A Hawaii official accused of withholding water from firefighters battling this month’s deadly wildfires said last year that his state should make access to water conditional on “conversations about equity.”
M. Kaleo Manuel, who was deputy director for the Hawaii Commission on Water Resource Management, has been under scrutiny since local outlets reported he delayed the release of water into reservoirs to help firefighters battle last week’s deadly fire that claimed more than 100 lives.
The West Maui Land Company alleged in an Aug. 10 letter to Manuel that his agency delayed releasing the water for five hours at a critical early stage of the wildfires. According to Honolulu Civil Beat, sources said Manuel was responsible for the delay. They said Manuel asked the company to consult with a local farmer about the impacts of diverting water before he would allow the company access to the water.
The company, which operates three of the water providers in west Maui, had requested the agency divert water to its reservoirs after nearby firefighters ran out of water. Manuel finally released the water five hours after the request was initially made.
“We watched the devastation around us without the ability to help,” the company said in a letter to Manuel last week. “We anxiously awaited the morning knowing that we could have made more water available to MFD if our request had been immediately approved.”
Hawaii’s Department of Land and Natural Resources reassigned Manuel to another position within the department after his role in the disaster was widely reported. The department urged the public to reserve judgment on Manuel “until all the facts are known.”
The decision comes 10 months after Manuel appeared in a livestream hosted by the University of Hawai’i in which he suggested the distribution of water should be decided based on “equity.”
“My motto is always like, ‘Let water connect us and not divide us,'” Manuel said in the resurfaced clip. “We can share it, but it requires true conversations about equity.”
“We’ve become used to looking at water as something which we use and not necessarily something that we revere,” Manuel added.
Manuel was a 2019 “leader” at the Obama Foundation. His bio on the foundation’s website says he believes “ancient wisdom and traditional ecological knowledge of native peoples will help save the Earth.”
Hawaii’s electricity provider, Hawaiian Electric, is also facing scrutiny amid reports that its power lines may have started the blaze. According to the Wall Street Journal, the company years ago committed to invest in reducing the fire risk posed by its power lines, but made little progress. Instead, the Journal reported, Hawaiian Electric was focused on its goal of “procuring renewable energy.”
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