Catfish project nets big fine

Kamehameha Schools is cited
for neglecting to file water reports

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By Rod Thompson
rthompson@starbulletin.com

HONOKAA, Hawaii >> Kamehameha Schools was fined $453,000 yesterday by the state Commission on Water Resource Management for its failure to provide a series of reports on a proposed Big Island catfish aquaculture project.

The fine is the largest ever imposed by the water commission, said commission member Herbert "Monty" Richards.

The project was to be carried out at the Lalakea Ditch irrigation system near Waipio Valley by lessee Lawrence Balberde of Hilo. But landowner Kamehameha Schools was responsible for documenting the project.

Kamehameha gave little heed to the commission, Richards said. "They blew us off for a long time," he said.

The project was opposed by the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, which said that Kamehameha was illegally wasting the water by taking it from certain streams, failing to properly document its use in catfish ponds and then "dumping" it in another stream.

In the absence of any documents from Kamehameha, the commission agreed with Earthjustice that Kamehameha was wasting up to 2.5 million gallons per day, Richards said. The fine represents up to $1,000 a day for a series of violations going back to Dec. 1, 2000, he said.

The commission gave Kamehameha 60 days to propose stream and watershed studies it may perform instead of paying the fine, he said.

Kamehameha spokesman Neil Hannahs said the commission really wants the information from those studies, not the fines. Since Kamehameha has planned or is already doing some of the studies, the effect of the fine could be greatly lessened, he said.

Hannahs said Kamehameha made a good-faith effort to get various state agencies to provide documentation that the commission required last year, but the agencies were slow to provide it or did not do it at all.

The Lalakea ditch and reservoir were built in 1900 to irrigate sugar, legally taking water from Lalakea Stream and others. Kamehameha bought the ditch along with thousands of acres from the defunct Hamakua Sugar Co. in 1994. In 1989, before the purchase, the sugar company illegally diverted Hakalaoa Stream flowing into Waipio Valley to protect a damaged tunnel of the separate Hamakua Ditch.

The tunnel is now being repaired. Once that is done, Lalakea and Hakalaoa waters will be returned to their original streams into Waipio Valley, and the Lalakea ditch and reservoir will be dismantled.

Balberde will lose $200,000 of "sweat and money" invested, he said. "It proves it's hard to do business in Hawaii," he said.

Kamehameha will attempt to find a new location for his catfish project, Hannahs said.