DEAN SENSUI / DSENSUI@STARBULLETIN.COM

Kahuku farmers may have to vacate
800 acres of Campbell Estate land if it is
acquired by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

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By Diana Leone
dleone@starbulletin.com

A plan for the federal government to acquire 800 acres of Campbell Estate land in Kahuku would pave the way for a long-awaited flood-control project and expansion of a waterbird refuge, but would also displace 15 tenant farmers.

Four of those farmers have persuaded the players -- the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Campbell Estate and U.S. Sen. Dan Inouye's office -- to pause for talks about whether there is a way achieve the wildlife and flood-control goals without moving them off the land.

The protesting farmers include three aquaculture farms and one ti leaf farm that lease the Campbell land. They say that together they make about $3 million in gross annual sales, provide 50 jobs for the community on 400-plus acres and should not have to relocate. Most severely affected are the aquaculture farms, whose ponds, hatcheries and related infrastructure are not easily moved.

Among their operations are the dozens of acre-square ponds makai of Kamehameha Highway and just north of Kahuku town. Their products include shrimp, prawns, seaweed, edible fish and fish for the aquarium trade.

Rick Spencer's Hawaiian Marine Enterprises grows seaweed and tropical freshwater aquarium fish on 20 acres of Campbell land. He proposes that the state Department of Agriculture acquire the Kahuku aquaculture land by trading another piece of state real estate to Campbell. Then, the state could expand its Kahuku Agriculture Park across the highway and include the aquaculture farms.

"This is something we should carefully take a look at. This is kind of a unique location for aquaculture," state Agriculture Board Chairman James Nakatani said of the area, which has both salt and fresh water wells and is near the ocean for disposal of used water. "If you lost this, where would you go next?"

DEAN SENSUI / DSENSUI@STARBULLETIN.COM Rick Spencer scooped up ogo last week from a cultivation tank on his aquaculture farm.

Kahuku aquaculture farmers, which include some farmers not affected by the Campbell land deal, account for 80 percent to 90 percent of aquaculture farming on Oahu, said John Corbin, state aquaculture development program manager. "It's a significant amount and some of those farmers have been in existence 10, 15, 20 years," he said. "It's not like they just came on the scene recently. There's some equity there."

That equity, Spencer said, will be worth little even if Fish & Wildlife honors the seven years left on his lease with Campbell.

Fish & Wildlife and Campbell officials said they have helped most of the affected farmer tenants find replacement locations or lease-extension plans they can accept, and will help with moving expenses when the time comes.

But the four holdouts have been vocal, pressing the issue until Inouye's office asked that it be brought before the Koolauloa Neighborhood Board for a sense of what the community wants. On Thursday, the board encouraged the parties to get together over the next two months to try and find a compromise plan.

Jerry Leinecke, project leader for Fish & Wildlife refuges in Hawaii, said if his agency acquires the Campbell land it will allow farmers to stay until their leases run out -- but sees the long-range goal as removing aquaculture ponds and restoring natural wetlands.

Fish & Wildlife has leased the 155 acres of its James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge from Campbell Estate for 25 years and is acquiring that land. That land, in two parcels, sits in the middle of the aquaculture lands being considered for a combined flood-control and ecosystem-restoration project.

During that time a variety of aquaculture ventures have gone on around it, but the service has always wanted more refuge land, Leinecke said. Its preference, he said, is not to have to work around the farming operations.

The refuge provides habitat for Hawaii's four endangered waterbirds. But some observers said the birds are as prolific on the adjacent aquaculture farms as on the preserve.

"Those birds eat good, let me tell you. Better than me. Prawns (that sell for) $11 a pound. They eat good," one man said Thursday during discussion of the situation at the Koolauloa Neighborhood Board meeting.

DEAN SENSUI / DSENSUI@STARBULLETIN.COM Romy Aguinaldo held up a male prawn from a holding tank on his farm.

Romy Aguinaldo, operator of Romy's Kahuku Prawns, said the birds do consume noticeable amounts of his product, but he considers it a cost of doing business.

The Kahuku flood of March 1991 set the stage for the current proposal to have an expanded bird refuge replace working farms. Much of the town went underwater after heavy rains, cutting off access to Kahuku Hospital and causing extensive damage to the Kahuku High School.

Contributing factors were blockage in drainage ditches that used to be maintained by the sugar plantation and the fact that the plantation no longer pumped water out of the low-lying area.

Inouye's office spearheaded coordination of three complimentary elements to a flood-control solution, said his chief of staff, Jennifer Sabas:

>> Seeking federal transportation dollars for bridge improvements along Kamehameha Highway at Kahuku. (That work is partially done.)

>> Seeking an Army Corps of Engineers study of flood control options. (Reconnaissance phase has been completed.)

>> Finding a public entity that would acquire the Campbell land, because that would free federal spending on flood-control work. (Fish and Wildlife accepted, after the state and city governments reportedly passed.)

Those who want the flood-control work to be done note that Inouye's office has gotten $4 million of the estimated $14 million cost of the Campbell land appropriated by Congress.

Flood-control measures for Kahuku are "an absolute necessity" to allow improvements to Kahuku High School and economic growth for the community, said Neighborhood Board Chairwoman MaryAnne Long.

DEAN SENSUI / DSENSUI@STARBULLETIN.COM Doug Anamizu walked last week along a row of ti plants on his farm. He has almost 70,000 plants on 17 acres, but he will have to relocate his farm if Campbell Estate sells off to the federal government.

Some Kahuku residents think having Fish and Wildlife get all the land ensures that federal money will be available for flood control, seeing it is "a bird in the hand," Spencer said. "I think the bird in the hand is the jobs we (aquaculture farms) provide now."

Spencer, Aguinaldo and ti leaf farmer Doug Anamizu agree that flood control is needed. But they believe involving the state to acquire at least some of the Campbell land for farming use will have a long-term benefit for the town.

The Koolauloa Neighborhood Board voted Thursday to urge the city and state to ante up the $250,000 each needed for a flood-control feasibility study by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The board also endorsed having Inouye's office, Fish and Wildlife, farmers, the state Department of Agriculture, the Farm Bureau, University of Hawaii's Seagrant Extension Service and other interested parties get together and discuss whether there is a way to keep the farms, get the flood control and expand the wildlife sanctuary. The neighborhood board expects to hear an update on negotiations at its February meeting, Long said.

Spencer said he was thrilled with community support for investigating his plan. "I couldn't have asked for a better outcome. I certainly didn't want them to throw away the money appropriated by Sen. Inouye."