Green’s Not-So-Green Campaign Against Water Protectors, Water Management, and the Public Trust

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.

by Wayne Tanaka, Chapter Director | Reading time: 4.5 minutes

For generations, Native Hawaiian cultural practitioners, subsistence communities, farmers, fishers, conservationists, and advocates for the public trust in water have fought a lopsided battle against Hawaiʻi’s powerful Big Five plantation oligarchy and its successors-in-interest, regarding the protection and management of our islands’ most precious resource.

In recent years, thanks to steadfast, decades-long grassroots campaigns in Waiāhole, Maui Hikina, Nā Wai ʻEhā, Maui Komohana, Kawela, and Kauaʻi’s Waimea, among others, notable progress has been made to address the corporate waste and hoarding of streams and aquifers across our islands. 

This progress includes updated stream flow standards that safeguard the benefits of mauka-to-makai flow, and water management area designation that protects the public interest in regional water uses – all of which, if appropriately implemented and enforced, will benefit our islands for generations to come.

However, this progress has been very inconvenient for the politically powerful corporate landowners whose de facto control over water resources has displaced entire farming communities, impaired watersheds and estuaries, and created desolate, water-starved landscapes like the one that set the stage for the tragic Lahaina fires last August.  

Disappointingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, Governor Green’s words and actions over the last year and a half have betrayed a clear bias towards the corporate interests that are desperately trying to claw back their control over our public trust water resources.  

In July of last year, Governor Green vetoed two bills that would have held deep-pocket water code violators accountable for water code violations, and enabled the water commission to take timely action in the event of a water shortage – such as by forcing non-essential corporate users to share some of their water for more pressing needs. 

That month, his administration also attempted to withdraw water law expert Dr. Jonathan Scheuer as the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands representative on the East Maui Community Water Authority, before the Hawaiian Homes Commission Commissioners took a vote to reinstate him.

Immediately after the devastating fires of August 8, Governor Green’s administration – including his Attorney General Anne Lopez and Board of Land and Natural Resources Chair Dawn Chang – falsely claimed to the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court that court-imposed limitations on East Maui stream diversions had contributed to the tragedy. The court would eventually lambast the DLNR for its deeply unsettling willingness to file such patently false claims – claims that only served to perpetuate corporate control of our public trust water resources.

Governor Green’s administration would then “reassign” celebrated and singularly successful water deputy Kaleo Manuel to another position based on false allegations, while he told news reporters that “People have been fighting against the use of water to fight fires. I’ll leave that for you to explore.” Green also used his emergency powers to repeal the application of the water code for Maui Komohana. Community outrage eventually led to Manuel’s return to the deputy position and the restoration of the water code for West Maui.  Deputy Manuel eventually resigned in January of this year – for many, a troubling sign of the treatment he received even after being restored to his position. 

More recently, Governor Green’s administration proposed to approve the issuance of a 30-year lease to Alexander & Baldwin, former Big 5 Plantation and current real estate investment trust, and their Canadian pension fund partner Mahi Pono, to divert over 85 million gallons of water per day from Maui Hikina, or East Maui – contradicting the clear desire of Maui’s voters, who had established the East Maui Community Water Authority (now known as the ‘Aha Wai o Maui Hikina) to provide a community-based government entity to ensure community control over East Maui’s streams. 

Community outcry again stopped this proposal, only for a similarly problematic proposal to be submitted to the Board of Land and Natural Resources in early November. See our action alert here to raise your voice and amplify the concerns of Maui residents and water protectors over this latest move.

Most recently, Governor Green flaunted the water code’s requirements that he fill the water commissionʻs designated Native Hawaiian water management expert seat from a list of nominees duly submitted to him in February of this year. He instead re-started the nomination process from scratch after an eight-month delay, and after the expert “loea” seat had been empty for months. Read more about this latest move in our companion article, Whiskey is for Drinking, Water is for Fighting, here. 

Dr. Kamanamaikalani Beamer once shared a saying passed on to him by his elder, that “whoever controls the water controls the future of Hawaiʻi.” While water conflicts have arisen since the plantations first began to monopolize our streams and aquifers, the Governor’s administration has now made it abundantly clear that the fight to uphold the public trust in water has reached a new level of seriousness - one that requires all of us with a stake in our islands’ future to stay vigilant, and be ready to take action.  

For now, those who wish to voice their disappointment at the Governor’s pattern of disregard for our 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.