Neil Abercrombie: “I would like to add to it by way of example, I hope illustrative of what might really be involved and what parallel…”

“I would like to add to it by way of example, I hope illustrative of what might really be involved and what parallel experiences others might have. I am going to cite the example of water. There is an assumption, an underlying assumption in this bill that questions about private property have already been resolved; that is to say, we know who owns what. I would suggest that is not always the case, not by a long shot. I would also suggest that if we go over the history, as we have in Hawaii, on water rights, who exactly owns the land where water coursing is concerned, where the water goes? What is the natural course that water takes? What if it is diverted? What if we have an historical situation, as we have in Hawaii, where plantations came into existence and literally changed the course of nature, took water from one place and took it to another place for economic purposes?”