The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1903-07-16
BIG WATER
LITIGATION
Commissioner j.
f. Browns
Report.
A Large Volume Filed
Besides Many
Exhibits.
Much Technical Detail and Some
Ancient History of Hawaii's
Sugar Industry.

Jacob F. Brown, commissioner APP
pointed by Judge De Bolt on January Z.
injunction suit of Hawaiian CONNER
cial & Sugar Co. VS.. Waikiki Sugar
Co, yesterday filed his report. There
will be a hearing upon it today. 1t is
presented in a bound volume of 123
typewriter pages, accompanied by So
exhibits of deeds, surveys, reports, etc.
Findings of fact made upon requests
in writing from both parties are re-
spectively separated. Their local ref
erences and technical character gem
orally prevent the making of any sum-
mary that would be of common public
interest. However. there are a few
facts presented which will bear publi-
cation.
The bed of the Waikiki river is the
natural channel in which all the wa
ter from the water courses in the lao
or Waikiki valley and from a further
l
Wailuku. if not diverted. would nat
urally flow seaward. including all
| freshet. flood and other water not ap-
purtenant to taro land or acquired by
! prescriptive use.
The formation of the Wailuku val
ley has an upper stratum, varying APP
proximately from twenty-five feet to
fifty feet in depth, composed of loose
boulders. sand and gravel, forming a
kind of gravel reservoir. into which
water flowing from the lao gulch, if not
| diverted near the head of the gulch,
would soak; and its seepage in time of
| drouth would aid in supplying water
| for the kalo lands below.
The diversion of water. especially of
/ flood water, at the Maniania gulch.
prevents the water 50 diverted from
doing it's share in saturating the reser-
voir of the valley bed, and to that ex-
tent seepage to the lower kalo lands
is diminished.
The valley apparently has sub
stratum of hard rock, considerably i'm
pervious to water. The tendency of
the water occupying the upper stratum
would be to move gradually seward,
and while so doing, if the reservoir
were filled, water would appear on the
| surface in depressions and undulations.
In the early fifties Kamehameha III
inaugurated the planting of sugar cane
Fnv e g..
same into sugar on various lands with
in the water shed of Wailuku river in
GLIDING the land of Owa and portion of
Puuohala district, aforesaid, and erect
ed a mill to grind the cane so grown.
The arabic kula lands under the Ka-
lani and Kama Auwai, within the
crown sales made by Kamehameha ",
were sold and conveyed by Kameha-
meha " as and for cane lands upon
which to raise crops other than taro
and with the expectation that the same
would be watered from the Waikiki
river
There is a further chain of this his
tory of early cane-growing on Maui in
the report.
1t takes a continuous flow of at least
two and three-fourths millions gallons
per twenty-four hours to maintain
ninety acres of land in taro in WafIuku.
# the taro lands are properly tamped
AMI cultivated.
1t would be wholly imDracticable,
even with the normal supply of water
from the Wailuku river. including
freshets, to cultivate the whole of the
taro patches in Wailuku watered by
the Wailuku river. if the patches were
not properly tamped.
a taro patch untamped in the dis
trict Of Waikiki will consume about
double the amount of water that the
same patch would consume if properly
tamped.
The water rights appurtenant to a
certain purchase of about forty-five
acres Of taro land by the wailuku
Sugar Co. would properly irrigate and
maintain 125 acres in cane.
The Waikiki river is a perpetual
stream and always has water flowing
in its bed from its source to the bridge |
crossing it on the public road from |
Tailuku to Waihee.
The II. c. & 5. Co.'S tunnel flows !
about one TO one and a quarter mill F,
lion gallons in twenty-four hours.
The ". 5. Co.'S tunnel flows from
three-quarters 10 one million gallons
in twenty-fOur hours.
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