David Chai

Many members have expressed concern about the condition of the Waiakauhi Fishpond, the pond next to the Residents’ Beach House.  David Chai, head of Natural Resources, spent time with me explaining what’s going on with the pond.

Waiakauhi Fishpond is an historic pond, which was used for keeping and raising fish for many decades.  Originally, some Hawaiian Kupuna (elders) recall walls and gates were installed to make sure baby fish could enter the pond through a walled channel and sluice gate. Once in the pond they would grow large eating pond algae and couldn’t escape back through the gate to the sea.  Those channel walls and gate were no longer around when Hualalai took over the property.

The pond is 10  parts per thousand saline.  Saline swimming  pools are about 3-4  parts salt and the ocean is 34 parts per thousand of saline.  Through tidal action, water moves within the pond, through the porous lava back to the sea.

During the tsunami in 2011 the waves broke the pathway and flushed into the ponds depositing enormous amounts of sand as well as taking most of the fish from the pond when the waves receded.  Three days after the tsunami sand built up and blocked the flow of water into the pond.   The pond, which was once waist to head deep throughout was now knee deep.  Thus, its drainage was reduced drastically.  Furthermore, the Awa fish, which were and still are the major algae eaters, were gone and no longer available from a government hatchery to restock the pond

There was discussion about replacing the old wall channel into the pond to allow water to flow back and forth from the sea, but everyone thought it would take forever to get the permits and there was a good chance the State would not allow it ever to be built.  So, the only thing that could be done is to start again trying to balance the pond as best as possible for long-term stability.

Waiakauhi Fishpond

Keeping in mind that the Algae nearly doubles in mass every 24 hours, David and his crew have been working on this problem since the beginning.  The best way to keep the algae down is to stock the pond with Awa fish.  Awa eat algae.  The problem is that it is very difficult to get Awa fish.  You can’t get baby Awa fish from the ocean; it’s too difficult.  So you need to farm the fish.  The only sources for Broodstock Awa right now are the ponds of Kona Village and Mauna Lani.  They only spawn in the summer and they have to be at least 10 years old and about 20 pounds in order to spawn.  Dave and his Natural Resources team have just a few months to help the Awa spawn.  They have to hand capture the fish, sedate them and inject them with hormones.  Then, hope that the male fish will fertilize the spawn with perfect timing. The NR Team along with a private commercial fish hatchery has been attempting this procedure every summer since 2012.  Dave hopes that by the end of 2016 he will have enough Awa to stabilize the pond.  Another fish that will help stabilize the pond are tilapia.  During the tsunami, the waves brought in tilapia.  Tilapia fish do eat algae and they are gaining in population and will help the Awa stabilize the ponds too hopefully by the end of 2016.   We currently have about a 1,000 tilapia but we need 10’s of thousands to have an effect.

Meanwhile Dave currently has two full time crew-members who work on the pond only.  Probiotic bacteria and an organic algaecide are added to pond on a regular basis to keep algae and odors down.  The algae removed from the pond are given to organic farmers upcountry, who are happy to use it as fertilizer.

Mike Sack