this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2024
186 points (98.9% liked)

News

23296 readers
3408 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

In Hawaii, one of the most important sayings is ola i ka wai, "water is life" — a phrase that not only sums up what it means to exist on an island, but what it means to live, period. But now, one of the largest of the island chain's land masses is facing a triple threat to its sole freshwater source, and if it isn't addressed soon, one community member says, "we're in deep trouble."

Despite being surrounded by seemingly endless ocean, freshwater on Oahu, the third-largest of Hawaii's six major islands, is not easily accessible. The island relies on an underground aquifer for its water supply. Replenishing that aquifer is a decades-long natural process, as it takes a single drop of water roughly 25 years to make it there from the sky.

And recent years have seen compounding problems: less rain, leading to significant droughts, and repeated jet fuel leaks and PFAS chemical spills contaminating water systems. All of this significantly limits available water use for locals, many of whom say tourism is only worsening the situation. Just months ago, the world's largest surfing wave pool opened up on the island — filled with freshwater.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] MakePorkGreatAgain@lemmy.basedcount.com 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

healthy lo'i [water taro] system needs about 250,000 gallons per day per acre for it to be healthy

probably doesnt help at all. maybe grow things that are less water intensive?

I’d like to add some context as some people may take a misinformed meaning from this.

Lo’i are a small part of the deeply rooted native Hawaiian cultural tradition.

This culture integrates the idea of environmental responsibility so deeply that it is hard to describe in one comment.

For example, the Kingdom was divided into narrow triangles starting in the mountain and ending at the sea. Chiefs were responsible for the entire slice of the ecosystem. Fresh water was considered a sacred resource and being greedy would literally get you beaten to death.

Lo’i function to reduce erosion and the taro family was the staple crop of the islands before colonization. These work by constantly flowing water through them. You divert part of a stream, irrigate your shallow ponds, and return the water to the stream.

The rest of the article this comment doesn’t mention is how rainfall is becoming more sporadic - more dry days, and more heavy rain days where the water has no time to enter the watershed and just pours into the ocean.

While there is absolutely merit in adapting our current techniques to current conditions, this is ignoring the brutal colonization that killed over 90% of native Hawaiians and to this day diverts the profit produced by local labor back to the mainland while burning every last resource down.

There used to be entire forests of sandalwood there.