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.