Absent senators force delay
of vote on water nominee

Only 6 of 9 panel senators were
present as hearing ended

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By Crystal Kua
ckua@starbulletin.com

A Senate committee has postponed until tomorrow a vote on whether to confirm Alexander & Baldwin Vice President Meredith Ching to the State Water Commission because of an apparent split among members.

"We could be in a deadlock, and in order to move the measure, we do need either a ... down or an up," said Sen. Lorraine Inouye (D, North Hilo), chairwoman of the Water, Land, Energy and Environment Committee. "We need a lot more of our members present."

Only six of the nine committee members were present when yesterday's confirmation hearing ended.

The nomination of Ching, A&B vice president of government and community relations, is opposed by groups such as the Sierra Club, who say that it would be difficult for Ching to serve two masters: the public and her corporate shareholders.

"She serves a role in a big company that uses a lot of water. That is the problem," said Alan Murakami, an attorney with the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp.

That organization is representing a group in East Maui that is petitioning the Water Commission to restore streams that have had their water diverted by A&B's East Maui Irrigation for its sugar plantation.

Ching said she would recuse herself from any case involving A&B and that she would be able to separate her corporate work from the work she would do on the commission.

"I understand the concerns of the conflict of interest, and it's not worth it to me. It's not within my value system to even push the limits on that," Ching said. "Anything I take on, I'm determined to do a good job."

Ching won praise from a range of businesses, ranchers, agribusinesses, labor unions, the mayor and County Council on Kauai, U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, former state Supreme Court Chief Justice William Richardson and the Water Commission for her work as a civil engineer and work on managing water resources.

"Meredith is a conservationist at heart and a pragmatist in life, making her an ideal candidate," said Tamar Chotzen, former executive director of the Hawaii Nature Center, for which Ching is a board member.

If confirmed by the Senate, Ching would be the first woman to serve on the 15-year-old commission.

But yesterday's hearing also led to a discussion on whether the Water Resource Management Commission is too pro-development with representatives of large agricultural businesses and ranchers currently sitting.

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