The state acquisition of Wahiawa Dam, Lake Wilson and downstream farm irrigation infrastructure is expected in a few weeks after receiving a major approval Friday.
A board overseeing the state Department of Land and Natural Resources voted 6-1 to authorize the agency’s acquisition of the lake property behind the dam under perceived threat by the private owner of the dam and reservoir to dismantle the system that stores and delivers irrigation water to many farmers and helps protect Waialua and Haleiwa from flooding.
“Basically it’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation,” DLNR land division planner Lauren Yasaka told the board.
DLNR is slated to receive Lake Wilson, also known as Wahiawa Reservoir, from Dole Food Co. for free, but anticipates having to spend at least $14 million on cleanup and maintenance.
The state Department of Agriculture and Biosecurity has plans to spend $21 million or more to upgrade the dam to a higher safety standard that DLNR established several years ago, which Dole regards as unnecessary and an unaffordable expense it estimated at
$25 million in 2023.
Hawaii lawmakers directed DLNR to acquire the reservoir under a law enacted in 2023 that also included DAB carrying out the dam upgrades while
a third state agency, the Agribusiness Development Corp., acquires the dam from Dole for free plus
land under part of the dam from another company for $5 million.
At Friday’s land board meeting, there was some criticism of Dole for its approach, but also dominant recognition that the 120-year-old water system is better off being a public trust resource that is preserved and improved rather than removed.
“It’s vital to agriculture in that area,” Sharon Hurd, DAB director, told the board.
Wendy Gady, executive director of ADC, said 50 farmers would be put out of business if the system were dismantled by Dole, and that 9,000 acres of farmland, including 3,000 farmed by Dole, would become unmanaged vegetation that presents a wildfire hazard.
ADC’s board is expected to approve its acquisition
of the dam and irrigation
infrastructure at a meeting scheduled for Tuesday.
The dissenting vote on the land board came from Wesley “Kaiwi” Yoon, vice president of operations, planning and program management at Bishop Museum. Yoon took issue with what he suspects will be additional taxpayer costs with the takeover, and how Dole convinced the Legislature to direct the state agencies to assume ownership of the dam, reservoir and irrigation system.
Yoon called it an “untenable position” for the board.
James “Jay” Carpio, another board member, asked Dole representatives why after 125 years of successful business in Hawaii and
selling Oahu farmland — sales generating more than $63 million over the past decade or so — they won’t take care of their kuleana, or responsibility, to upgrade the dam.
Dole, a $9 billion company headquartered in Ireland, has previously said that its Hawaii subsidiary, which is small today after being part of one of five companies that dominated Hawaii’s economy during the sugarcane and pineapple plantation era, needs to be economically independent and couldn’t shoulder the dam upgrade cost.
Jared Gale, Dole’s chief legal officer, told the board, “We’ve been a big part of this island for a long time, but it doesn’t make sense to us, given our shrinking footprint, that Dole as a private company should own a resource that’s really benefiting a vast majority of the island and not just our company.”
Yoon called Gale’s comment loaded, and said the company and founder James Dole, who started
his pineapple empire in Wahiawa in 1901, have a painful history in Hawaii from the point of view of Native Hawaiians.
Trisha Kehaulani Watson, a local consultant working with Dole, told Yoon that it was fair to bring up what Watson referred to as the company’s “highly problematic and deeply colonial” history in Hawaii.
“Dole is a dirty word in our state,” said Watson, who is Hawaiian. But Watson also said water is a public trust resource and that the water system built in 1906 by former Dole affiliate Waialua Sugar Co. should be as well.
Gov. Josh Green supports acquiring the Wahiawa dam, reservoir and irrigation infrastructure to preserve farming, to maintain recreation on the lake where DLNR manages boating and fishing, and to maintain and improve flood risk and flood control.
DLNR, which regulates dam safety in Hawaii, classifies the overall dam condition as poor due in large part to its spillway not being adequate to handle stormwater the agency deems possible — 45 inches of rain in 24 hours.
If the spillway can’t release enough stormwater, the dam could be overtopped and eroded to a point where more than 3 billion gallons of reservoir water could be unleashed toward parts of Waialua and Haleiwa seven miles downstream.
On March 20, during a devastating Kona-low storm, the city issued a
dam failure alert that said
a failure was in progress
or expected, prompting emergency evacuations in Waialua and Haleiwa after much destructive flooding had already occurred.
That alert was triggered by the dam water level reaching 85 feet, which is below the dam’s 88-foot height that had been increased by Dole to 90 feet using a portable barrier.
Corey Shaffer, a Waialua resident who evacuated due to the danger, urged
the board to approve the acquisition so the dam can be improved.
“I think the frequency
of these (major storm) events is getting so statistically significant that it’s not a question of if we have a topping event, but when,” he said. “And I believe that a topping event will (happen) in months or years, not decades.”
DAB solicited bids on March 10 for the dam improvement work largely focused on replacing the existing spillway with a more efficient one. The agency anticipates that the project can be finished in early 2029, and is exploring how work might be accelerated.
