori Buchanan, were sources of “conflict.”

In a subsequent interview, Green also bashed water rights advocates and cultural practitioners as wanting “to restore all the water for the streams” – a patently false statement – which, according to him, would leave no water to build housing. Even his cabinet member, Board of Land and Natural Resources Chair Dawn Chang, refuted his implied zero-sum game between stream restoration and housing advocates as nonsensical.

(This was not the first time Green used simplistic, antagonistic, and dishonest messaging to attack water protectors; after the Lahaina fires, he claimed then that water protectors did not want to use water to fight fires, while rolling back hard-fought protections against corporate water hoarding.)

Not surprisingly, Governor Green failed to respond to our concerns regarding his lack of authority to reject the February list of loea seat nominees or the inappropriateness of appointing a West Maui developer’s business partner to help come up with a new list of nominees, in what has been called a “sham” do-over of the Water Commission nomination process. Instead, with no public notice or discussion, he chose to appoint Hinano Rodrigues from the new do-over list to the loea seat. Water protectors immediately raised concerns with his selection, including the fact that a nonprofit Mr. Rodrigues started is a lessee of West Maui landowners whose “gentlemen farm” developments compete directly with Native Hawaiian practitioners and farmers for water.  

For those who have been paying attention to the actions of this administration, Governor Green’s most recent decisions represent an escalation of a long running and deeply concerning pattern of attacks on water management and the public trust - and a just and equitable water future for our islands.

Those who wish to voice their disappointment at the Governor’s latest disregard of the water code, and the public trust, can do so by emailing him here or by calling his chambers at (808) 586-0034. 

In the meantime, please sign up for alerts and updates on additional developments and actions you can take by subscribing to water rights email alerts here, tell your friends to do the same, and please consider making a contribution to our efforts to watchdog our water, and ensure a future of equitable access to clean water for all Hawaiʻi residents – and not just the privileged few.