Almost a year after the fatal Kaloko Reservoir dam breach on Kaua'i, landowners with agricultural interests are balking at adopting safety recommendations that they fear may cripple farming operations.

In the wake of the Kaloko disaster, which left seven dead, an outside consultant recommended the Legislature push through sweeping changes to Hawai'i's dam safety law, including tougher enforcement, stricter penalties for noncompliance with the law and greater state oversight of dam safety programs.

Many lawmakers, including those from Kaua'i, support the recommendations.

But several large landowners, including Kamehameha Schools, fear the changes would be expensive to implement, are not needed in all cases and could drive up the cost of water for marginal agricultural enterprises.

Lawmakers used a $250,000 report by engineer and attorney Robert Godbey as the basis for a bill that establishes a program to monitor and enforce the safety of dams and reservoirs across the state.

The House Judiciary Committee will hold a public hearing on the matter at Kaua'i Community College tomorrow afternoon after members tour the Kaloko site by helicopter.

'TRYING TO FIND BALANCE'

It would cost Kamehameha Schools $500,000 to comply with the regulations, said Kapu C. Smith, senior land asset manager for Kamehameha Schools' Kawailoa Plantation.

Smith said the reservoir that his plantation relies on has been classified as a high hazard dam "despite the fact that the inflows ... can be totally closed and breach of the reservoir has no potential for loss of life."

The Water, Land, Ocean Resources and Hawaiian Affairs Committee first attempted to appease landowners by cutting out most of the Godbey recommendations and sending an amended draft to the House floor.

However, the bill landed back in committee following objections from Rep. Hermina Morita, D-14th (Hanalei, Anahola, Kapa'a), who pointed out that the amendments had changed the definition of "dam" so much that "essentially a reservoir and dam structure like Kaloko wouldn't even be regulated."

"I was shocked ... because it didn't even address the issues that were in the Godbey report," Morita said.

Committee chairman Rep. Ken Ito said that in addition to protecting the public, the state has a responsibility to sustain "important agricultural lands."

"I'm trying to find a balance, and at the end, I decided that I went too far on the agriculture side and not enough on public safety," Ito said.

On its second pass, Ito's committee reinserted the recommendations that riled landowners. The committee then passed the bill.

After the Kaloko dam tragedy last March, lawmakers hired an independent consultant to perform a civil investigation rather than let state Attorney General Mark Bennett take charge, arguing that he might have a conflict if the state was at fault.

Godbey, whom Bennett chose from a list of names presented by a legislative committee, spread the blame for the Kaloko failure on landowner Jimmy Pflueger for filling in a spillway, the state and county agencies for not regulating and monitoring the dam and years of neglected maintenance.

COMPLIANCE COSTLY

The extensive report includes recommendations for a complete overhaul of the state's dam safety law.

Rep. Scott Saiki, who sits on Ito's committee, suggested that the safety recommendations should carry more weight than agricultural issues.

"We facilitated that report. We should follow those recommendations," Saiki said. "In this situation, public safety is more important than some of the landowner concerns."

But Alexander & Baldwin Inc. and Kamehameha Schools have testified that the dams on their properties are regularly maintained and the extra steps for compliance would be costly — and perhaps too expensive for farms that do not bring in much money.

"Dams and reservoirs that have been abandoned or are not actively used on a regular basis are more likely to be of concern than those which are actively used and monitored," Paul Oshiro said in written testimony on behalf of A&B.

Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com.