“We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness – and call it love – true love.” Robert Fulghum
Marines and Sailors trained for what has been referred to as the toughest marine offensive of WWII. 1,300 miles northeast of Guadalcanal, the Japanese had constructed a centralized stronghold force in a 20-island group called Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands.
RADM Shibasaki, the Japanese commander there, proclaimed, “a million men cannot take Tarawa in a hundred years.” Ultimately, the objective took 9,000 marines only four days (November 20 to November 23, 1943) – but not without a staggering 37% casualties. US victories at Tarawa, New Guinea and the Solomon Islands marked a turning point in the war.
The Marines would reconstitute at Camp Tarawa at Waimea, on the Island of Hawaiʻi. Originally an Army camp named Camp Waimea (when the population in town was about 400,) it became the largest Marine training facility in the Pacific following the battle of Tarawa.
Pyramid tent cities and streets of long convoys of jeeps, trucks, half-tracks, tanks, artillery and amphibious ducks made up the formidable, but top secret, Camp Tarawa; over 50,000 servicemen trained there between 1942 and 1945.
A lasting legacy of the military presence in Waimea was an addition in the community’s drinking water system – “Marine Dam” – it’s still in use and is located above Waimea Town near the lower edge of the forest.
Marine Dam is a diversion dam in Waikoloa Stream at the 3,460-foot elevation, built during World War II by the US Engineering Department to supply water for the military encampment of several thousand Marines in Waimea.
Built in 1943, the 5-foot high dam captured stream water into a 12-inch lightweight steel clamp-on pipeline. In 1966, the steel pipeline was replaced by a more durable 18-inch ductile iron pipe. A still basin and a cleanout were also added.
Today, the Marine Dam serves its original function and is a major source of drinking water for the South Kohala Water System, which provides drinking water as far east as Paʻauilo and west to the Waiemi subdivision on Kawaihae Road.
Hawai‘i County Department of Water Supply (DWS) relies on the streams of Kohala Mountain for its primary source of water.
The primary sources for the Waimea Water System are the mountain supplies from Waikoloa Stream and the Kohākōhau Stream diversion. The surface water sources are supplemented by the Parker Ranch groundwater well. Surface water is treated at the Waimea Water Treatment Plant and blended with groundwater before distribution.
Raw water from the streams is stored in 4 reservoirs with a total capacity of over 150 million gallons (MG) and is treated in the DWS filtration plant. This system provides about 2-million gallons per day (mgd) (the system has a potential capacity of 4-mgd.)
There are three 50-million-gallon reservoirs in the Waimea system, although one of them is out of commission as a result of damage from the 2006 Kiholo Bay earthquake. Two were initially damaged, but one has since been repaired.
The dam seems to also have helped native species; two Koloa ducks were observed on October 30, 1968 in a small pool of Waikoloa Stream approximately 400 yards above the Marine Dam, Kohala Watershed, and expressed the opinion that this was the “first sighting of wild Koloa on Hawaiʻi in more than 20 years”.
The work of the dam did not go unnoticed. In 1997, the American Water Works Association designated the Marine Dam as an “American Water Landmark” (the only award for a neighbor island facility.) Three other Water Landmark awards were issued to Kalihi Pump Station (1981,) Hālawa Shaft (1994) and the Beretania Pumping Station (1995.)
To receive a landmark status, the facility must be at least 50 years old and of significant value to the community.
DWS is permitted by the State’s Water Commission to take 1.427-mgd total from its diversions at the Marine Dam and Kohākōhau Dam, which is approximately 33% of the median daily discharge of Waikoloa and Kohākōhau streams combined.
The average or “mean” annual daily flow at Waikoloa stream is 9.12 cubic feet per second (cfs) (5.89 (mgd;)) however, this mean flow likely occurs only 20-30% of the time.
The median daily discharge for Waikoloa stream is 4.3 cfs (2.78 mgd.) On a more typical day, streamflow is within the 70-75% range (meaning the percentage of time discharge equaled or exceeded this amount), or between 2.5-2.8 cfs (1.62-1.81 mgd.) (MKSWCD)
A chief from east Molokai and a few of his people boarded canoes and set off around the island. They found themselves on the southwest coast of Molokai. They paddled up to some fishermen who had a large catch of opelu. Hungry, they began to eat.
As they were all eating with great satisfaction, another group of fishermen came by and cried: “Stop. Do not eat the opelu. This is the season of opelu kapu.” However, the visiting chief only had a kapu for eating turtle, so they continued eating.
The fishermen attacked the visiting chief and his men. Overpowered, they were brought before the kahuna. The visiting chief became very ill, and the only way to make things right was a human sacrifice to save the chief from death. One of his men offered himself as a sacrifice and the chief recovered.
The kahuna ordered a tree planted on the grave of the willing victim. The grave was on shore; when the tide was high, the waves would wash sand from the grave. Thus, in a very short time, the body would be exposed.
In respect and remembrance, the chief ordered his men to build a stone wall. The chief himself put the last stone on the wall, saying as he did so, “I call this place Pāpōhaku, ‘Stone Wall.’” (DLNR)
Today, the sandy beach is seen as the primary feature here (it’s over 2-miles long and 300-feet wide, the largest on the island and one of the largest in the Islands.) It lies between two headlands, Puʻu Koaʻe to the south and Puʻu o Kaiaka to the north.
The sand caught people’s attention.
First, folks looked to replenish eroding beaches by harvesting sand from one area and filled in at another (primarily at Waikīkī.) Reports from the 1920s and 1930s reveal that sand was brought to Waikīkī Beach, via ship and barge, from Manhattan Beach, California.
As the Manhattan Beach community was developing, it found that excess sand in the beach dunes and it was getting in the way of development there. At the same time, folks in Hawai‘i were in need for sand to cover the rock and coral beach at Waikīkī.
Later, Waikīkī’s sand was trucked from various points around Hawai‘i including O‘ahu’s North Shore – in particular, Waimea Bay Beach, a sand bar off the town of Kahuku and Pāpōhaku Beach on Molokai.
Reportedly, before sand mining operations removed over 200,000 tons of sand at Waimea Bay to fill beaches in Waikīkī and elsewhere, there was so much sand that if you would have tried to jump off Pōhaku Lele, Jump Rock, you would have jumped about six feet down into the sand below.
Then came statehood, and the building boom of the following decades.
“Increased use of concrete by building contractors resulted in more output of sand required for blending with crushed basalt fines used in concrete aggregate. A substantial gain was noted in the use of coral dune sands from the north shores of Oʻahu Island. By yearend, Honolulu Construction & Draying Co Ltd (HC&D) was prepared to barge sand from Molokai Island to supply some of Oahu’s requirements for the critical material.” (Minerals Yearbook, 1959)
(HC&D was formed in 1908 by a quarry owner, three construction men and a retired sea captain. The base of the business was the draying (hauling) of construction materials by horse-drawn wagons. In late-1967, HC&D became a wholly owned subsidiary of American Pipe and Construction Co of Monterey Park, California (now it’s known as Ameron Inc.))
In the 1950s, a harbor was dredged and a wharf constructed at Hale O Lono by B&C (Brown and Clewitt) Trucking to ship out sand from Pāpōhaku (B&C also owned Seaside Inn and Pau Hana Inn.) A 1957 contract between Molokai Ranch and HC&D allowed for sand to be removed from a 297-acre southern parcel of Pāpōhaku Beach.
“Sand and gravel was produced at 16 principal beach, dune, and stream deposits. The largest operation was the Molokai sand facility of HC&D Ltd, Hawaiʻi’s major producer, consumer, and supplier of sand, cinder, and crushed stone.” (Minerals Yearbook, 1964)
“Some of the land out on the western tip of the island is leased to Honolulu Construction and Draying Company Ltd, which mines something like 200,000-yards of sand a year from Pāpōhaku Beach for shipment to Oahu for use in making concrete.” (Away From It All)
“All day long, every day, had trucks going back and forth from Pāpōhaku to Hale O Lono.” From the early 1960s to 1975, this massive cache of sand was the site of the largest sand-mining operation in the state.
Some of the sand was drawn from below the high water mark, which was public land and required a government permit; at times the dredge bucket even drew the sand out of the ocean.
This was not legal and HC&D was caught and reportedly fined, resulting in a million-dollar settlement. In lieu of payment of the fine, reportedly, Molokai Ranch gave the land at Ala Mālama in Kaunakakai.
Even with the decades of sand removal, Pāpōhaku Beach remains one of the longest white sand beaches, and the Pāpōhaku Dune system associated with the beach is among the largest in Islands.
Pāpōhaku Dune (like other sand dunes) is the first and last line of defense against coastal erosion and episodic high waves for the existing structures located behind it.
In 1903, the Hawai‘i Territorial Legislature passed Act 44 establishing the Board of Agriculture and Forestry, predating the USDA Forest Service by one year.
The Forest Reserve System was created by the Territorial Government of Hawai’i through Act 44 on April 25, 1903. It was cooperative arrangement between the Hawai‘i Sugar Planters Association and the territorial government.
Plantations needed wood for fuel, but they also needed to keep the forests intact to draw precipitation from the trade winds, which in turn fed the irrigation systems in the cane fields below. (DLNR-DOFAW)
The first Territorial forester, Ralph S Hosmer, suggested that the forest had been declining in the uplands as a result of fire, grazing and insects. In order to preserve the forest, it was necessary to keep the ungulates out. From 1924 to 1926 hundreds of thousands of pigs, sheep, cattle and goats were reportedly removed from Hawai‘i’s Territorial forests.
Likewise, the watershed areas needed to be reforested. “The difficulty lies in the distribution of … seeds over the thousands of square miles of mountain land. …”
“It follows naturally that … seeds will germinate and develop into trees when sown in elevated position by birds, they should do the same if sown in positions by the hand of man. Therefore the experiment of throwing seed into such positions was started by the foresters when traveling through the forests on foot”.
“‘Why then,’ [Dr Harold L Lyon, superintendent of the Territory’s Department of Botany and Forestation] asked, ‘would it not be possible to fly over the decadent forests in an airplane, dropping … seeds wherever favorable conditions seem to exist for their reception?’”
“‘Naturally, most of the seeds so dropped would land in situations where it could not grow and thrive, but if one tree eventually matured for every 100,000 seeds so sown, the results would be worth the effort. …’”
“‘The air service of the US army has shown great willingness to assist us in this endeavor … We have learned many interesting and helpful facts regarding the culture and propagation …’ he concludes.”
“‘Our project has passed the critical tests and we can proceed with its further elaboration with every assurance that we are laying the foundation for a natural and permanent rejuvenation of our forests.” (SB, Jun 22, 1929)
Airplanes were not suggested just for reforestations in Hawai‘i, folks in Panama were seriously concerned about mosquitos and the malaria they carried.
“The definition of a Bombing Plane appears to be due for a revision – hurling bombs, dusting mosquitoes, sowing – what next?” (Army Corps News, September 18, 1931)
Then, several newspapers across the continent reported, “It might be called the story of the elephant, and the bombing plane. The wild beast of the jungles, with Its tremendous power of destruction, when once captured and trained, becomes the servant of man. Its lumbering hulk is put to work clearing paths through the wilderness transporting lumber and other cargo.”
“Under the guidance of its master its potential strength is turned to useful, peaceful pursuits to aid mankind. The Army Air Corps bombing planes, the greatest destruction machines in the Government’s military service, are being similarly ‘harnessed,’ on occasion, in peaceful pursuits.”
“Potentially capable or wiping out cities with the tons of bombs and poisonous gases they can carry, they are being used on errands of mercy, seeding of sugar plantations and in the Government’s ‘war’ on the malaria-carrying mosquito.”
“The most recent instance of these humanitarian services occurred during the hurricane which swept Belize, British Honduras, and caused widespread destruction and suffering.”
“Army planes were dispatched with first aid equipment and provisions supplies to help in caring for the injured and homeless.
Another recent case of the peaceful use of the army fighting planes has been the war on mosquitoes in Panama.”
“Contrary to prevalent belief, this was the first time dusting by airplane to kill mosquito larvae has been attempted in Panama or the Canal Zone.”
“Co-operating with the Health Department of the Panama Canal, the Air Corps has equipped a bombing plane with a ‘dusting’’ device and has attacked the breeding areas of the mosquito.”
“Still another Instance in line with these peaceful pursuits of the Air Corps is the sowing of seeds in Hawaii. At the request of the Forestry Division of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association and the Territorial Board of Agriculture and Forestry, bombing planes have been utilized in planting seed over the mountain area of Oahu near Honolulu.”
“Several flights are made each year over areas difficult to plant by ground methods with highly satisfactory results. The Army Fokker plane Bird or Paradise, in which Lieuts Maitland and Hegenberger flew from Oakland, Cal to Honolulu in 1927, was used for a time, sowing as much as a ton on a flight.”
“Now smaller quantities are scattered from the rear cockpit of bombing planes.” (Brooklyn Eagle, Sep 27, 1931) “Several flights are made each year over areas difficult to plant by ground methods.” (Army Corps News, September 18, 1931)
The last decades of the 19th-century were a period of imperial expansion, especially in the Pacific. European (primarily Britain, France and Germany,) Asian (Japan) and American (US) were making claims and establishing colonies across the Pacific.
After the British took control of Fiji in 1874, only three major island groups remained independent in the Pacific: Tonga, Hawai‘i and Sāmoa. The Euro/American powers had marked off all three of these groups as falling under their own spheres of interest.
However, the Americans took a specific interest in Hawai‘i, the British in Tonga, and the Germans, British and Americans all claiming a right to determine the future of Sāmoa. (Cook)
Kalākaua was filled with visionary schemes for the protection and development of the Polynesian race; (Walter Murray Gibson) fell in step with him … The king and minister at least conceived between them a scheme of island confederation. (Stevenson)
“(Gibson) discerned but little difficulty in the way of organizing such a political union, over which Kalākaua would be the logical emperor, and the Premier of an almost boundless empire of Polynesian archipelagoes.” (Daggett; Pacific Commercial Advertiser, February 6, 1900)
“The first step once taken between the Hawaiian and Samoan groups, other Polynesian groups and, inclusively, Micronesian and Melanesian groups, might gradually be induced to enter into the new Polynesian confederation just as Lord Carnarvon gets colony after colony to adopt His Lordship’s British Federal Dominion policy.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, November 17, 1877)
As early as 1880, the American consul in Hawaiʻi had complained that Kalākaua was “inflamed by the idea of gathering all the cognate races of the Islands of the Pacific into the great Polynesian Confederacy, over which he will reign.”
On June 28, 1880, Kalākaua’s Premier Walter Murray Gibson, introduced a resolution in the legislature noting, “the Hawaiian Kingdom by its geographic position and political status is entitled to claim a Primacy in the family of Polynesian States …”
“The resolution concluded with an action “that a Royal Commissioner be appointed by His Majesty, to be styled a Royal Hawaiian Commissioner to the state and peoples of Polynesia …” (Kuykendall)
It passed unanimously and within six months Gibson became the head of a new ministry, as Premier and Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Although Kalākaua had been elected and serving as King since 1874, upon returning from a trip around the world, it was determined that Hawaiʻi’s King should also be properly crowned.
“It was through (Gibson’s) influence that the Hawaiian Legislature ceremonies of the occasion were impressively enacted in the presence of the representatives of the most of the great civilized powers and with the warships of many nations giving salutation to the event in the harbor of Honolulu.” (Daggett; Pacific Commercial Advertiser, February 6, 1900)
“ʻIolani Palace, the new building of that name, had been completed the previous year, and a large pavilion had been erected immediately in front of it for the celebration of the coronation. This was exclusively for the accommodation of the royal family; but there was adjacent thereto a sort of amphitheatre, capable of holding ten thousand persons, intended for the occupation of the people.” (Liliʻuokalani)
“On Monday, 12th February, the imposing ceremony of the Coronation of their Majesties the King and Queen of the Hawaiian Islands took place at ʻIolani Palace. … Like a mechanical transformation scene to take place at an appointed minute, so did the sun burst forth as the clock struck twelve, and immediately after their Majesties had been crowned.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, February 17, 1883)
Then, to set the stage for the assemblage of the Polynesian Confederacy, Gibson wrote a diplomatic protest that the legislature officially approved, condemning the predatory behavior of the Great Powers in the Pacific.
“Whereas His Hawaiian Majesty’s Government being informed that certain Sovereign and Colonial States propose to annex various islands and archipelagoes of Polynesia, does hereby solemnly protest against such projects of Annexation, as unjust to a simple and ignorant people, and subversive in their ease of those conditions for favourable national development which have been so happily accorded to the Hawaiian nation.” (Gibson Protest, August 23, 1883)
The protest evoked the goals of the Confederacy and justified Hawai‘i’s right to lodge such a protest based on its dual status as both a Polynesian state and part of the Euro/American community of Nations. (Cook)
Kalākaua’s vision of a Polynesian Confederacy reflected a complex and multi-dimensional understanding of both the identity of the Hawaiian people and how that identity connected and allied them with a broad array of other peoples and states across the globe.
It was a project that envisioned Hawai‘i as intimately connected to the Euro/American powers through the bonds of an international community built on the shared ideals of constitutional governments, formal diplomatic recognition, and the rule of law.
At the same time, it envisioned the nation as closely allied with other non-European peoples against the shared threat of the Euro/American empires. More specifically, however, it envisioned Hawai‘i as part of a Polynesian community whose members needed to rely upon one another in order to maintain both their independence and shared identity. (Cook)
John Bush, Hawaiʻi’s ambassador to Sāmoa, succeeded in negotiating Articles of Confederation, which the Hawaiian cabinet ratified in March 1887. Kalākaua sent the Kaimiloa to salute High Chief Malietoa Laupepa in Sāmoa. (However, a German warship there warned Kalākaua to stop meddling in Samoan affairs.) (Chappell)
Later, the Berlin Act (signed June 14, 1889,) between the US, Germany and Britain, established three-power joint rule over Sāmoa. This ultimately led to the creation of American Sāmoa.
Eventually, the confederacy attempts failed. It part, it is believed too many changes to existing systems were proposed, many of which were modeled after the Western way.
However, Kalākaua’s dream was partially fulfilled with later coalitions (although Hawaiʻi is not the lead.) In 1971, The Pacific Islands Forum, a political grouping of 16 independent and self-governing states, was founded (it was initially known as the South Pacific Forum, the name changed in 2000.)
Members include Australia, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Marshall Islands, Sāmoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
Later (2011,) eight independent or self-governing countries or territories in Polynesia formed an international governmental cooperation group, The Polynesian Leaders Group.
The eight founding members are: Sāmoa, Tonga and Tuvalu (three sovereign states;) the Cook Islands and Niue (two self-governing territories in free association with New Zealand;) American Sāmoa (an unincorporated territory of the United States;) Maʻohi Nui (French Polynesia) and Tokelau (a territory of New Zealand.)
Its members commit to working together to “seek a future for our Polynesian people and countries where cultures, traditions and values are honored and protected”, as well as many other common goals. (PLG Memorandum of Understanding, 2011)
