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    A&B sugar plantation history on the Valley Island includes East Maui Irrigation Company, Limited, the subject of Hawaii’s most dramatic water story. It began in 1876, when construction started on the Hamakua ditch, built by Hawaiian sugar pioneers Samuel T. Alexander and Henry P. Baldwin.

    Although no longer in use, that ditch is the foundation for an extensive private irrigation system, which today stretches from the mountains of Nahiku in East Maui to the Maliko Gulch where the cane fields of the island’s central isthmus begin.

    Operating this system is EMI, oldest subsidiary of the corporation. It is successor to the Hamakua Ditch Company which was organized in November 1876, to share construction, ownership, and costs of water from the ditch. On June 23, 1908, EMI was organized by the HC&S and MA Co. plantations to manage their vast ditch and tunnel system in East Maui.

    The Hamakua ditch, dug through a rain forest, was 17 miles long and approximately six feet wide. It carried up to 60 million gallons of water a day. Today's system includes 74 miles of ditches and tunnels and numerous pipes and flumes, which together can collect and transport 450 million gallons of water a day. Water is diverted into the system from streams, through intakes; inverted syphons are used to cross wide gulches. There also are seven reservoirs which can store 274 million gallons.

    EMI collects, and stores, then delivers water to HC&S. The plantation has more than 35,000 acres of sugar cane under cultivation, and uses 126 billion gallons of water a year. More than half is supplied and distributed by EMI. EMI also shares the water it collects with the County of Maui. In addition to managing and maintaining the Waikamoi water collection system for the County Department of Water Supply, EMI annually provides a roughly equal amount to the county from its own collection system for a total annual average of 3 billion gallons to supply water to Upcountry farmers and residents, about a fifth of the island's population.

    The EMI system enjoyed its most vigorous growth in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Before the turn of the century, several ditches were added — Haiku, Spreckels, Center, Manuel Luis, and Lowrie. The New Hamakua, Kauhikoa and Koolau were built before World War I. The Wailoa ditch, last major construction, was completed in 1923.

    Some EMI projects over the years called for special expertise and courage from employees, reminiscent of qualities displayed by Henry P. Baldwin, who led his team into and across the treacherous Maliko Gulch a century before.

    The EMI system includes 62 miles of unpaved private roads — some cut along cliff sides — and miles of rugged walking trails. Radio telemetry provides instantaneous readings on ditch flows and the general status of the system.

    The vast EMI system is maintained by a small but skilled crew of employees, representing generations of "ditch country" families. Today, more than a century after its innovative beginnings, EMI continues to function as one of the most efficient water companies in the world.

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