A wetland restoration project is bringing hope to Maui residents who want to honor Lahaina’s history and return water to the town after last year’s fires.
Long before Lahaina burned to the ground, canals crisscrossed the community. Spring-fed pools and taro patches dotted downtown. The seat of the Hawaiian Kingdom was a small island in the middle of a sacred pond off modern-day Front Street.
“Right now, believe it or not, even though people say our town is gone, I look at it as the opposite,” said Keʻeaumoku Kapu, standing outside the charred remains of his In the burn scar, the water itself is already making a statement. Freed from the constrictions that long suppressed its flow, it is seeping back. In once-dry ditches and abandoned fields, beneath piles of twisted metal, rubble and charred ruins, the water is returning all on its own, a sign, experts say, that restoration is ecologically possible.
“As we rebuild Moku‘ula, we rebuild Lahaina,” said Archie Kalepa, a legendary waterman and local community leader. Fed by both underground springs and a network of streams, Moku‘ula and Mokuhinia anchored a wetland system that conveyed water through Lahaina town. In this lush environment, taro patches thrived and native fish swam freely. Overhead, breadfruit trees provided shade from the punishing sun that gave Lahaina its name. The wetlands, scientists say, probably provided protection from fires and floods.
These plantation successors continued to divert water to new luxury housing and hotel developments, filling swimming pools and greening golf courses.Native Hawaiian tradition has long held that water is part of the public trust and should be protected and conserved for future generations, a principle enshrined in law by the Hawaii Constitution and the state water code.
Nonetheless, Glenn Tremble, an executive with both West Maui Land and the irrigation company, said he supports restoring Moku‘ula and Mokuhinia. But he maintained that the pumping will not affect those efforts, a position echoed by a hydrologist hired to testify on the company’s behalf. If Launiupoko Irrigation Company is forced to stop using the well, Tremble said, it may have to shut down, jeopardizing water delivery to its customers.
There has been little overt public opposition to the Moku‘ula project, which will largely take place on government-owned land.Large developers have long enjoyed outsize influence over West Maui’s water policy, and advocates expect they won’t relinquish it easily, said Kapuaʻala Sproat, the director of the University of Hawaii’s Ka Huli Ao Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law.
And burial grounds would need to be navigated, a sensitive matter for Native Hawaiians who distrust a government that historically shut them out of decision-making. Direct descendants of the buried must be involved in every step of the process, Feiteira said. It’s too early to know just how expensive it would be, Chang said, but there will probably be cost-sharing among government and private entities. She also hopes her agency can fast-track the normally interminable permit application process.
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