A letter sent by the West Maui Land Company to an official at the Hawaii Commission on Water Resource Management (CWRM) highlights a delay in releasing water that may have hampered firefighters’ efforts to tame a raging blaze in west Maui.
Maui was devastated by a series of fires last week that killed an estimated 110 people, as per the latest estimates, with the western area of Lahaina most affected
The August 10 letter to CWRM deputy director M. Kaleo Manuel describes the events and communication problems that resulted in a delay in diverting streams to fill reservoirs being made available to firefighters. The CWRM operates within the state of Hawaii’s Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR).
The three-page document calls on Manuel to suspend all standard procedures and regulations in case of similar emergencies so that help can be provided immediately in the event of any further blazes.
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West Maui Land Co. manages three of West Maui’s water providers. As the fire was ravaging the island, the company said that firefighters had used what little water they had in their reservoirs and tanks, so they asked the CWRM to divert water from streams to enable them to “store as much water as possible for fire control.”
But instead of approving the request, the commission—according to the letter sent by the company to Manuel—had asked them if the Maui Fire Department (MFD) had requested permission to dip into the reservoirs and told them to inquire with a local farmer first to check how a diversion of the water supply would affect him.
The company said “communications were spotty” and the commission’s approval to divert water from the streams came too late, some five hours after their first request.
“We watched the devastation around us without the ability to help,” the company wrote in the letter to the commission. “We anxiously awaited the morning knowing that we could have made more water available to MFD if our request had been immediately approved.”
Manuel has been deputy director for the commission since January 2019 and was in his second term in office when the fire broke out last week, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Manuel graduated in Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and followed up with a master’s in urban and regional planning at the same college, according to his profile. For about a decade, he worked as planning program manager at the state’s Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.
West Maui Land Co. said they cannot know “whether filling our reservoirs at 1:00 p.m. (as opposed to not at all) would have changed the headlines when dawn broke on our weary first responders and heartbroken community.”
But they added that what happened called for a quick reaction and the approval of a diversion of water resources during an emergency.
“We are all devastated. No one is happy there was water in the streams while our homes, our businesses, our lands, and our lives were reduced to ash,” the company wrote.
Manuel has since come under fire on social media, where a resurfaced a clip shows him discussing protecting water resources in the region.
“My motto has always been: let water connect us, not divide us,” he says in the clip, adding that water should be looked at as something to be revered rather than just used.
“We can share it, but it requires true conversations about equity,” he adds.
Hawaii has a long history of water conflict between local Native Hawaiian communities and landowners, which was mentioned by the state’s Governor Josh Green after the fires.
“One thing that people need to understand, especially those from far away, is that there’s been a great deal of water conflict on Maui for many years,” Green said during a press conference on Monday. “It’s important that we’re honest about this. People have been fighting against the release of water to fight fires. I’ll leave that to you to explore.”
He added: “We have a difficult time on Maui and other rural areas getting enough water for houses, for our people, for any response. But it’s important we start being honest. There are currently people still fighting in our state giving us water access to fight and prepare for fires even as more storms arise.”
The governor said that there will be a review at every level of the decisions made by officials during the fires.
While an investigation is ongoing, Manuel has been reassigned to another role within the department, DLNR said on Wednesday.
“The purpose of this deployment is to permit CWRM and the Department to focus on the necessary work to assist the people of Maui recover from the devastation of wildfires,” a statement shared with news website Civil Beat reads. “This deployment does not suggest that First Deputy Manuel did anything wrong. DLNR encourages the media and the public to avoid making judgments until all the facts are known.”
The department did not specify what role Manuel was reassigned to.
Newsweek contacted the Commission on Water Resource Management for comment by email on Thursday.