Hawa'i La'ie Ka Wai
Box 629
Kaaawa, Hawai'i 96730
(808) 2377339 fax (808) 2378962
COMMISSION ON WATER RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PUBLIC HEARING
re: MORMON CHURCH ENTITIES' WATER USE PERMIT APPLICATIONS;
MY OPPOSITION THERETO & STATEMENT REGARDING MY RIGHTS TO WATER AS AN OWNER
OF KULEANA LANDS
NOVEMBER 28, 1995:
Honolulu Interisland Terminal Conference Center
In 1949, at age 5, I remember being on our ancestral lands and looking over
some taro patches: a vague memory of a dying tradition. As I grew older I
overheard stories of the decline of taro and the tension that the lack of
available water had generated in our family going back to my great, great
grandfather. With less and less water, there was less and less taro. With
less and less taro there was more and more tension, family squabbles,
early deaths. (For example, David Kamauoha beat up his father Hanalei
Nahelehele; this beating led to his death. The dispute was about water. A
forty year period of unprecedented water appropriation.) With my own
generation, starting at a very early age, the echo of the water troubles of
the past grew louder and louder.
Taro began to disappear and with it, so it seemed, the desire of Hawaiians
to live. It was always a story of the Mormon Church appropriating our
water. The Mormon Church tried unsuccessfully, over many years, to lure my
family into selling our land to them. We always refused. Water was easier
to take although many Hawaiians lost their land to the Church in ways that
are too painful to recount here.
By the time I was 8 my family left La'ie and I went with them. There was
no water to grow any wetland taro and no reason to remain on our ancestral
lands. For 21 years, until I was 29 years of age, I did not come back to
our ancestral lands. In this 21 year period of self imposed exile, I lived
in and around La'ie but not on our ancestral lands. When I came back to
our ancestral lands (TMK 5-5-08:43) where my ancestors had lived for many,
many generations before Kuanonoehu I was determined to settle "this water
issue" which had caused such havoc in our family and which had driven me
from a place to which I was, and am, deeply attached.
I began doing what my ancestors had done: They had made a habit of seeking
justice about water from Mormon Church people in charge of water in La'ie:
Mormon Church leaders such as Antoine Ivins, Samuel E. Woolley, Ralph
Woolley, Edward L. Clissold, White, Howard Stone all to no avail. I began
doing the same. After all, I was then still a Mormon.
The modality within which Hawaiians operate is a simple one derived from
tradition: if one has a problem one sees the person in charge. A
discussion takes place and the matter is resolved. This is how my
ancestors perceived authority. I thought I would do what my ancestors had
done: I would see the haole luna (white-foreign leader) in charge and
try one more time, just one more time to get justice. At that time it
was Marvin Stone, Howard Stone's son: one had succeeded the other as the
head of Zions Securities (Mormon Church).
Like my ancestors I made representations to Marvin Stone over many years.
I didn't write letters, ours is a verbal culture - ask and you shall
receive. I asked, I pleaded, I inquired. I said: "We have no water. We
need water for our lo'i ... to grow wetland taro." Marvin Stone made
excuse after excuse after excuse. Nothing happened. Pleading turned to
confrontation. Nothing worked. Finally Marvin Stone said, "If you think
you have a case, sue us." I remember thinking: "The Church has billions
of dollars. I have no money. I have ancestral land but no water. We
cannot even grow wetland taro to eat. This is the tragedy of the Hawaiian
race."
I was enraged over this injustice. It finally led to my breaking with the
Mormon Church. Around July 1989 Dr. Anthony and I had meetings with Alton
Wade, Kent Money, David Jensen and other leaders of the Mormon Church
entities. It was like a "Summit." Water disputes were discussed. Dr.
Anthony had sensitive and private discussions with Kent Money, the very
head of the Zions Securities operation in Salt Lake City. Promises were
made. Nothing happened. This was yet again the classic Mormon leadership
ploy: bring your opponents in to discuss their problems, find out what they
have to say, make vague promises, then do absolutely nothing.
When I hear spokesmen for the Mormon Church entities say they don't know
about any serious disputes they appear to me to be (a) either not telling
the truth or, (b), not having read their own files. Hawaiians have had
serious disputes over water with the Mormon Church entities for over 50
years. Denial does not solve problems; denial only makes problems fester
and grow like cancer.
Late in life I went to College and got an undergraduate degree. In six
years at the University I learned that the water crisis faced by me and my
family was not unusual. I was just one of a class of Hawaiians deprived of
their water rights. Thousands of Hawaiians before me, I learned, had
almost literally drowned in a flood of their own tears over being deprived
of water. What the Mormon Church was doing to Hawaiians in La'ie was
also being done to Hawaiians by others like East Maui Irrigation, Maui Land
& Pine, Hamakua Ditch, Waiahole Ditch and others.
Thousands of Hawaiians had abandoned their ancestral lands forever and
adopted adapted to, badly and with tragic consequences another lifestyle.
Hawaiians throughout these islands were forced from a rural, sustainable,
self sufficient system to urban wage employment (more often than not, urban
unemployment and underemployment). We went from the dignity of rural self
sufficiency to dependence, first, on the small store economy and then later
we were impelled into dependence on the supermarket economy.
We became the first victims in our own land of environmental racism and
environmental injustice. In La'ie we became the victims of the
unconstitutional taking of our property our water rights by other owners of
private property, namely, the Mormon Church. I want to emphasize that: we,
kuleana landowners Hawaiians long before takings became fashionable in law
long before PASH/Pilago we were the first victims of unconstitutional
takings.
In La'ie the Mormon Church was, and still is, the taker; we were, and
still are, the victims. I have read Peck v. Bailey; Wilfong v. Bailey;
Lonoaea v. Wailuku Sugar; Horner v. Kumuliilii; parts of McBryde v.
Robinson; Keawe v. Parker and, finally, Reppun v. Board of Water Supply.
This last case exemplifies our situation in La'ie. All of them echo my
pain in one way or another. All of them tell the tale of water
appropriation although other names are used to describe the illegal taking
of water.
This is a small part of the long journey that has brought me here. My
family has been deprived of their prior superior water rights for several
generations. Unlike other Hawaiians we have not allowed ourselves to be
driven from our ancestral lands. Millions of gallons of ground water have
been taken from the La'ie aquifer. Streams have run dry. Wetland taro in
La'ie has perished. Our lo'i remain silent now: unproductive, unused and
unusable because there is no water for wetland taro which is vital to our
existence; more vital today than it has ever been as we Hawaiians, a
colonized people, emerge from the underbrush of our confusion and grapple
with the problems related to our own sovereignty and the real problems of
our lives.
We have gone from the Mormon Church to Zions Securities to HRI to the La'ie
Water Company to Deseret Title Holding Company to Deseret Management all
around the block in an endless shell game. In the last analysis it is the
Mormon Church which is responsible for our water poverty; for without the
Church there would be no Zions, no HRI, no La'ie Water Company, no Deseret
Management.
The Mormon Church is the real power behind all of its related front groups.
I am puzzled as to why the Mormon Church, a religious body committed
ostensibly to moral and ethical principles, would want to continue to
condone the theft of resources which belong to others. I am puzzled, also,
about the failure of the Mormon Church leadership to offer any restitution
for the enormous harm they have done to us. We have been faced with an
inflexible obstinacy; we are now on the threshold of seeing whether the
rule of law will prevail over the tyranny of the rich and powerful bully.
Fundamentally, this is a case about 'water justice', justice which has been
delayed for much long. As you know, justice delayed is always justice
denied. The parties who have applied for water use permits, and who are
now before you today, are on record as being afraid that they might one
day have to answer for the violation of native Hawaiian rights in La'ie.
They have known that for quite some time and they have acknowledged it.
The Mormon Church and its related entities have always relied, I suggest to
you, on the inability of native Hawaiians to seek redress of their
grievances and they have always wanted to keep things that way. But
circumstances have changed and history now beckons to me with new
opportunities. I am here before you now, after a long and solitary journey,
seeking to exhaust the administrative remedies open to me.
I want to very briefly review the recent unsuccessful mediation. In those
proceedings we were faced with the same obstinacy characteristic of how the
Mormon Church has dealt with me and my ancestors over the years. We have
moved from the two Stones and their predecessors to a new player: Daniel
Ditto. Ditto is a lawyer and he knows full well what this case is about
but the tactic of the big lie is still being used by him and HRI. In A HRI
newsletter released just a few days ago, the Mormon Church controlled HRI
says in part: "...those opposing these applications would in effect ask the
Commission to turn La'ie's water off." That is a lie.
I spent at least six months in mediation telling Dan Ditto that HRI must
stand in line behind me and my family as kuleana landowners as well as
behind other kuleana landowners before the Mormon Church related entities
are entitled to any permitted use of water. Ditto also knows very well
that I have said that since the Mormon Church, its related entities and
lessees are responsible for the circumstances which have led to the denial
of my rights to water, they have an obligation to restore the water taken
from me. That was my position at the mediation proceedings and it is still
my position now.
'Water justice' for me means that we all share the resource but fair is
fair: My ancestors were here before the foreign born Mormon missionaries
arrived in our midst. Our rights predate their acquisition of land in
Hawai'i. We have superior rights to water. What I am saying to this
Commission is simple and straight forward: YOU HAVE AN AFFIRMATIVE
OBLIGATION TO ENSURE THAT I GET ALL THE WATER TO WHICH I AM ENTITLED BY
LAW BEFORE A SINGLE WATER USE PERMIT IS ISSUED TO ANY MORMON CHURCH
AFFILIATED APPLICANT.
Furthermore, you should, as the stewards of the resource in an area that
has been designated as a water management area for groundwater order a full
and complete hydrologic study of the entire Ko'olauloa aquifer before any
water use permits are issued. Such a study should be paid for by the
Mormon Church related applicants. Then, before any water use permit is
issued to anyone, you have an affirmative obligation to see to it that all
of the water to which I am entitled by law is made available to me. Or, you
attach to any permit you issue conditions that order the permittee to
deliver water in such quantities to me, in perpetuity and by a specific
date, in a manner that is enforceable and that is secured by a bond.
In addition, yours is a responsibility that requires you to take into
account issues that derive from, and that are rooted in, the public trust
doctrine which is enshrined in the Constitution of the State of Hawai'i
and which you have an obligation to take into account in any allocation of
water. In the calculus of your decision making you must balance the
requirements of the public trust doctrine in conjunction with the legal and
superior entitlement to water that I have as a kuleana landowner and those
represented by the public interest. You will recall that such an argument
has already been made to you by counsel representing one of the public
interest parties at the Waiahole water contested case hearing.
To recapitulate: There is no question that wetland taro was once grown
extensively in La'ie. Handy and Handy, for example, say so explicitly in
their highly regarded authoritative work: Native Planters in Old Hawai'i.
There is also no question that taro is now no longer grown in La'ie. There
is no question that taro was once grown on my ancestral lands. There is
also no question that wetland taro cannot be grown there now except under
the most trying and depressing circumstances and then with only marginal
success, if that. This has been so for more than fifty years.
In 1935, to cite but just a couple of examples: Handy and Handy report
that they were pointed out an area "more than 60 acres in extent as having
formerly been the largest single wet taro area in La'ie ahupua'a." This
land was watered by springs. Handy and Handy also report that in the
same year (1935) they were given "the names of several large taro terraces
that were famous anciently and have survived only in memory , such as
Naue-loli (Move- <and>-change), Kuamo'o (Backbone), Mahanu
(Rest-<and>-breathe), Makali'i (Pleiades), Po'ohaili (Head recalls)."
The operative words to remember are 'formerly', the past tense 'was' and
the words ' survived only in memory.' The Mormon Church entities deny and
pretend that this destruction never happened or didn't because of anything
they did. Their denials are an attempt at the falsification of history.
In recent years entities of the Mormon Church related to the La'ie Water
Company and HRI have produced a number of EIS's. None of them mention the
effect of taking millions and millions of gallons of ground water on
streams, springs and estuaries or the fact that stream life ( o'opu,
hihiwai, opae, for example) and near shore marine life have also been
largely destroyed.
Any resolution of the enormous problems created by the Mormon Church, its
agents and lessees should include a plan for restoring those valuable parts
of our diet through a program of stream, estuary and watershed restoration.
That is the task for responsible stewards of the land and its related
resources. You should challenge the Mormon Church applicants to practice
what they preach.
There is no question that what was first the Mormon Church, then Zions
Securities, then more recently HRI and now La'ie Water Company related
somehow to Deseret Management Company have all taken, and continue now to
take, large amounts of ground water out of the Ko'olauloa aquifer. The
cumulative taking of groundwater throughout the aquifer has more than
likely had an impact on streams and springs and the availability of water
for us, Hawaiians, who have appurtenant, riparian and correlative rights.
As an owner of Kuleana land I have every one of those rights.
Kahawainui, the principal stream in our ahupua'a, is listed in the 1990
Hawai'i Stream Assessment Report as a perennial stream but it is dry in
crucial segments, notably in those areas that abut our land. This has not
always been the case. Instream flow levels have been reduced; our auwai
have been destroyed by the Mormon Church, its agents and its lessees;
springs have been destroyed; Kahawainui Stream has been channelized and
diverted. We invite you to inspect the pattern of destruction described
here on paper. From a once water rich family of kuleana landowners we
have been reduced to one that wallows in abject water poverty.
Hawaiians in La'ie in general, intimidated by the Church, have remained
silent about their legally protected ancestral rights to water. Some of
the hitherto silent Hawaiians have been transported here in buses by the
Mormon Church related applicants. You will hear them make a litany of
irrelevant support statements for the applicants. I look forward to having
these procured voices appear as witnesses at the contested case hearing so
that they can be cross examined hopefully, under oath. I have no
hesitation in saying that I am the water and kuleana landowner rights
Hawaiian woman who, like Rosa Parks three decades ago more or less, has
refused to sit at the back of the bus.
I have not been silent. I am here, as I have said, for a just settlement;
that is all I seek. The task before us is really very simple: before
the Mormon Church related water use permit applicants get any permitted use
of water, we must get ours guaranteed for now and on into the future, in
perpetuity. And that commitment must be enforceable in a way that is
acceptable to me. The wrongs of the past must be addressed in a way that
is just, honorable and fair. Together, we must find a way to make that
happen. And if a settlement doesn't happen here it must happen somewhere
else.
Let me end on this note: In the history of their involvement with water -
Mormons come from a subculture of appropriation. The geographical
location of their first water development efforts was in a part of the
continental United States that was arid, where desert conditions existed.
In Utah, Mormons carved an empire out of a forbidding landscape. The
mindset of appropriation was a part of the Mormon ideological baggage
which was transported to La'ie. The Mormon leadership's mode of approach
to water development in Hawai'i was also appropriation: take water,
ground water in particular, without any consideration for Hawaiian
traditions, Hawaiian principles of use, Hawaiian law, the Hawaiian
ecosystem or the Hawaiian hydrologic system.
What worked in Utah without much impact was devastating in La'ie
devastating to Hawaiians' lifestyle, in particular, to their reliance on
the single most important food crop which was, and still is, central to
their lives: wetland taro. Hawaiian culture was based on giving; the
Mormon culture of water appropriation was a taking culture. (For 70 years
the Ko'olauloa Aquifer System was pumped at an average rate of 25 to 30 mgd
for sugar irrigation. When you add 10 mgd of artesian water flow to this
you have a total estimated outflow of 35 to 40 million gallons a day)
The two cultures clashed but what was much more important was that the
culture of water appropriation in the hands of a powerful economic and
religious entity simply overwhelmed the giving culture. The most
charitable argument is not that I conclude that Mormon leaders are bad
people or that the culture of appropriation is motivated by evil intent.
What I say is that appropriation was an entirely misguided and destructive
concept in the Hawaiian context.
We are prepared to assume that Mormon leaders did not know any better in
1890 and on through the early part of this century, through the period of
sugar consolidation in La'ie and beyond that time. We hope, even at
this very late hour, that Mormon Church leaders and the leaders of their
affiliated entities, abandon the illusions that come from denial, and see
and acknowledge the tremendous destruction that unfettered appropriation
has caused and the need now to abandon it or, at least, to have the good
grace, to stand in line.
A way must be found to provide me with all the water I need to be able to
grow wetland taro on my ancestral lands. That must be done now and for all
time to come so that the anguish of my ancestors is ameliorated and the
substantive interests of future generations are protected. Water, in
short, must be restored to our lo'i lands so that they might prosper again
and so that our lives and those of future generations might be made whole
again. That is what Hawaiians mean by making things pono, by making
things right.
If it is going to take a contested case hearing to get what are my legal
property rights which have long been denied me and members of my family,
then I hereby inform you, again, that I am formally asking for a contested
case hearing on all of the La'ie water use permit applications and my
objections to granting them that are now before this Commission. This is
an appropriate time for me to give you formal notice that I now request
that the ahupua'a of La'ie be designated as a water management area for
surface water.
A written request to this effect will be filed with the staff of the
Commission in the next few days. Finally, I put before you two
submissions:
One: You should defer all action on the water use permit applications
before you until the full scale Ko'olauloa-wide aquifer study that I have
asked you to do is completed. That study, as I have said, should be paid
for by the applicants.
Two: Until all the hearings are held, and a decision reached on the
designation of La'ie as a water management area for surface water, no
further action should be taken on the applications before you.
To do otherwise would be a reckless abandonment of the power and
obligations vested in you under the Code. This opening statement is
supplementary to, and should be considered a part of, the brief to be filed
on my behalf by my attorney, Mr. John Musick. I am very grateful for your
patience in hearing me out.
Aloha.
Note: La'ie is an agricultural area located on the north eastern shore of
the island of O'ahu.
GENEALOGY-
1850:Kuanonoehu
Kupihea`
Hanalei Nahelehele Kamauoha (great, great grandfather)
David Kamauoha, Sr.
Keakaohawai'i Kamauoha
1916: Keomaka Ka'aihue Keaweamahi Jr. (Dawn's father)
1944: Dawn Wasson (nee Ka'aihue)
Sam Monet
P.O. Box 309
Haleiwa, Hawai'i 96712
Ph/Fax: (808) 638-8934/ 638-8018
email: monet@aloha.net