Oʻahu’s North Shore is dotted with plantation-era irrigation channels that still carry water toward streams and the ocean, and residents say the same waterways also became obstacles during the recent storms. In Waialua and nearby areas, people described overflowing culverts, clogged drains and vegetation that left channels backed up, turning runoff into wreckage rather than drainage. While many acknowledged that the heavy rainfall itself could not have been prevented, they said longstanding neglect of key infrastructure helped drive the scale of damage.
Sarah Ghio returned to her North Shore farm after flooding left her unable to rely on tap water, which she said remained unsafe to drink. She described living off the grid on leased land that once belonged to Castle and Cooke, a sister company of Dole, and she said the property still has century-plus-old irrigation ditches. Invasive weeds, she said, strangled the ditch system over time; the channels merge with natural streams that can carry water through farm fields and out to the ocean, and residents said recent storms showed the system was no longer up to its job.
For years, Waialua farmers and residents said they believed the culverts, ditches, bridges and overgrowth that affect drainage were neglected, and they blamed parts of those failures for creating dams out of storm debris. They also said it has been difficult to identify who should be responsible: residents described government departments pointing them to other county and state agencies, a pattern some characterized as a “goose chase” as tempers rose amid damaged homes and washed-out property.
Ghio said the question is not simply whether waterways failed during the storm, but which party must manage and maintain them before the next flood. “These guys made money off these systems for years. Then when they aged out, they neglected them,” Ghio said, adding that she wants clarity about “who’s responsible for this canal” and about “the roles and responsibilities” for maintaining it. She said the problem is not new in legal terms, but that the practical handoff from older plantation owners to current landholders has been unclear.
The laws, according to reporting in the cluster, place responsibility on landowners for maintaining waterways on their land, including culverts, ditches and bridges, while state and county agencies handle public lands. But the patchwork of regulators creates friction, residents said, and they described uncertainty about how inspection work is triggered. The article said that in theory the Commission on Water Resource Management regulates Hawaiʻi’s ground and surface water, yet other responsible state and county groups make the system difficult to navigate; inspections, the reporting added, are driven by complaints and permit applications, and there was no clear publicly documented record of enforcement actions for North Shore irrigation systems in the commission’s bulletin.
The issue is tied to how the North Shore’s drainage network was shaped by plantation agriculture. The cluster describes how plantation operations altered natural drainage in the late 1800s, when they constructed more than 30 miles of irrigation ditches, dug reservoirs and drilled into aquifers to irrigate crops. With the closure of Waialua Sugar Company decades ago and later land sales, the property the ditches crisscross would become a mix of small farms, subdivisions and fallow tracts, leaving waterways cutting across changing ownership.
Today, the reporting described more than 150 farmers tending crops on former plantation land, with additional development and large-scale seed and agricultural research operations nearby. It also said Dole sold off thousands of acres over recent decades and attempted to offload water infrastructure for more than a decade. The cluster cites a 2014 state report finding parts of the corporation’s irrigation infrastructure in disrepair due to age, damage by animals and overgrown vegetation, with an appraisal putting repair costs above $8.3 million, and it said Dole did little to improve elements of the Wahiawā reservoir and spillway even after a 2021 fine by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources for deficiencies identified earlier.
In discussions about flood risk, the reporting described a disagreement over what the ditch and drainage system was built to do. On Friday, during a Board of Land and Natural Resources meeting, the reporting said state engineers told board members the system was never designed to mitigate floods. “There may have been some thoughts for flood control but in general their purpose was for irrigation,” Edwin Matsuda, head of the Flood Risk Management Section, said, adding that the state does not allocate flood mitigative or flood control benefits to the ditches. Residents downstream of farm areas, however, said recent stormwater appeared to come directly from the overwhelmed ditch system, including near Kukea Circle, which they described among the hardest-hit spots.
A related point in the reporting was that responsibility is not confined to a single property or agency. State Rep. Amy Perruso said the “whole water system is connected,” describing “failures to act” as “compounded,” and residents urged action that included dredging Kaiaka Bay and clearing storm drains while holding upstream landowners accountable. The City and County of Honolulu, the article said, recognized the area as underserved by its stormwater resources in a 2023 strategic plan, and it described “the patchwork of ownership … is one of the primary challenges for achieving consistency and continuity in stream maintenance.”
Residents also described practical constraints in getting drainage systems cleared. In the reporting, Zaz Dahlin counted culverts, streams, drains and driveways along Farrington Highway and described drains clogged by sediment and invasive species, with some channels funneling runoff into an outlet near a beach access. The cluster also said residents resorted to heavy equipment to break through a driveway to ease water flow at the same time the government warned against clearing waterways with heavy machinery, and it said the state water commission and the state Department of Transportation did not respond to interview requests about whether inspections or work took place between major floods earlier in the year.
As families assess what to rebuild, Ghio and other North Shore residents said long-term improvements will require more than emergency cleanups. Ghio said the old plantation ditches were maintained with resources available during that era, while small farmers now face a burden and may not be able to afford heavy equipment needed to scrape sediment or remove large trees. She said she only learned after the flooding that landowners are legally responsible for their portions of the waterways, and she said farmers still want government help to “make the systems function better and make sure they’re adequate,” including in how agencies maintain vegetation and conduct inspections.
The reporting also pointed to broader planning and enforcement gaps, including how governance and funding are structured across the island and over time. It described Honolulu studied creating a watershed-style water management entity in 2020, but said the county’s stormwater program has operated in an emergency and reactive mode with limited capacity beyond permit compliance and has faced a lack of secure funding. Dave Dutra Elliot of Agriculture Stewardship Hawaiʻi said farmers are willing to do more but that the government needs to step forward and address “big gaps” for long-term stormwater control and maintenance.
In the immediate aftermath, people on the North Shore described both the physical danger and the uncertainty of what will be done next. Daryl Robertson, who helped Ghio move her truck after flooding drove a shipping container onto a neighbor’s plot, said he had cleared a nearby ditch culvert after an earlier flood, but that it was “just overwhelmed” the next time. Residents said they are bracing for another cycle in which storm runoff exposes how difficult it remains to coordinate maintenance across ownership lines, agency roles and enforcement capacity.