Maui seeks voluntary
water cuts

WAILUKU >> With less than average rainfall predicted from June through September, Maui County officials are asking residents to voluntarily conserve water on Molokai and most regions of Maui.

Residents are asked to water their lawns in the morning or night and to wash their cars infrequently, county water spokeswoman Jacky Takakura said yesterday. She said the county would also prefer if restaurants give water to customers only when requested.

County regions unaffected by the advisory include Lanai and parts of east Maui, including Hana.

Rainfall was higher in May in some Maui areas such as Ulupalakua and Kula, but below normal in many areas where water is transported for residential and agricultural use.

Rainfall in May was 13.2 inches or 38 percent of the normal rainfall at Puu Kukui in the West Maui Mountains and 1.7 inches or 44 percent of normal rainfall in Haiku along the northern slopes of Haleakala, according to the National Weather Service.

At Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co., which cultivates some 37,000 acres of sugar cane, rainfall has been lower than usual for the past 11 months, said Garret Hew, the company's Paia farm manager.

Hew, also manager for the firm's sister company East Maui Irrigation, said its ditch system delivered about half of what it usually does in May.

Hew said it's hard to say how his company will be affected by the expected dry spell.

He said sugar yields have been "pretty good" so far, but the critical time for the two-year crop is in the longer growing seasons of June through September.

On Molokai in May, rainfall was .60 inches or 26 percent of the normal at Kamalo on the east end and .38 inches or 38 percent of normal at the Molokai Airport in the central region, the service said.

Molokai experienced a rainy winter, and water stored at the Kualapuu reservoir may be enough to carry close to 100 farmers through the dry season, said Alton Arakaki, a cooperative extension agent for the University of Hawaii.

Arakaki said the 1.2-billion-gallon reservoir appeared to be about 40 percent full.

The service's climate prediction center expects a drier than normal summer for the leeward areas, said Kevin Kodama, a hydrologist with the service.

Kodama said the windward areas may not be as dry as the leeward side if there are tradewinds.

Maui County experienced fairly dry conditions from 1998 through 2003 and a closer to normal wet season from October through April 2004, he said.