Maui News
West Molokai could have lost services in August
By EDWIN TANJI City Editor
WAILUKU ? The state Public Utilities Commission has advised Molokai Properties Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Peter Nicholas that the company cannot shut down its utility companies providing water and wastewater services in west Molokai.
By CHRIS HAMILTON, Staff Writer
Maui News
WAILUKU ? The state auditor issued a blistering report last week charging the state Department of Agriculture with mismanaging the Molokai Irrigation System while simultaneously allowing it to deteriorate over a period of decades.
The irrigation system is crucial to the island?s agriculture-based economy but draws only about 4 million gallons a day ? less than 10 percent of its projected capacity when it was first planned.
?We found that while the Department of Agriculture inherited a broken system, little has been done to learn about system problems or to create a plan to address them,? state Auditor Marion Higa wrote in her 57-page report. ?The department?s flawed management endangers agriculture in Molokai.?
However, state Agriculture Chairwoman Sandra Kunimoto called most of the report?s criticisms ?overreaching? in a telephone interview Friday.
She said she felt as though the report?s dramatic statements weren?t backed up by the actual details contained within it.
Maui News
By HARRY EAGAR, Staff Writer
WAILUKU ? Steve Holaday, the former manager of Maui?s last sugar plantation, testified at Thursday?s session of the Na Wai Eha contested case that more is involved than allocated water from four West Maui watersheds.
?My fear is that no matter what happens here, it?s going to be the triggering event for what happens to use in East Maui, and the triggering event for the rest of the state. This is the tip of the iceberg.?
The result, Holaday said, could be the collapse of agriculture throughout the islands.