On the Pacific Islands, the local Hawaiians grow fat-leaved plants called Taro. Once the staple food for the indigenous population, the forgotten agriculture has been revived in recent years in a flurry of nationalism. On Oahu it is with the Taro, partly, that the fight for the freshwater began.

"The issue on Oahu for the past 10 years has been the closing of the large sugar plantations that have occupied the central plainsfor over 100 years," said Denise C. De Costa, Information Officer for theHawaiian Board of Water Supply. "But now that they finally went out ofbusiness the question has been how the water should be reapplied."

More then a century ago a system of dikes and ditches were dug into the Koolau Mountains that separate the leeward and windward sides ofthe island. Much of the water from the wet windward side was diverted to feed the leeward plantations.

"In the past 50 years alone we have lost some 24 streams on this side," said George Hudes, a Taro farmer and Hawaiian cultural teacher in Waiahole Valley on the windward side. "From the turn of the century we have lost almost 96 percent of our water flows."

A legal case was brought to the Water Commission, demanding that with the sugar plantations gone, the water should be returned to the windward side. The commission decided to return 50 percent of it, but the case is under a second appeal by both sides and has been postponed to allow time for more studies.

"If we said that development occurs where the resources are then Waiahole would be full of resorts and golf course," said Alan M.Oshima, a lawyer and partner of Oshima, Chun, Fong, and Chung Limited Liability Law Partnership in Honolulu who argued the leeward case to the Board of Water. "So if you have development on the dry side then the water has to come from some where. What is needed is a sharing of resources, which is also, by the way, a very Hawaiian concept."

Much of the legal argument to win the freshwater back to the windward side was based on the heavy need of water for Taro plants. Waiahole, like many parts of the windward side, remains mostly underdeveloped at the request of the native Hawaiians who want to preserve these lands. It has become a cultural center for many Hawaiians on Oahu.

"Taro is our older brother," said Calvin Hoe,another Taro grower and teacher at the Indigenous school in Waiahole. "It is made into our staple food, Poi, which we hope to begin substituting for rice which has slowly taken its place over the last century."

The native Hawaiians believe that Wakea, the sky father, and his daughter Hoohokulani's first son was stillborn. They planted the body in the Eastern corner of the house, and from that sight grew Taro. Their second son was Haloa, the first man, so Taro, his older brother, fed him with Poi(made from crushing Taro roots).

"I don't disagree with the feeling of having your own land," said Oshima. "But there hasn't been any more Taro produced than there was in 1997 when the decision was handed down. Charter schools (the Hawaiian environmental school founded by Hoe) are great, but Taro is not an economic engine. People will not go back to raking in the mud. I don't think that it is any secret objective in their use of water to stop growth."

Hoe was quite vocal on the subject. "There are too many people here, every one should just have their own space and not crowd others" he said hiking down the muddy trail that crosses three swollen streams from his Taro patch to the road.

"It is a classic story of the small farmer being neglected in favor of the big corporations," said De Costa. "But I can see both sides of it. In Calvin's case, he is the only native Hawaiian of about 15 farmers that actually farm on the windward side. So there not such a demand for it."

For Hoe and other Hawaiians, having won back half the water is not enough. They would like to see what they consider originally theirs returned, although today it is hard to determine what the original natural flow was in the 19th century before the diversion. "No reliable data exists," said DeCosta, who also asserted that too much freshwater has been proven to hurt the coral reefs in the surrounding bays.

"It is not so much the water," said Oshima."It's the mud and soot, and everything that humans put into the earth that comes down with the water."

Hoe asserted that any amount of freshwater is invariably good for the marine ecosystems. He also said that more Taro plants are on their way. Standing in a Taro field surrounded by some of his students, he talkedabout the proud Hawaii tradition of making Poi.

"This is a battle for the future," he said."If you control the water you control the island, you control the future.I don't care about money or profits. I care about being able to live in our traditional way in peace, and stopping more development on the other side ofthe island."