State Attorney General Mark Bennett yesterday selected Ho-nolulu attorney Robert Carson Godbey to conduct an investigation into civil issues associated with the Kaloko Dam failure, which killed seven people.

The Legislature's House Concurrent Resolution 192 called for an independent investigation of the dam breach. Godbey was selected from among five names submitted to Bennett by a legislative committee.

Kaloko Reservoir was built in the late 1800s to hold sugar plantation irrigation water. Longtime owner C. Brewer sold it in 1987 to Jimmy Pflueger, after the Kilauea Sugar Co. had long been closed.

After the dam failed, sending an estimated 400 million gallons of water flooding down the Wailapa Stream, state investigators and engineers have looked into the integrity of the dam, whether it was properly maintained and issues surrounding its spillway and whether this safety feature had been filled in.

Others have suggested there may be a conflict in the state Attorney General's office conducting the investigation, since there may be some state liability in the case, in part because state officials are legally charged with conducting regular inspections of all dams, and at Kaloko they did not.

The Attorney General's office is conducting a criminal probe of the dam failure, but will allow Godbey to direct the civil investigation without interference, Bennett said.

"I'm going to let the special deputy use his own judgment to decide" where to take his inquiries, the attorney general said.

Godbey, of the Bishop Street firm of Godbey Griffiths Reiss Chong, has degrees in electrical engineering and mathematics as well as in law. He is a former assistant U.S. Attorney, a member of the state Board of Bar Examiners, and is currently on the Mainland serving as one of five Hawai'i delegates to the 9th Circuit Judicial Conference.

Attorney Bill McCorriston, who represents Kaloko dam owner Pflueger, said Godbey is clearly competent, but McCorriston worries that Godbey's ties to Bennett could affect his independence.

"I've had cases with him and against him, and I know (Godbey) to be a capable lawyer. I would have thought that it would be someone not as closely associated with the attorney general as he is," McCorriston said.

Bennett said the men know each other, but are not close.

"I think our terms at the U.S. Attorney's office in Honolulu overlapped by a couple of years 20 years ago, in the '80s," Bennett told The Advertiser.

In a press release, Bennett expanded on their association: "I am personally familiar with his investigative talents, as when he was chief special counsel to the Senate's Special Investigative Committee headed by Sen. Richard Matsuura (in 1993), I was counsel for some of the witnesses and was greatly impressed by Mr. Godbey's skill, integrity, diligence and fairness."

Bennett said Godbey agreed to a $250,000 cap on the state's cost of the investigation, which is to include the attorney's own time as well as the cost of any consultants or investigators used to conduct the probe.

"We've agreed to very reasonable terms. He's doing this as a public service. Every one of the five was willing to agree to essentially the same compensation package. That wasn't an issue in the decision," Bennett said.

Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com.