The future of water in West Maui: community voices, part 5

Reinvest in a water system that sustains Maui’s local economy — not extracts from it

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The problem:

For decades, Maui Land & Pineapple and other for-profit water companies divested from their systems and workers while their investors made money, leaving an aging system and workforce. Our experts wonder whether and how Maui County would invest differently.

MLPs approach to managing both water and people has been dramatically different from how Native Hawaiians stewarded Maui Komohana prior to the arrival of plantations, our experts said.

Water as a disposable resource

There is a well-documented history of how MLP and other for-profit entities in West Maui treated water as infinite and disposable, at times wasting millions of gallons per day and causing extreme and lasting environmental impacts.

Even after stopping pineapple production, MLP and other former plantations largely kept diverting the same amount of water in order to avoid losing their water allocations, a practice called “water banking,” according to multiple experts we spoke with.

For decades, Hawaiian farmers in Honokōhau valley have contended with MLP’s diversion of Honokōhau stream, which they told us has caused the death of crops and native species, flooding, wasted water, and even completely dried up sections of the stream.

One farmer told Kaheāwai Media how after MLP transitioned to a remote-operated stream diversion gate, water levels became increasingly erratic and advance warnings to downstream ʻohana all but ceased, forcing them to file a complaint with the Commission on Water Resource Management.

In 2025, MLP’s decision to release water from its diversion without notifying the ʻohana in the valley caused a surge of water that washed 11 kids hundreds of yards downstream. One of the parents told Kaheāwai Media that, while those particular kids live in the valley, and had been taught and practiced river safety, the event could have been fatal. The kids had just finished the valley’s annual ʻāina education summer camp, and kids from the other families — who aren’t as familiar with the stream — had left the valley just hours earlier.

People & profits

In 2008, amid its failing pineapple operations and a global financial crisis, MLP laid off nearly 500 employees, over 50% of its workforce. At its lowest point, in 2010, MLP was worth just $25.1 million.

Fast-forward, and following MLP’s shift into real estate development, its value has increased to $342 million, yet it employs just 20 full-time employees, with the increased valuation overwhelmingly benefiting MLP shareholders, not local workers (MLP’s largest shareholder, Steve Case, is worth approximately $2.4 billion).

MLP has largely offloaded its water system operations to Hawaii Water Service, though several experts we spoke with also expressed concerns with how HWS has operated the system under its contracts with MLP.

Consistently, our experts said the issue comes down to a fundamental difference in values: for-profit entities treating water — and people — as resources that contribute to their bottom line.

Additionally, because MLP has an effective monopoly over its water system (few, if any, users can switch to another water source) it hasn’t faced the same amount of pressure from the market to maintain or upgrade the system. Besides complaining to regulators, residents have had little recourse — other than lawsuits, which are expensive (TY Management, which is currently suing MLP over its maintenance of the ditch, is owned by Tadashi Yanai, who’s worth approximately $66.8 billion).

The solution:

Maui County must use its kuleana as a government entity to secure funding that sustains the system for the long term — and the kiaʻi whose knowledge is invaluable to keeping that system working.

As a government entity, Maui County is beholden to the long-term interests of the public, not the short-term profits of investors, allowing it to make vastly different decisions about how to allocate water, money, and people.

Long-term financing

Multiple experts we spoke with said that, as a public entity, Maui County has access to additional financing options — from philanthropic foundations, to federal and state funding, to municipal bonds — that it can leverage to secure more stable and less extractive funding to help it maintain the systems. Indeed, the ʻAha Wai o Maui Hikina (East Maui’s community water authority), has already been successful in bringing in outside funding.

Additionally, investments into Maui’s water systems via the county are likely to come with terms that are more favorable to taxpayers, versus money invested into a for-profit company like MLP being tied to expectations that MLP maximizes value for those investors, not the county or its residents.

Sustaining kiaʻi

Historically, private companies like MLP have dismissed Indigenous knowledge holders’ expertise when it comes to managing water, despite a growing recognition by the Western scientific community that Indigenous-led stewardship is crucial for sustainability and climate resilience.

Our experts said the county buying water systems is an opportunity to invest in these knowledge holders, who have been extensively stewarding water resources in Maui for decades — they’re just doing it unpaid or are significantly underpaid.

Maui County frequently consults these local kiaʻi wai (water protectors) already, and hiring or issuing grants to support their work and tap into their expertise on a more consistent basis could help ensure a more seamless transition as the county takes over operations.

The stakes:

Whether and how Maui invests in the people power and other resources and knowledge needed to steward this system moving forward will have generational impacts for its communities, environment, AND economy.

Younger generations are demanding more jobs that care for the ʻāina — not extract from it. One study found that nearly half of Gen Z and Millennials have or plan to change jobs over climate concerns.

Maui County is far from alone in facing a growing need for a workforce equipped to handle the changing climate, and our experts said there is an urgency to get these water systems repaired, upgraded, and operating with more sustainable management practices.

The community voices:

“You need to build into the program a way to create jobs in the watersheds for the people that live there — so it’s not endless volunteer work… your kuleana is your kuleana, and you’re valued and you get paid for it.”
~ Lucienne de Naie

“It’s gonna be a lot of money… does the county have the resources? Do they have the people power to operate a system of this size? Considering that it’s probably not turnkey as it is, there’s gonna need to be some improvements made to it, and then maintenance, of course. Maui Land and Pineapple, they subcontract all of their operations to Hawaii Water Service, so is this gonna be a situation where the ownership changes but it’s just Hawaii Water Service operating the ditch system in the same way that they have been?

“What measurable difference will come of this? And that’s not hypothetical, I think that’s a real question.”

“Obviously Maui Land and Pine was not voluntarily fixing these things. One of [their ditches] was leaking three million gallons of water a day. That’s a lot of water when we’re all scratching for water.  So the county is going to have to invest in this.”

“What we’re also seeing from the East Maui Watershed Partnership is that outside funding is coming in, there’s an interest with [philanthropic] foundations… because the model is such a good template for a whole new kind of more effective governance of resources management. Maui Land and Pine doesn’t get grants like this. You know, they’re not eligible to ever do it. Whereas if you have an entity like the [East Maui] Water Authority, they’re eligible to receive funding from federal sources, from state sources, and from private nonprofit foundations that just want to invest in good projects.”

“You need to build into the program a way to create jobs in the watersheds for the people that live there — so it’s not endless volunteer work… your kuleana is your kuleana, and you’re valued and you get paid for it.”

“It’s a tale as old as time: is it jobs or the environment? It’s the ‘false choice’ narrative, right? [People incorrectly say] ‘you gotta have it one way or the other,’ as opposed to a rebalancing of the two.”

“Water operators are retiring at a really high rate, engineers are retiring at a high rate — there’s a real need for people to run and operate these systems. That can’t be done with [artificial intelligence]. You can’t have a computer go walk the ditch and identify leaks and fix things,” he said, adding that county jobs, with pensions and more consistent funding than private sector jobs, could provide more stability as well.

“Another possible land use for the area could be just more diversified agriculture instead of ‘gentleman farm’ agriculture that’s been going on currently or the type of land use that MLP might want there. Do you [instead] support more diversified agriculture, which possibly creates more green jobs.”

The Bissen administration:

“We can be eligible for federal funding, for state funding, other avenues that private entities aren’t able to access. There’s a lot of different aspects that can lead to greater community outcomes.”
~ Josiah Nishita

Kimo Landgraf, Deputy Director, Board of Water Supply:

“We’re always open to hear what people have to say about the systems and gaining their knowledge. We’re also open to actually hiring these people once we acquire the systems… and making them part of the department, if that’s what they prefer.”

Josiah Nishita, Managing Director:

“Being able to holistically manage the water infrastructure and systems out in West Maui can help lead to greater outcomes as well. Having the flexibility with the county to implement conservation measures or to change rate structures, all these different mechanisms that a private entity may not have can help better respond to changing environments… we can be eligible for federal funding, for state funding, other avenues that private entities aren’t able to access. There’s a lot of different aspects that can lead to greater community outcomes.”