A delay in state approval to use West Maui stream water reportedly hampered firefighters' efforts to save Lahaina from last week's devastating wildfire.
The West Maui Land Co., Inc. sent a letter to M. Kaleo Manuel, the Deputy Director of the Hawaii Commission on Water Resource Management (CWRM), the day after the fire. In the letter, they explained what happened and what went wrong with the communication that requested diverting the streams to fill reservoirs with water that could have been used to fight the fire.
Even though the first fire was put out at 9 a.m., there were reports of downed power lines, strong winds, power outages, and low reservoir levels. This led the company to call the commission and ask for permission to divert more water from streams to store as much water as possible for fighting fires.
Instead of approving the request, CWRM asked the company if the Maui Fire Department had asked for permission to dip into the reservoirs and instructed it to first consult with the downstream users to make sure that a brief reduction in water supply wouldn't harm their livelihood and other uses.
The letter said that communication was shaky and that the company had already tried and failed to reach one downstream user.
At about 3:30 p.m., a flare-up caused the Lahaina Bypass to be closed. "Around 6 o'clock, CWRM gave us permission to move more water," Tremble wrote. "By that time, we couldn't get to the siphon release to make the changes that would have let more water into our tanks,” he added.
"We saw the destruction all around us, but we couldn't do anything to help. We were worried about the morning because we knew we could have given MFD more water if our request had been accepted right away," he said.
Manuel could not be reached for comment, but Governor Josh Green did temporarily suspend the interim flow standards during an emergency proclamation connected to the fire. Green didn't talk about the West Maui Land Co. event directly, but he touched on it when he talked about fires in Lahaina on Monday August 14, 2023.
