COURTESY HC&S
In 1909, workers installed a pipeline for Haiku ditch water under the steel railroad bridge crossing Maliko Gulch. The pipeline became part of the vast East Maui Irrigation System, which brought water from the windward side of Haleakala to the island's semiarid plains.
WAILUKU >> Sugar planter Henry Baldwin, who had lost an arm in a mill accident, used to slowly inch his way up and down on a rope over a 200-foot precipice daily to inspect the work and encourage workers to complete an aqueduct in East Maui. Maui ditches garner
historic statusBy Gary T. Kubota
gkubota@starbulletin.comBaldwin was not about to see his aqueduct project fail because his workers were afraid go down a gorge to lay irrigation pipes in Maliko Gulch in East Maui.
Yesterday, the East Maui Irrigation System developed by him and his brother-in-law, Samuel Alexander, was designated as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
The society recognized the development of the aqueduct during a dedication ceremony at the Alexander & Baldwin Sugar Museum in Puunene.
Two other Hawaii projects have been designated as civil engineering landmarks by the society, including the King Kamehameha V Post Office in Honolulu and the underground fuel storage facility at Red Hill, Oahu. Other projects receiving the society's recognition include the Brooklyn Bridge and Panama Canal.
"The purpose of the landmark designation is to recognize those projects that basically changed the area they were built in," said Thomas Jackson, president of the society.
"Without it, there would have been no agricultural sugar cane. There would have been no development."
Society officials said the East Maui Irrigation System served as a model not only for the development of sugar industry aqueducts in Hawaii, but also for domestic water aqueducts in the western United States.
The system, which continues to operate today, consists of 74 miles of tunnels, ditches and flumes and brings an average of 60 billion gallons of water a year from steep tropical forests on the windward side of Haleakala to the semiarid plains of Central Maui.
It serves residents, farms and businesses, including Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co., the largest single sugar plantation in the state.
Thomas said the system's use has also expanded to include the use of hydropower.
But there was a time when the completion of the system was in doubt.
Baldwin and Alexander had obtained a lease from King Kalakaua for the right of way and water capture from Hawaiian Kingdom lands for two years and were still developing the system as it came close to the end of the agreement.
Claus Spreckels, another sugar planter, had permission from the king to take over the completion of the ditch if the system was not finished on time.
That was when Baldwin, going up and down by rope daily, led workers to install pipes across Maliko Gulch.
American Society of Civil Engineers
