Can An Ancient Hawaiian Fishpond Turn A Profit?… The owners of a recently restored Kauai fishpond are setting out to prove that this cultural resource can also be a money-maker.
Nomilo Fishpond on Kauai’s south shore has been stewarded by generations of the same Hawaiian family since Philip Palama purchased it more than a century ago.
Naturally formed when a dormant volcanic caldera filled up with water, the pond has seen several iterations since Palama fished its brackish waters at a time when a meal of ulua, mullet or oysters could be gathered in minutes.
In 1989, Palama’s granddaughter Lynn Maile Taylor and her husband Thayne say they secured the first state license to grow shellfish in Hawaii and began to convert the fishpond into what they hoped could be a viable business. In its first version, Kauai Sea Farm harvested and sold shellfish to local chefs.
But the couple’s novel business ambitions soon collapsed. In 1992, Hurricane Iniki’s 145-mile-per-hour winds inundated the 60-acre property with debris, clogging critical seawater channels that attract fish into the pond, circulate the water and help keep the ecosystem clean.
