Driving to Hana is always an adventure. You leave Kahului, a relatively modern, bustling place in Maui's central valley, complete with Costco and WalMart and Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and head due east on the two-lane, increasingly narrow and windy Hana Highway. Every mile leads you further away from over-developed civilization towards the peaceful community of Hana, a place that doesn't even have a McDonalds.

If you drove out, as I did, on Saturday, April 26, 2008, the first day of Hana's 16th annual East Maui Taro Festival, it would have been difficult to ignore the series of bright hand-lettered signs posted on some of the one-lane bridges. They were taped in front of the places where you have to slow down or stop to let cars coming toward you pass by.

The first and largest sign, just before Twin Falls, was painted on what looked like a white bed sheet, and was tacked to a steep cliff on the right hand side of the road. It said, H20 for Honopou. A couple of miles further down the road, you would have seen a poster with Face the facts written on it. And then, at two or three mile intervals, signs appeared on the bridges saying, Fact #1: EMI diverts 160 million gallons a day; Fact #2: The amount of diverted water is enough to feed the entire island of Oahu; Fact #3: The Constitution of the State of Hawaii renders these diversions impermissible and illegal!; Fact #4: Loss of stream and marine life is accredited to these diversions; Fact #5: East Maui Hawaiians have fought over 120 years to restore stream flow. Today the fight continues...; Fact #6: Native Hawaiians and residents rely on these streams to live sustainably and to preserve Hawaiian culture.

And then, just after you round the bend and drive past the sweeping full-on view of deep, beautiful Honomanu Bay, traffic slowed to a crawl as cars threaded by crowds of Hawaiian taro farmers from all the major islands (and many others, including videographers from AKAKU television station) standing on the road and on the bridge, holding signs and passing out literature, trying to raise awareness and inform people passing by about the fact that massive amounts of stream water - the water they rely on to grow taro and feed their families - have been diverted by East Maui Irrigation Company for years. The farmers are demanding, once again but more emphatically than ever, that the water be restored to those streams. They are demanding justice.

I parked just beyond the bridge and walked back to where the protesters were talking with visitors on their way to the Taro Festival. The first person I spoke with was Carl Wendt, a taro grower whose family on his mother's side has lived in this area and grown taro for many generations. He explained that after the recent meeting at Haiku Community Center in early April, "A group of the local families weren't satisfied. We feel that after seven years of litigation and a court order to release the water into the streams, nothing has happened. We are in the water basin of this island, one of the wettest spots on Maui, and yet we don't have enough water. This has been going on for too long; they're hoping we'll just give up, get tired and go away... the plantation mentality is still heavy on this island. Through the years, we who live here have gone up into the mountains and seen the places where EMI continues to divert water, installing new pipes and concrete barriers so that at least three major waterfalls now are stopped from flowing into the ocean. Instead, the water goes into pipes headed toward central Maui and beyond; nothing spills over into the streams... I fought for America in Vietnam, and now I'm fighting for my rights here at home."

Wendt introduced me to Bush Martin, who said, "They're watering over 35,000 acres of sugar cane that gets exported off this island, and the money lines the pockets of big corporations." Steven Ho'okano, a taro farmer from Wailuanui, told me "We're fighting for our water rights. We, the farmers, need fresh water flowing from the mountains to the sea for our taro and for the lives of all the creatures that live in the streams. We're out here today to remind people that without water, there is no taro, and without taro, there would be no Taro Festival. We're talking about being self-sufficient so future generations can survive."

Many others made similar comments; everyone had stories to tell about how the lack of water affects their families.
According to one of the handouts passed along that day, "On a yearly basis, East Maui Irrigation (a subsidiary of Alexander & Baldwin) diverts an average of 60 billion gallons of water from 100 major streams in the East Maui Watershed... In 1876, the Kingdom's Minister of the Interior issued the first in a series of leases to Alexander & Baldwin, leasing lands in East Maui which ultimately allowed for the development, storage, transportation or other utilization of the water and construction of a ditch system. Back then, taro farmers protested the planned diversions, prophetically fearing the current struggle by East Maui taro farmers to reserve that water for their traditional and customary uses. Recognizing this, the kingdom issued the lease subject to the condition that there be no injury to the water rights of downstream land owners in Ke'anae, Wailuanui or other parts of East Maui..."

The same handout references Hawaii Revised Statutes Chapter 171 and 147C, and, in the Hawaii State Constitution, Article XII, Section 7 and Article XI, Section 7, all aimed at protecting traditional water rights of taro farmers. These can be viewed in their entirety on www.capitol.hawaii.gov.

Organized, peaceful protests such as the one on April 26 should help to bring about more discussion of ways to satisfy everyone involved.