Department of Hawaiian Homelands Kona Kapaʻakai Framework Analysis, Keauhou and Hōlualoa Ahupuaʻa,
Kona Moku

Keauhou and Hōlualoua Ahupuaʻa, Oʻahu 

On behalf of the DHHL, Nohopapa completed a Ka Paʻakai Framework Analysis for a proposed
DHHL water development project at:
 

1. Waiʻaha, Kahului and Puapuaʻa Ahupuaʻa at the Gianulias property (TMK: [3] 7-5 014:001) 

2.  Keauhou Ahupuaʻa at a Kamehameha Schools well site (TMK: [3] 7-8-004:013 and -015)
    

Once construction on La‘i ʻŌpua Village 4 Hema is completed, DHHL will have exhausted all of its water credits for homestead and community development in Kona. DHHL will need to seek additional water credits from the County in order to continue with the planned development of its homestead and community lands in Kealakehe. The County of Hawai‘i Department of Water Supply (DWS) has asked that in order for DHHL to gain additional water credits, DHHL must add new water sources to the County system in Kona. This means the development of well sites and transmission lines to connect each well site to the nearest existing water lines in the DWS system. No long-distance transmission pipelines from the proposed groundwater well sites to DHHL lands in Kealakehe are being proposed by this project, just the water transmission lines from the well sites to the nearest DWS interconnection point in their existing system.

Nohopapa’s specific scope of work entails analysis within the “Ka Paʻakai” legal framework, a seminal case that operationalizes the State of Hawaiʻi’s constitutional mandate to “affirmatively protect” Native Hawaiian rights and practices.2 Hawaiʻi’s constitution requires government agencies to “conserve and protect Hawaiʻi’s natural beauty” as a public trust on behalf of and “[f]or the benefit of present and future generations ...”3 Co-extensive with State public trust protections are also federal requirements to protect the public trust with respect to lands that were ceded from the Hawaiian Kingdom from both the Main Hawaiian Islands (“MHI”) and the Northwest Hawaiian Islands (“NWHI”)/Papahānaumokuākea during the transition of Hawaiʻi as a U.S. territory to America’s 50th State per the Admissions Act in 1959.4” (Akutagawa 2023:14-15)