Mink refereeing federal battle with Hawaiian taro farmers

TGI Staff Writer

U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink plans to visit Kaua’i soon in an attempt to untangle a dispute between a Hawaiian family and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the operation of the family’s taro farm within the Hule’ia National Wildlife Refuge.

Citing alleged violations of federal archaeological laws, the federal agency suspended a lease held by Raymond Itamura and Cheryl and Glenn Itamura last November and ordered them to stop operations at their four-acre farm.

The Itamuras have a 10-year lease from the federal agency to use seven acres within the 238-acre refuge in east Kaua’i.

The Itamura family — or at least one family member — destroyed the “historic value of a ditch that supplied water to historic taro patches,” said Barbara Maxfield of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service office on O’ahu. “There have been major violations of the Archaeological Resources Protection Act.”

The matter has been sent to the U.S. attorney’s office in Hawai’i and the enforcement branch of the Fish and Wildlife Service for investigation.

The charge of destroying a historic site was dismissed by the family.

James Itamura, a deputy public defender, said his uncle cleared the water path with the approval of a representative from the Fish and Wildlife Service on Kaua’i.

“We are not going to dig where we aren’t allowed to,” Itamura said.

Maxfield said, “I don’t know anything about that.”

The outcome of an investigation by the federal agency could result in the farm being permanently shut down, creating financial hardship for the Itamuras.

James Itamura said Mink, through a telephone conference call on Feb. 20, tried to act as a mediator in the issue. Participating in the discussion were Itamura, Raymond Itamura, Tom Alexander, who manages the three U.S. Fish and Wildlife refuges on Kaua’i, a Fish and Wildlife official and Danford Kae’o, a neighboring farmer who was ordered by the federal agency to also stop his operations in the Hule’ia refuge.

Mink (D-Hawai’i) proposed to negotiate an agreement to allow the Itamuras to continue planting huli, the part of the taro plant that is a starter plant for the next crop, Itamura said.

But the federal agency rejected that option, reasoning the Itamuras would have wasted their money and time if the investigation confirmed the allegations, the family was told.

The Itamuras then asked the federal agency to allow them to grow taro in areas of the farm that were not part of the federal investigation. But the federal agency declined, saying that alternative would be challenged by state archeologists.

Itamura said the agency has dragged its feet in the investigation. He said his family was told the probe would wrap up by the end of the February.

“But here it is six weeks later, and we are still waiting,” Itamura said. “Obviously, they don’t care. There is this arrogance of power.”

The agency is responsible for maintaining three refuges that are home to threatened or endangered birds.

If not for the work by his family, the area where the farm in the Hule’ia refuge is located would be a jungle, Itamura said.

Since 1998, when the federal lease was granted, “incredible amounts of sweat equity and time went into clearing what had been acres of tall grass and replacing it instead with numerous lo’i (taro plots),” the Itamuras wrote to The Garden Island. “With the return of the lo’i also came numerous Hawaiian stilt.”

The farming is permitted because current land uses provide wetland habitat for the Hawaiian stilt, Hawaiian coot and Hawaiian duck — native wading birds and waterfowl that are unique to the Hawaiian Islands.

The Itamura family says it has a special attachment to the land, as their ancestors first used and occupied the surrounding areas nearly 150 years ago. The family said graves of relatives are located on a hill overlooking the farm.

Staff writer Lester Chang can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) and lchang@pulitzer.net