Release East Maui Water into Streams!


More from the Maui News on the East Maui stream flow study "Effects of Surface-Water Diversions on Habitat Availability for Native Macrofauna, northeast Maui, Hawaii" e.g. oopu, opae and hihiwai.
A state aquatics biologist, Skippy Hau, who has been studying the health of stream fauna around Maui, advocates restoring as much water as possible to the streams to allow the native species to recover.

Hawaii streams contain five types of oopu, or gobies, four of which are endemic to Hawaii. There also are two endemic shrimps, or opae, and three species of endemic snails.

"The life cycle of most stream animals requires a connection to the ocean," Hau said. "Larvae hatch in streams and are carried to the ocean. They return as post-larvae and migrate upstream under normal flow conditions."

Hau said heavy rains that cause streams to overflow diversions and wash sediment and organic materials into the ocean may help to guide the post-larval oopu, opae and snails to streams and provide nutrients in the estuaries where the young animals aggregate before moving upstream.

The lack of pathways for the young animals when the streambeds dry up due to diversions concerns Hau.

The study, however, "is not intended to deal with other issues, including the amount of water needed for taro growers." This is interesting though: "With streams that were diverted by taro growers, there is an increase in water temperature, but the study found 'no temperatures appeared high enough to reach known limits for native fish.'"

Again, I've personally seen numerous entire streams completely disappear into tunnels through the mountainside, and pipes capturing the smallest trickle. I had heard about it, but It really hit me when I saw it myself.

And despite HC&S general manager Steve Holaday's high sounding "stewards of the land for many generations" rhetoric, the experience of Ke'anae and Wailuanui taro farmers has been that HC&S will do everything they can possibly do to delay releasing one drop of extra water back into the streams. Hopefully this study will help put the pressure on.

It's worth reading the whole thing.

(Previous article.)


Posted: Mon - February 6, 2006 at 07:44 PM    
   
 
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Published On: Feb 06, 2006 07:52 PM
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