The Hawai‘i Commission on Water Resources Management (CWRM) has approved a permit request from the Hawai‘i Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL) to allocate a half million gallons of water per day to supply new and existing uses of Hawaiian Home Lands on Moloka‘i.

In 1993, DHHL filed a water user permit application for a half million gallons of potable water from two wells. Earlier that same year Moloka‘i Irrigation System and Moloka‘i Ranch and the Maui Department of Water Supply had filed competing applications for water from the Kualapu‘u Aquifer System Area. Until the July 20, 2021 ruling by the Commission, the water rights for this aquifer had been litigated for thirty years.

DHHL asked the Commission to approve the following conditions in its water use permit application to protect traditional and customary rights.

• Work to implement community-led efforts to replace invasive species with native species to try to improve the health of the coastal ecosystem
• Support and encourage efforts to reduce erosion and restore native vegetation in Kalama‘ula’s mauka areas
• Make available certain Community Use designated areas as outdoor classrooms for schoolchildren, particularly for the perpetuation of traditional and customary groundwater dependent practices and resource management.

DHHL had conducted extensive research into the potential for cultural impacts, including interviews with selected practitioners.  The Commission will consider complete water use permit applications from Maui Department of Water Supply and Molokai Properties Ltd. (aka Molokai Ranch) at a future Commission meeting.

Photo courtesy of the DLNR