Pierce Brosnan...has been touted as nice by many, yet he’s waged a long and costly war over water with a Hawaiian farmer — he wants it for landscape ponds, she wants it grow [sic] taro...
This gives the false impression that water is taken for the ponds and withheld from, or not available for, or is rendered somehow useless or damaging for taro farming. But that's not true. In fact, the water in question runs unimpeded through the ponds on its way downstream to the property where the taro is. Moreover, the farmer - Catherine Ham Young - didn't even argue that running the water though the ponds diminishes or otherwise affects the amount or quality of water that passes over the Brosnan property and on down to her taro. Here's how the appellate court summarized her position in ruling that she had no case against the Brosnans (emphasis in original)
Ham Young has not argued that the use of the water from the Ditch to fill the Ponds is unreasonable because circulating the Ponds changes the volume, flow, temperature, turbidity, or other physical characteristic of the water. Ham Young has not argued that the defendants have no right to use water from the Ditch in connection with the Lee Property. Instead, on this point, Ham Young argues the use of the water in conjunction with ornamental Ponds is per se unreasonable, regardless of whether it affects the quality, quantity, or other physical characteristics of the water. Put another way, Ham Young argues that she has a right for the water not to pass through the Ponds on the Lee Property, regardless of whether her use of the water is affected.
So the case falls flat, or even backfires, as a vehicle for pressing Pierce Brosnan into service as the villain in a class/race morality play.
(Ham Young did not lose on every point of the appeal. She had argued that when the previous owners - the people who owned the property before the Brosnans did - enlarged and deepened the ponds they temporarily blocked the water so that "in late 1999 and through 2000, virtually no water flowed" to her property and she thereby suffered damages to her taro crop. And the appellate court remanded to the trial court for further proceedings on that claim against the previous owners.)
16 comments:
I wish more people wrote about facts with dispassionate reason.
Mahalo for this.
So many issues more can be settled fairly and inexpensively if people look at the current reality and not dwell on the past.
I don't think my statement gives a false impression at all, Charley, and so there really isn't any need for you to offer a correction. It states precisely what is: he wants the water for ponds, she wants it for taro. And it's exactly the point I was trying to make: as a rich person, he views water as commodity, something suitable for an ornamental, superfluous use; as a Hawaiian, she views the water as something to be respected, as wealth in and of itself.
It's not surprising that an American appellate court, or you, didn't "get it."
I like Anonymous's description "...current reality..."
Joan did write, in fact, "In closing, some rich people are doing good things, like helping WikiLeaks..."
That shows some sympathy.
Is joan really saying that ornamental uses of water are a slap in the face to Hawaiian culture?
'Is joan really saying that ornamental uses of water are a slap in the face to Hawaiian culture? '
you could ask her. she has her own blog, kauai eclectic, if you did not know.
The false impression is caused by what Joan omitted.
Thanks for providing the Rest of the Story.
Joan's remarks about Pierce Brosnan were intellectually dishonest. And she continues that dishonesty by hurriedly censoring all comments to her blog discussing the confusion she has sowed. The point of a blog like that is it's all about polemics and not about the whole story or the truth.
Conrow displays classic ignorance of economics. She opines that "ornamental" use such as Brosan's is using water as a commodity; yet Ham Young's use for producing a cash crop is not?
Alert to Conrow: Water is, in Ham Young's case, one of a number of factors of production...period. Moreover, wealth is something that is accumulated by successful economic activity...water flowing though one's property is only transformed into wealth by it's use as a factor of production.
If not used as a factor then it merely passes through and is lost to the sea...or some other user downstream. Brosnan's ponds are just part of the pipeline and would be so whether he was rich or poor.
Conrow, like Marx, seems a child of some privilege engaged in senseless class warfare...
RS Weir
Joan's strained rationale that she meant that the taro farmer is somehow above viewing water as a commodity and is offended at it spending a few hours in landscaping ponds before it gets to the farmer falls apart when we realize that the water she's talking about is running through a man-made irrigation ditch.
Essentially she and her farmer are saying people cannot prettify or landscape irrigation ditches running through their property lest they offend some supposed native Hawaiian ethic.
The ponds don't interfere with the ditches. They are part of the ditch system. The water flows through them. They do not prevent any water from flowing to the taro. They don't change the rate the water flows. They don't add or subtract anything from the water. The only difference is, instead of a purely utilitarian man made ditch, it is an ornamental man made series of little ponds. How is that such a bad thing?
Joan is not really a journalist. She's got a healthy dose of Fox News style bias mixed in. She knows what she knows and the facts will fit that knowledge damnit.
Her characterization is a black/white either/or description that DOES NOT make it clear that what really happens is BOTH. Currently no harm comes to the downstream user having the water pass through ponds.
Charley busted her and it seems to sting a bit.
Randy Weir whining about class warfare is a bit rich.
Whining? Calling someone out for employing a tired, played out ploy of divisiveness is whining?
I noticed that you aren't able to refute my argument that water is a factor of production. Instead, as do most cowards, you hide behind the veil of anonymity and excrete nonsense.
RS Weir
Yes water is a commodity for the taro grower.
bleating about class warfare is as much your hobby horse as hers.
Strawman much?
Charley, as Joan points out, you don't "get it." The issue is the moral inferiority of "Western" thought, and the moral superiority of the Hawaiian view, which moral superiority also accrues to Joan because of her sympathy for them (and her hatred of all things Western).
One could argue, though, that the use of water to nourish a cash crop is viewing water as more of a "commodity" than using the water for ornamental (aesthetic) purposes. But what do I know, with my horrible Western mind?
I confess this was the first I've ever heard it asserted that channeling irrigation water through decorative ponds on its way through the ditch system offends native Hawaiian cultural sensibilities. As for the appellate court not "getting it," if there were actually any such point, it was never brought to the attention of that court. What I suspect is that this particular cultural doctrine was invented on the fly as a post hoc rationalization once the mischaracterization of the case as a "war over water" was publicly corrected. (Beware the self-appointed Western interpreter of native culture whose cultural interpretations invariably reflect the interpretor's own well-known biases).
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