Several landowners offer to maintain portion of Lower Hamakua Ditch

The state Department of Agriculture will scale back its plan to pipe a portion of the Lower Hamakua Ditch after several landowners offered to help maintain the open irrigation system through their properties.

The department was recently preparing to seek bids on piping 3.7 miles of the 26-mile-long irrigation system. The project, which could have cost up to $4 million, was intended to reduce maintenance costs and the impact of erosion.

But several property owners cried foul after hearing of the plan, which they say would bury or enclose a historic landmark.

The irrigation system transports water from sources above Waipio Valley along a series of tunnels and open ditches carved into the hillside to Paauilo. It went into operation in 1910 and was used by the Hamakua Sugar Co.

The state took over the ditch, which transported between 25 and 30 million gallons a day as of 1999, after the company went bankrupt in 1993. The purpose was to maintain an irrigation system for area farmers, though officials acknowledge it remains underutilized.

After meeting with the landowners several times, Agriculture Chairman Scott Enright said he agreed to work out a compromise.

That will involve the department and approximately 12 landowners agreeing to share the burden of maintaining the system on their lands. A memorandum of agreement will be required.

The details of such an agreement still need to be worked out, he said. One of the main issues is preventing silt from building up in the ditch.

“To the extent the work gets done, and we’re not having the problems with siltation in the ditch … we can make it work,” said Enright, an Ookala resident who once oversaw the ditch system when he worked for the sugar company.

Jim Suggs, whose property on Velez Road hosts roughly 800 feet of the ditch, said the landowners are up for the task.

“This is a historical thing,” he said. “It was a major engineering feat … It’s part of the heritage and culture of this area.”

Suggs said it is likely Agriculture would still be responsible for repairs to the ditch on the properties, though landowners could help keep storm runoff from entering the system by building and maintaining flumes. They also would likely be responsible for landscaping along its edges.

Agriculture’s piping plan would have impacted 5.1 miles of the ditch, from approximately Waipio Valley to the 5 mile marker on Honokaa-Waipio Road. About 3.7 miles of that stretch would have been enclosed.

Enright said the ditch could still be piped through land owned by Hawaii County and Kamehameha Schools since neither have decided to be part of the MOA. Those lands cover about half of the initial piping plan.

But that is on hold for now, he said.

Piping was initially proposed following a storm event in 2004 that clogged the ditch and cutoff water to its users, which Enright estimated now number up to 100. That plan also faced community opposition then, and it was initially delayed after federal grant funding was lost.

Email Tom Callis at tcallis@hawaiitribune-herald.com.