During the inferno that devastated part of the island of Maui, wiping entire towns off the map and possibly killing more than a thousand people (once a full assessment can be made), people on Maui begged state officials to allow West Maui stream water to be diverted to fill up reservoirs for firefighting. That request went to M. Kaleo Manuel, Deputy Director of Hawaii’s Commission on Water Resource Management, and he delayed approval of that water for five hours – five hours in which the once-contained fire exploded. By the time the approval was received, workers were unable to reach the siphon release so that the water could be diverted. Now we’re learning that Manuel, an Obama Foundation Leader for the Asia Pacific Region, is a climate change activist and DEI devotee who’s said, “Like, we can share [water], but it requires true conversations about equity.”
Glenn Tremble with the West Maui Land Company gave the chronology in a letter sent to Manuel, and obtained by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
According to the letter, although the initial fire was contained at 9 a.m., there were reports of fallen power lines, fierce winds, outages and low reservoir levels, prompting the company to reach out to the commission to request approval to divert more water from streams so it could store as much water as possible for fire control.
Instead of approving the request, CWRM asked the company whether the Maui Fire Department had requested permission to dip into the reservoirs and directed it to first inquire with the downstream user to ensure that his loi and other uses would not be impacted by a temporary reduction of water supply.
Communications were spotty, the letter said, and the company had already tried unsuccessfully to contact the one downstream user.
According to the Star-Advertiser, locals reported that the fire moved so fast and burned so hot that “water was spewing out of melting pipes and depressurizing the lines that also supplied the fire hydrants.” Tremble said that once approval was received to divert more water, it wasn’t possible to do so because of the fire.