After experiencing severe flash flooding and mudslides last week, Ookala residents met with county and state officials Thursday evening in an attempt to ensure their homes will be protected in the future.
Flash floods last Wednesday evening lasted about a half-hour and brought torrents of swirling muddy water from the dairy on the slopes above Highway 19 across the road, through a piece of county-owned land and into Ookala.
School buses could not drop off children, one resident said, and many homes experienced some degree of property damage.
“There’s about 2 inches of mud in our backyard, dried mud,” resident Mel Miranda said during the meeting after he showed video of the flooding on his property and photos of the aftermath. “We don’t want to touch it because of the possibility of getting infection.”
“What you went through is a big concern to me,” Hawaii County Interim Civil Defense Administrator Ed Teixeira said to the group of about 30 packed into the tiny Ookala post office building. “When we have flash flooding, whether it’s here or Glenwood, like we did last week Wednesday, or other parts of the state, there’s nothing more painful and sad for residents … you haven’t been evacuated because flash flood warnings come down just like that.”
He said hydrology report estimates indicated the area received between 3 and 5 inches of rain in a three-hour span.
Hawaii County Council member Valerie Poindexter, who represents District 1 (North Hilo, Hamakua and portions of Waimea and South Hilo) and lives in Ookala, organized Thursday’s meeting and previously met with Teixeira and state agriculture and highways representatives Monday to discuss the problem.
“How are we going to prevent this from happening again?” she said. “We have people living down here, and we’re not rich people … insurance doesn’t cover all of the damages.”
“I’ve been here for 37 years, and this is the first time this has happened, that the muddy water came,” Miranda said.
In December 2013, a similar flooding event occurred, although that did not bring mud down the slopes. In that event, the area received more than 8 inches of rain in 24 hours.
Dairy general manager Brad Duff said the mudslides occurred because a plot of land at the dairy, which milks about 900 cows and grows corn to feed its herd, was recently cleared for planting and had no crop cover to hold back the soil.
“Had this happened a month in the future, you wouldn’t have had any of this runoff because it (the corn planting) catches the soil,” he said. “I’m not going to say that this water didn’t come from my place.”
Duff said that the dairy was planning to devote a 30-acre plot of land to guinea grass that would catch silt and prevent mudslides.
But residents said the dairy still needed to improve its water diversion system so flooding would not happen again. The current diversion plan on file with the Hamakua Soil and Water Conservation District is from the sugar plantation that once owned the land.
The sugar plantation had “a much bigger culvert” in place that was washed away and replaced by the current 3-foot-deep one, Poindexter said. There is a series of contour ditches running through the acreage that are intended to carry water into the gulch.
Some in attendance suggesting adding more ditches or earthforms to hold the water back.
Others said the current diversions needed to be widened and deepened in order to accommodate deluges.
The water problem does not end at the dairy, however. Highway 19 is a state road and managed by the Department of Transportation, along with the drainage ditches alongside it. Those ditches are intended to catch water from the road itself, not the mauka slopes, Teixeira said.
On the opposite side of Highway 19, between the dairy and residential Ookala, is a stretch of land owned by the county. Diversions in that area have not been maintained, said resident Charlene Nishida.
“Yes, it originates from the dairy, but … it comes onto county land and Old Cemetery Road,” she said. “We need the county to also step up to the plate and maintain their contour ditches.”
Teixeira said he was working with county Department of Public Works director Warren Lee and deputy director Brandon Gonzales to address the roads.
Duff said he is willing to take on the responsibility of clearing those diversions, which would require a Memorandum of Understanding between the dairy and the county.
Poindexter later told the Tribune-Herald that she also wanted to meet with Department of Health and Department of Agriculture officials. DOA chairman Scott Enright lives in Ookala, but has been on the mainland for a conference for the past week.
“We have a lot of questions for them,” Poindexter said.
Chief among those is the status of an Environmental Impact Statement regarding the dairy’s switch from sugar cane to corn planting, she said. Unlike corn, sugar cane roots stay in the ground between harvests, which helps hold soil down.
Poindexter said she was grateful to Teixeira for taking action on the issue.
“It (could) be tomorrow,” she said. “We can have another big rain, and then what’s going to happen?”
Email Ivy Ashe at iashe@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
