Farmers across the Big Island searched for alternate ways to deliver water to crops and livestock after Sunday's earthquakes badly damaged three aging plantation-era ditch systems. Some ranchers resorted to hauling water in barrels in the backs of pickup trucks.

"All the ditch systems are shut down," said Lorie Farrell, administrator of the Big Island Farm Bureau.

The waterworks damaged by the earthquake included the 16-mile Kohala Ditch system and the Waimea Ditch. Also damaged was the 24-mile Hamakua Ditch, which serves 250 farmers and ranchers.

"They're trying to cope," Farrell said of the Hamakua operations. "Most of the ranches are trying to convert back to county water systems or are hauling water. We don't really know how long that's sustainable."

The Waimea system is 15 miles long and irrigates 110 farms on 566 acres. The larger Hamakua system delivers water to 4,755 acres of farms and ranches.

The privately owned Kohala Ditch system was also severed when the earthquakes triggered a mountain landslide that toppled and partially buried a 113-foot flume made of huge timbers that stretched across the west branch of Honokanenui Valley, said Michael Gomes, vice president and land manager of Kohala Ditch owner Surety Kohala Corp.

Repairs to the destroyed flume will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the system is "many months away from being repaired," Gomes said.

'REALLY HAZARDOUS'

"Let me put it this way: It's even unsafe for a helicopter to go in there right now," he said. "It's a really hazardous situation; it's in an area of constant rock fall, and I don't want to kill anybody just to get water."

Workers were cleaning out three collapsed tunnels in the system yesterday so that water could be delivered to some of the farmers along the Kohala Ditch, but the damage raises the possibility of "severe" losses to some of the 50 farmers who rely on the water.

The company recently drilled two wells fairly close to the ditch, and pumping water from those wells to the ditch would allow the company to service some additional customers, he said.

Gomes said he has been talking to state officials about that effort, "and they have all offered tremendous cooperation. We just have to get the mechanics of it worked out."

Gov. Linda Lingle told civil defense and disaster response workers in Hilo yesterday she believes infrastructure such as the ditch should qualify for federal assistance money even though some systems are privately owned.

"It may be a private system, but there's a huge public benefit and necessity to that system, so I would argue to (the Federal Emergency Management Agency), and I'm sure they would be reasonable, that this is a public benefit," she said. "Today in our state, just because of the way they developed our ditch systems, they may be privately owned now, but the public benefit is tremendous.

"From my perspective, everything is eligible until I'm told it's not eligible," she said.

Board of Agriculture Chairwoman Sandra Lee Kunimoto said state workers have still been unable to determine the extent of the damage in remote areas of the state-owned Waimea and Hamakua systems because of continuing aftershocks and wet weather.

Aerial surveys revealed Sunday's earthquakes released landslides that buried two of the three intakes that feed water into the ditch in Waipi'o, and buried all four intakes that feed the Waimea Ditch system, Kunimoto said.

The Waimea system can still draw from two reservoirs, and with the voluntary water restrictions now in place, the water there should hold out for about 40 days, Farrell said.

Kunimoto said equipment has been set up to link up the Waimea system with a well to deliver more water to area farmers.

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com.