Posted on: Monday, June 6, 2005
Kaua'i's Menehune Fishpond for sale
By Janis L. Magin
Associated Press
LIHU'E, Kaua'i — According to legend, a king on Kaua'i once made a deal with a mythical race of little people to build a fishpond in one night.
The menehune worked hard through the night, meticulously cutting and shaping lava rock to build a 900-foot wall to keep out the river but to allow young fish to swim into the pond, where they would grow too large to swim back out.
Many agree that the Menehune Fishpond, on the National Register of Historic Places since 1973, is one of the rarest and most significant cultural and archaeological sites on Kaua'i.
It's also for sale.
The owners, who live on O'ahu, are asking $12 million for the 102-acre site a few miles inland from Nawiliwili Harbor that includes the fishpond. The listing notes that only one house may be built on the property, which is located in a conservation district.
The property is listed on the Internet, and has been advertised in Mainland real-estate publications. So far there have been no offers, although several potential buyers on the Mainland have expressed interest, according to Dixie Daniel, the real-estate agent representing the seller, the Okada family of O'ahu.
The Menehune Fishpond was built about 580 years ago, according to David Burney, a paleoecologist who conducted core dating on the pond.
"That pond of course is monumental, monumental stone work," said Burney, who now is the director of conservation at the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Lawa'i.
Fishponds go back to the Hawaiian Islands' earliest history, when the Tahitians first arrived. Scientists have estimated that some are 800 years old, Burney said.
But the Kaua'i fishpond is exceptional, he said.
"To me this is the ultimate fishpond," said Burney. "What makes it kind of special here on Kaua'i is the way the stones are fitted."
Ancient Hawaiians often used lava rock to build walls, but they typically placed them to fit together instead of cutting them into blocks.
"Hawaiians didn't typically cut rock to build something," said Michael Graves, an archaeology professor at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa.
Although no one knows who really built the fishpond, whose Hawaiian name is Alekoko, it is known that it teemed with fish and provided the local community with food until recently.
LaFrance Kapaka-Arboleda, who grew up in the area, remembers eating awa and mullet from the pond as a kid during the 1940s and '50s. Someone would oversee use of the pond and limit the amount of fish that could be taken, she said.
"It was a thriving, thriving fishery area," said Kapaka-Arboleda, who is now the Kaua'i community resource coordinator for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.
Today the wall is overgrown with mangrove, the pond is full of silt and few fish swim there.
"If you kayak up the river where the old makaha (gate) is, when the water is high enough I've seen paddlers paddle in," said Nancy McMahon, the state's archaeologist for Kaua'i County.
Don Heacock, an aquatic biologist with the Department of Land and Natural Resources who lives on a 20-acre farm next door to the fishpond, said he has seen the fishpond become more overgrown over the years.
The Okada family has owned the fishpond since the 1980s.
Daniel said that when she first listed the property, she contacted several Hawaiian and conservation groups about acquiring the fishpond, but there was no interest. She has taken people from the local community to see the fishpond up close, but since it's a private property, most must settle for the view from the overlook or from the river.
Heacock believes the fishpond should be restored and turned into a research and education center. "It could be an incredible teaching and demonstration resource for Hawaiian aquaculture. We just can't lose resources like Alekoko — they're too precious, they're too unique."
