The dean of the University of Hawai'i's Hawai'inuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge envisions Kalauaehae fishpond, whose freshwater spring was damaged after a 1990s highway-widening accident – as a potential place of learning. - Photo: Lisa Asato

Hope for new life at
Kalauhaehae fishpond

By Lisa Asato/ Ka Wai Ola

As a boy growing up in small-town 'Opihikao near Puna, Tadayoshi Hara learned about the Hawaiian culture and traditions from a neighboring Hawaiian fisherman. Those lessons helped him decades later when he became owner of a Hawaiian fishpond known as Kalauhaehae, or Lucas Spring, in East Oahu.

“I didn't have to stock the fish,” Hara said of the āholehole, mullet and awa that used to thrive there and enter the pond as babies during high tide via an 'auwai. “I used to feed them so they stayed,” Hara said. Hara would throw net when his friends visited, and shared fish with grateful co-workers, he said, lamenting the pond's demise after a 1990s highway-widening project blocked* the aquifer that fed it.

The state Department of Transportation – which owns the pond as well as shares ownership* of nearby Kānewai pond – had planned to sell them at public auction, raising concerns of the community group Maunalua Fishpond Heritage Center, which works to preserve sites for cultural education.

But DOT Director Brennon Morioka said in an e-mail, “We have stopped the auction process almost nine months ago and plan to perform a land swap with the (state Department of Land and Natural Resources) in order to get it out of DOT's hands and into someone else's hands that is more appropriate to oversee and manage the ponds and the residential parcels.” He also said Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona has stepped in and is “trying his best” to broker an arrangement where DLNR would then transfer the property to the University of Hawai'i. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association has also expressed in becoming a landowner/manager of the parcel if UH is unable to do so, Morioka said.

“Lt. Governor Aiona has shown great leadership on this issue,” said Chris Cramer of Maunalua Fishpond Heritage Center. “The state is currently working to ensure these are properly stewarded into the future.”

Maenette Benham, dean of the University of Hawai'i's Hawai'inuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge, said she sees great potential for hands-on learning at the fishponds, where two homes on the Lucas Spring property could be renovated and used for classrooms, community learning and studies on sustainability and fishpond restoration. “We're in the process right now of working with vice chancellor Gary Ostrander's office, putting together a proposal that we hope will persuade the university to consider this as a real resource,” she said on a recent visit to the site.

“These are the last two fishponds on this side of the island,” she said. “There are a lot of people now throughout the world who are looking at creating these kinds of freshwater ponds to raise their own fish for sustainable living. And this would be a good opportunity to start teaching that through traditional customary practices.”

Benham said two classes a semester would be held at Kalauhaehae fishpond and teach everything from fishpond ecology to navigation. The cost for maintenance would be minimal with community and researcher involvement, she said, adding, “Well minimal in terms of dollars, but lots in terms of knowledge and sharing.”

For Greg Rivera, a fisherman from Kaka'ako, who was fishing on the beach where the 'auwai from the fishpond once connected the two bodies of water, the idea of restoring the fishpond was a good one – both for education's sake and for the fish it would attract.

Accustomed to catching 'ō'io, pāpio, 'oama and weke here for the past two decades, he said a healthy fishpond would not only benefit students who want to learn about respecting the environment, the ocean and conservation, but that the whole surrounding ecosystem would improve.

“If this pond opens up all the bait fish going come back in, and when the bait fish come in, the predators going come in too,” he said.

* A 1990s highway widening project blocked the aquifer, not destroyed it; and the state Department of Transportation only shares ownership of nearby Kānewai Pond instead of owning it entirely, both as originally stated in this article. The article has been edited here to reflect these corrections.