Opinion ID: 1182352
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Hawaiian Usage in the Latter Half of the Nineteenth Century

Text: With the advent of large-scale sugar cane cultivation in the last half of the nineteenth century, irrigation and water rights acquired a new dimension of importance in Hawaii. [37] The estimated requirement of a ton of water to produce one pound of refined sugar, 3 Kuykendall 62, made the securing of ample supplies of water essential for sugar producers. The first irrigation auwai built expressly for sugar cane was in 1856 on Kauai, and another was dug ten years later on Maui. See R. Kuykendall & A. Day, Hawaii: A History 119-20 (1948). While early producers made use of ancient auwais, the phenomenal growth in the number of acres of land under sugar cane cultivation during the period of 1874-98, [38] especially when much of that land was in relatively arid locales theretofore uncultivated, resulted in the construction of costly and elaborate new irrigation systems. The first such system of any size was the Hamakua ditch on the Island of Maui, built in 1878 for the purpose of irrigating sugar cane on the arid lands of central Maui with water from the northern side of the island. 3 Kuykendall 62-66; Wadsworth 144. A great many other aqueducts were built thereafter, at considerable cost and for the purpose of irrigating kula land both inside and outside the watersheds from which the water was drawn. See generally id. at 150-58. Indeed, by 1890-91, an irrigation system for the transportation of water from the Hanapepe Valley to Makaweli on the Island of Kauai was completed and in operation. See Territory v. Gay, 52 F.2d 356 (9th Cir.1931); 3 Kuykendall 66. It seems clear that the foregoing history of ancient and nineteenth century Hawaiian water practices, sanctioned by contemporaneous judicial precedent, see pt. III.D.1. infra, establishes an Hawaiian usage fundamentally at odds with the common law doctrine of riparianism. This being the case, HRS ง 1-1 does not compel the court to read that doctrine in toto into our legal system dealing with regulation of water rights.