East Maui Irrigation System (Designated in 2002)

Redhill Underground Fuel Storage Facility (Designated in 1994) - link to ASCE National Website

Kamehameha V Post Office Building (Designated in 1987) - link to ASCE National Website

Qualification for designation

The East Maui Irrigation System has been designated as an ASCE National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.  The dedication ceremony was held on February 26, 2003 at the Alexander & Baldwin Sugar Museum in Puunene, Maui, Hawaii.  Among the participants in the dedication ceremony were ASCE President Thomas L. Jackson, Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa, Maui City Council Chair Dain Kane, ASCE Hawaii Section President Horst Brandes and ASCE Hawaii Section History and Heritage Committee member Richard Cox.

It began with the construction of the Old Hamakua Ditch built between 1876 and 1878.  The terms of the lease from King Kalakaua providing a right-of-way and water capture from lands of the Kingdom required completion in two years.  All construction was by private enterprise.  It is a tribute to the foresight of Samuel T. Alexander and Henry P. Baldwin, sons of missionaries to Hawaii and early sugar cane growers in the then Kingdom of Hawaii.  Nine subsequent ditches were constructed by private enterprise between 1879 and 1923. 

The East Maui Irrigation (EMI) System demonstrated the feasibility of transporting water from steep tropical forested watersheds with high rainfall across difficult terrain to fertile and dry plains.  Sugar production dramatically increased with irrigation and improved cultivation practices.  Sugar yields increased from 2 tons per acre to over 13 tons per acre grown with 2-year crop cycles. 

The construction of the Old Hamakua Ditch sparked major irrigation aqueduct construction on the Hawaiian Islands of Kauai, Oahu, Maui and Hawaii.  Eventually sugar production from these islands exceeded 1.2 million tons per year, comprising the major economic sector of Hawaii for 100 years.

The EMI System was also the forerunner of major aqueducts in the Western United States by the Bureau of Reclamation, irrigation districts and regional domestic supplies.  Engineer M.M. O’Shaughnessy, in charge of constructing the Koolau Ditch in 1904 and 1905, subsequently built San Francisco Hetch Hetchy water system.  Other engineers involved in Hawaii aqueducts subsequently worked on major domestic water aqueducts in the western United States.

Today, the EMI System conveys 62 billion gallons per year from steep tropical forested watersheds with high rainfall on the Windward side of Haleakala to the semi-arid Maui isthmus for sugar cane cultivation.  The EMI System consists of 74 miles of tunnels, ditches, inverted siphons and flumes.  The system provides for over half the irrigation requirements for the Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company plantation, a division of Alexander & Baldwin, Inc.  The plantation, with a cultivated area of 37,000 acres, is a combination of earlier smaller plantations in the Maui isthmus.  Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company produces 230,000 tons of sugar annually and is the largest plantation in Hawaii.  During the 1980’s Hawaii plantations provided one-sixth of the sugar produced in the United States and was Hawaii’s principal economic sector for over 100 years.

The EMI System is the third National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in the State of Hawaii.  The other two landmarks are the Kamehameha V Post Office Building, dedicated in 1987, and the Red Hill Underground Fuel Storage Facility, dedicated in 1994.

ASCE established the National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark Program in 1966 to recognize civil engineering works that have made a significant contribution to the development of the United States and to the profession of civil engineering.  Sections and branches may propose to the Society’s History and Heritage Committee that projects in their area be accorded landmark status.  The committee passes its recommendations to the Board of Direction, which makes the final decision.

Participants in the EMI System dedication ceremony were (L-R) ASCE Hawaii Section History and Heritage Committee member Richard Cox; EMI employee Jackie Honokaupu; Alexander and Baldwin, Inc. Vice-President Meredith Ching; Maui City Council Chair Dain Kane; EMI Manager Garrett Hew; EMI employee Mark Vaught; Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa; EMI employee Albert Honokaupu and ASCE President Thomas L. Jackson.
 
 

EMI Manager Garrett Hew with ASCE President Thomas L. Jackson
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The pipeline which forms the U-shaped inverted siphon was a sizeable installation, underscored by the barely discernable men who pose on platforms and adjacent staging areas.

The Maliko Siphon is part of the Kauhikoa Ditch and it transported water down, then back up the other side of the 450-foot deep Maliko Gulch.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

This picture was taken in 1909, during installation of a pipeline for Haiku ditch water under the steel railroad bridge crossing the Maliko Gulch. 

The pipeline is part of the vast East Maui Irrigation System on Maui, which began with the building of the first, most famous, Hamakua ditch, built by Alexander & Baldwin between 1876 and 1878. 
 
 

This photo was taken in the late 1950s, as these men, Ephriam Bergau Sr. (left) and Joseph ‘Ace’ Akiu Sr. (right) dug a tunnel to replace a wooden flume structure on the Center Ditch near Punaluu.  The excavated tunnel material was removed via a tunnel cart utilizing steel tracks, as seen on the bottom of the photo.
 
 

Circa the 1960s, these men are doing maintenance, clearing gravel and debris from a tunnel and open ditch section on the Center Ditch near Oopuola using a rickshaw cart (still in use today). Left front, Joseph Honokaupu Jr.; right front, John Nishioka Jr.; left rear, Pablo Castillo and, right rear, John “Mack” Emmsley. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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Civil engineering has shaped the history of our nation and every community within it.  To celebrate the profession, ASCE established the History and Heritage Committee (HHC) in 1964.  The mission of this committee is to enhance the knowledge and appreciation of our history and heritage.

For consideration as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, an ASCE Section  (such as the Hawaii Section) must officially nominate a project by forwarding information to the HHC.  To ensure that the designation of a project by ASCE as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark has real and lasting significance, HHC carefully studies and evaluates the data submitted by the nominating Section.  Not only must the specific merits of the nominated project be weighed, but it also must be compared to similar projects, including those that may or may not have been nominated and/or designated as landmarks.  It is essential that detailed documentation be provided to support statements or claims made in the nomination.

National historic significance is not a quality or characteristic that lends itself to easy evaluation.  As a result, HHC uses the following guidelines as it considers the merits of a specific nomination:
1. The nominated project must be of national historic civil engineering significance. Size or technical complexity of design or construction is not sufficient in itself. 
2. The project must represent a significant facet of civil engineering history, but does not have to be designed or constructed by a civil engineer. 
3. Projects must have some special uniqueness (e.g., a first project constructed); or have made some significant contribution (e.g. the first project designed by a particular method); or utilized a unique or significant construction or engineering technique.  The project itself must have contributed to the development of the nation or at least a very large region.  Thus a project that did not make a contribution, did not lead to some other development, or was a technical "dead end" may not be of national historic significance, although it was the "first" (or only one) of its kind. 
4. Projects should be generally available to the public view, although safety considerations or geographic isolation may restrict access. 
5. Nominated projects should be at least 50 years old from the substantial completion at the time an ASCE plaque presentation is desired. 

HHC takes very seriously its responsibility for recommending National Civil Engineering Landmarks to the National Board of Direction.  Each nomination can take up to one year to review.  If the Board of Direction approves a Section's nomination for designation as a National Civil Engineering Landmark, the Section plans the plaque presentation event. 

To date, less than 200 projects have received the designation of National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.  These projects include the Erie Canal, Brooklyn Bridge, Washington Monument, Golden Gate Bridge, Hoover Dam, U.S. Capitol, and Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

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