Relics Of Sugar’s Past, Hawaii Dams Will Take Years To Fix Or Remove The majority of Hawaii’s dams trace their roots back to the sugar cane plantation days, but the industry has left the state. And so has the money to maintain them.
On March 8, as torrential rains slammed down across the Hawaiian islands, operators of the Kaupakalua Reservoir in the Haiku region of Maui notified emergency management of an “imminent failure.”
The 138-year-old earthen dam, originally constructed to irrigate sugar cane farming, overflowed, forcing an evacuation order for people living downstream.
