Water and Power in West Maui draws our attention to the ways control of water resources, in West Maui and across Hawai'i, has been key to the creation and perpetuation of political and economic power and privilege. This volume, by two leading advocates for progressive change in Hawai'i, highlights what has been only touched on by previous volumes on water law or land tenure in the islands, and with specific attention to the environment, history, and communities of West Maui. Individually, chapters on physical and legal infrastructure are invaluable stand-alone guides to key aspects of water management in the state and this area. For instance, one chapter covers recent efforts by the state to restore stream flows, a topic that is otherwise little addressed in published literature. This volume also dives into the inherent failures and unsustainability of the state of Hawai'i's management of groundwater by "sustainable yield," which will have profound implications for the future of Hawai'i water supplies in a changing climate. As a whole, with clear explanations of historical transformation and ongoing bureaucratic practice, the authors identify liberating paths forward. Rather than another treatise on how past bad practices set up a beleaguered present, they suggest how water and power in West Maui and Hawai'i can be better shared for an enduring prosperity for the diverse people within these communities. This volume will be of interest to scholars and historians, and a must-read for practitioners in water management and control, and contemporary environmental and indigenous struggles in Hawai'i and the Pacific.

West Maui's long-time residents, tourists, and day workers alike have spent hours sitting in their cars, frustrated, as they ask the ubiquitous modern-day question, "why can't they do something about this traffic?" Thinking about Traffic in West Maui explores possibilities for solving this very complex and mundane problem by compiling thought experiments from experts in planning, transportation, engineering, community organizing, and law. Each author addresses a community-originated proposal for a solution to West Maui's traffic woes: encouraging more people to use bicycles, widening roads on an alternate route, tunneling a new road through the mountains, implementing rideshare carpooling applications, managing the retreat of coastal roads, and constructing a ground-level light-rail system from Napili to Kahului airport. Readers will appreciate the patient attention to practical details alongside informed-analyses of the economic and technological landscapes in which they are nested. Thinking about Traffic in West Maui is singular in its reasoned, interdisciplinary approach to a practical, place-based problem. The chapters and findings detail a process that illuminate West Maui traffic as comprised of a host of interconnected issues--affordable housing, overtourism, displacement from ahupuaʻa-based traditions, sea level rise, international migration, international corporate markets, class inequality, and, most of all, the contours of the physical environment of West Maui. Maui residents, tourists, academics, and everyone who has thought seriously about how to optimize traffic patterns will enjoy the novel, perceptive approaches taken in each chapter.

The essays in this book engage with events, projects, and developments in ways that describe a host of social relationships and, often, the problems that themselves maintain those social relations as inherently conflicted ones. By attending to particular events and structures these chapters unravel some of the dynamics that animate social changes in West Maui. Each chapter inventories the concerns, lands, and people who were key to conflicts that drive ongoing social transformations in West Maui. Social change is not only the documentation of historical happenings, but the singular, material confluence of historical factors that drives futurity. These chapters look at these factors, historically and now, to create meaningful comments for people in West Maui and for scholars of cultural studies, history, and sociology. The hope for this collection is to offer discussion of several concrete changes that have contributed to the shape of West Maui's social institutions and communities. The North Beach-West Maui Benefit Fund has supported a number of book projects focused on West Maui's communities and histories. This volume was preceded by, among other publication projects, Tourism Impacts West Maui (2016), Michelle Anderson's The Storied Places of West Maui: History, Legends, and Place Names of the Sunset Side of Maui (2015), Sydney Iaukea's Keka'a: The Making and Saving of North Beach West Maui (2014), Jon Van Dyke and Maile Osika's Public Access to the Roads and Trails of West Maui (2012), and a published compilation of Proceedings of the Charter Commissions of the County of Maui, 1966-2012 (edited by Lance D. Collins).

Contains summaries of statistics taken from reports filed by electric utilities with the Federal Power Commission.