STAND. COM. REP. NO.262

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2001

RE: S.B. No. 497

S.D. 1

 

 

Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2001

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Water, Land, Energy and Environment and Hawaiian Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 497 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE COMMISSION ON WATER RESOURCE MANAGEMENT,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to add a member who shall be a Hawaiian cultural practitioner to the Commission on Water Resource Management (Commission), and to define "Hawaiian cultural practitioner".

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Ka Lahui Hawai`i, Life of the Land, and one individual. The Department of Land and Natural Resources and the County of Kauai Department of Water submitted testimony in opposition.

Your Committees find that the state water code mandates the protection of traditional and customary Hawaiian rights and that many native Hawaiian traditional and customary subsistence, cultural, and spiritual practices depend on water. In addition, the protection of traditional and customary rights is considered by many to be a beneficial use of stream water, and is consistent with the Commission's charge to protect instream uses of water.

Your Committees further find that traditional water management practices tend to favor a more conservative approach to water allocation in order to limit potential impacts, and can provide a balance in deliberations on requests for water.

Your Committees believe these points to be well taken, and have amended this measure to require that one member of the Commission shall have substantial experience in traditional Hawaiian water resource management techniques and in traditional riparian use.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Water, Land, Energy and Environment and Hawaiian Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 497, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 497, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Water, Land, Energy and Environment and Hawaiian Affairs,

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JONATHAN CHUN, Chair

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LORRAINE R. INOUYE, Chair