West Kauaʻi residents cry foul on new hydro project

Community leaders say “not so fast” after DLNR greenlights island’s biggest project of the century without a public hearing or an EIS

by Lauren Ballesteros-Watanabe and Marti Townsend | Reading time: 6 minutes

West Kauaʻi residents are outraged that the Department of Land and Natural Resources concluded that the new major hydro-electric project proposed by the Kauaʻi Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) and AES Corporation will have “no significant impact” on the Waimea River ecosystem and the West Side community. This decision means that a huge hydro project in a rural, Native Hawaiian farming and fishing community could skip the public vetting process provided by a thorough environmental impact statement (EIS). What does KIUC and AES have to hide?

Waimea River. Photo: Earthjustice

Healthy skepticism turned to full-on suspicion

This project triggered community concern because it would revive abandoned plantation ditch diversions of the river for another century. Despite the red flags and honest questions raised in public comments on the project, the outgoing DLNR chairperson rushed this decision during the winter holidays and without a public hearing before the Board of Land and Natural Resources, who is ultimately responsible for the decision. This blatant disregard for community input and failure to address the full extent of impacts and burdens of energy development is a continuation of energy injustice that must end.

This is a moment of truth for KIUC and AES, an international energy development company with a sketchy record in our islands. Will they work with West Kauaʻi residents to develop a win-win-win scenario for the community, the utility, and the river? Or will they force their will on people like AES did in Kahuku, Oʻahu in 2019?

“Is KIUC really with the community? Is AES fully committed to partnering with us to make sure that everyone’s needs are met, including the river itself and all of us who depend on it for our way of life?” asked Galen Kaʻōhi, who lives along the ancient Kīkīaola ‘auwai in Waimea. “Honestly, it doesn’t seem like it when they shortcut the public process like this. We want a pono project, and that starts with a pono process.”

The proposal calls for two hydro plants

The hydro plant most people know about in this project is the “pumped storage” system that moves water back and forth between two reservoirs. The pumps are solar powered, and the closed-loop set up means little or no stream flow diversion is needed and water is not wasted.

The less publicized, but far more controversial part of the proposal is a “flow thru” hydro plant that would divert a significant amount of water far from the river and dump it onto the Mānā Plain and into the ocean. We know this causes serious harm to the river and the reefs because this practice of diverting river flows and polluting the ocean with excess runoff from the plain is what the plantation did in the last century.

If there were robust and lasting agricultural activities on Mānā Plain, then maybe the water would not be wasted and the reef not harmed. But for years, agricultural irrigation needs have been minimal, and there is no plan to ensure that any diversions will be tied to actual agriculture that may come to this dusty expanse that is highly polluted with pesticides.

“We are farmers. We know the challenges of producing food in West Kauaʻi, and it’s not as simple as diverting millions of gallons of water and assuming it all can be used for farming. A full EIS is necessary to show how it actually makes sense,” said Wesley Yadao, an experienced kalo farmer from West Kauaʻi. “We need a real plan, and not just a sales job.”

Why an EIS is necessary

KIUC has been touting this project with AES as a renewable energy game changer because the project would provide up to 25% of Kauaʻi’s power supply and bring the utility to more than 80% renewable generation. But the project would also rebuild the plantation-era Kōke‘e Ditch and divert and dump up to 26 million gallons of water a day from Waimea River to generate hydro power. Taking 26 million gallons a day at high flows – for an average of 11 million gallons a day – works out to 4 billion gallons of water a year over 65 years from a watershed that is supporting a newly expanding kalo industry while experiencing far less rainfall according to state climate projections. Committing to another century of diverting such a significant amount of water in the face of looming climate uncertainties is a one-in-a-lifetime decision that must be fully and honestly vetted in a transparent public process.

“KIUC can only say there is no significant impact from their project because they’ve avoided looking at the whole story. They downplay the harm to the river by claiming that the diversions are already “existing,” even though the plantation closed 20 years ago. They also talk about using the water to support agriculture, but offer no real plan for how to do that,” said John ʻAʻana, a retired kalo farmer in Waimea. “We know from decades of diversions for sugar that there are serious consequences to the river and to the reefs when so much water is taken and released onto Mānā Plain and dumped into open dirt drains like how KIUC is proposing to do.”

KIUC actually began to prepare an EIS in 2019, and then suddenly stopped and opted instead to do only an Environmental Assessment (EA). The purpose of an EA is to briefly check if a minor project “may” have significant impacts, so it does not fully analyze available alternative approaches to achieve the project goals. Instead it starts from the assumption that the proposed project will have no significant impact and therefore needs no improvement or limitations. But that assumption is not warranted for this massive project because it proposes to take away 4 billion gallons of water a year from Waimea River for 65 years.

The EIS process is designed to ensure West Kauaʻi residents, and state regulators understand the full extent of potential harm this project could pose to natural resources, cultural practices, and overall quality of life, as well as the best ways to mitigate those harms. The facts presented in an EIS are publicly scrutinized and debated. Regulators rely on this document to inform the conditions and requirements of permits they approve, like the 65-year water lease KIUC and AES must obtain from the Board of Land and Natural Resources.

Ongoing struggles over water demonstrate the significance of water as a political and economic force; they also highlight where institutional priorities lie. In other words, these community fights for cultural and ecological well-being exemplify how control over water signifies a key aspect of power. It simply is not right to divert and dump stream water. This practice interferes with a community’s cultural rights and values and connection with the ʻāina (that which feeds). We know from decades of plantation diversions, that interrupting the stream tears apart the ecological and social fabric that supports collective well-being, as was done in the plantation era throughout Hawaiʻi.

Much will unfold in the coming months, and we encourage you to keep track of this project. Please share this information with someone you know. In order for us to have a truly successful transition to a clean energy future, all voices must be heard and communities must be respected. Justice and sustainability must go hand in hand for every project, or we will simply repeat the injustices of the past for the next century.