Following almost 25 years of restoration work, volunteers will make their final push next month to complete the last section of Heʻeia fishpond as part of reviving an 800-year-old aquaculture system that once fed the Windward community with hundreds of thousands of pounds of fish.
While the 1.3-mile rock seawall is expected to be finished, a critical piece is still lacking. Native Hawaiian and scientific research groups say there is not enough fresh water from Heʻeia Stream flowing into the coastal pond to create the brackish environment necessary to fully restore it.
The organizations are calling on the state and City and County of Honolulu to look into the stream diversions made in 1940 and bring back more fresh water to the pond. That would help the nonprofits quell the effects of climate change while restoring ecological balance in the watershed and produce more food for the community using the ahupuaʻa system, or traditional land management practice.
The 88-acre Heʻeia pond, contained by a curving rocky seawall, sits at the foot of a valley north of Kāneʻohe that was once considered among Oʻahu’s most agriculturally productive areas. But without fresh water, or wai in the Hawaiian language, the restoration work will stall, advocates say.
“It has become apparent to us the fish aren’t here, or enough fish aren’t here, to feed the community because there’s not enough wai to feed the system,” Hi‘ilei Kawelo, Paepae O He‘eia executive director, told government officials last week during an official site visit…