In April 2017, the state Commission on Water Resource Management approved a settlement agreement signed by the Agribusiness Development Corporation (ADC), the Kekaha Agriculture Association (KAA), the Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative, and the community group Po‘ai Wai Ola, to resolve a years-long dispute over alleged water waste by the KAA and ADC and restore flows to streams in West Kaua‘i diverted by those agencies via the Koke‘e and Kekaha ditch systems.
At the time, the settlement was hailed by the parties as a victory in that it avoided the historically fraught contested case hearing process, which in other water cases has dragged on for more than a decade.
Under the agreement, the ADC and KAA had to file modification plans for the Kekaha Ditch, which diverts some of the streams, within 45 days of the agreement’s signing. That hasn’t happened. And last December, Earthjustice attorney Isaac Moriwake complained to the Water Commission about the delay.
“We’re just pulling teeth on the implementation details,” he said.
It turns out that one of those details is the fact that the ADC lacked the funding to meet that deadline. The governor’s budget bills this session include a request for $3.6 million to plan, design, and construct the necessary modifications to the Kekaha ditch system.
“Modifications include changes to the existing concrete diversions, and the installation of transducers and telemetric equipment to instanta- neously relay water flows to the [Water Commission],” an ADC report states. (For more background on this, read, “Kaua‘i Utility, Agriculture Groups Commit To Restoring, Monitoring Diverted Streams,” in our May 2017 issue.)
— Teresa Dawson
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