By Eloise Aguiar
Advertiser Windward Bureau
WAIMANALO — The Army Corps of Engineers is investigating a $650,000 Waimanalo water channel restoration project for a possible violation of the Clean Water Act over a failure to obtain proper permits and conduct a historic preservation review.
The project was brought to the corps’ attention by Enviro Watch Inc., said Farley Watanabe, archaeologist and regulator with the corps’ regulatory program.
The state Department of Agriculture stopped work on the project Tuesday after residents alerted the agency that charcoal remains at the construction area could be part of a historic site.
The Waimanalo Neighborhood Board and Enviro Watch Inc. said the charcoal remains are only part of the problem. They claimed at a news conference yesterday that the state didn’t obtain the proper permits and reviews before starting the channel restoration at the 60-million-gallon Waimanalo Reservoir on Mahailua Street.
The community wants the project stopped and an assessment made to determine its benefits and risks, said Joe Ryan, a member of the Waimanalo Neighborhood Board and Enviro Watch Inc. It also wants the proper permits sought.
"We may not be getting the benefit that we need at a reasonable cost," Ryan said. "I think the professionals need to look at it and decide if it’s a benefit to the community."
He also suggested that money from another Waimanalo reservoir project were diverted to pay for the Waimanalo Reservoir, but a Department of Agriculture information officer said that wasn’t true.
Watanabe said the channel project is a joint effort of the Department of Agriculture, Department of Land and Natural Resources, the Windward O‘ahu Soil and Water Conservation District and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service.
The Conservation Service designed the project and was working under an assumption that a 1981 Memorandum for Watershed Management still applied, he said. Back then, the corps had determined that no permit was required, Watanabe said.
The Conservation Service could not be reached for comment.
The Agriculture Department is working with the Conservation Service in determining what to do, said Paul Matsuo, administrator for the department’s Agriculture Resource Management Division. The Department of Agriculture will have an expert assess the charcoal remains to determine if the area is a historical site.
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