Waiahole: More than a place name, it has become a word freighted with meaning, a metonym for a complicated, multifaceted dispute over water rights not just in windward O`ahu, but statewide.

On December 28, without fanfare, the dispute came to an end. That day, the six-member state Commission on Water Resource Management voted to accept, with minor changes, the recommended findings of Lawrence Miike, the hearing officer it had appointed to reconsider the contested case involving the diversion of windward O`ahu water to the dry, leeward side after the Supreme Court remanded it back to the commission in August 2000.