KAHULUI — Whether his opinion was wanted or unwanted, for more than half a century, David "Buddy" Nobriga has been on target when water and the effects of water were the topic, The Maui News reported.

The only opportunity he missed was when someone suggested that the family business, Maui Soda & Ice Works, should move into bottled water. Nobriga passed. Why, he asked, would anyone want to pay for water in a bottle?

Since 1956, he's been on the board of the West Maui Soil & Water Conservation District, trying to control the floods coming out of the West Maui Mountains, the Maui News reported. He's also a former chairman of the Board of Water Supply (a post his son Mike also held), and his name — as David, although only strangers call him that -—is on the final report of the state Commission on Water Resource Management on the Waiahole Ditch contested case.

It would take a whole column on this page to list everything else he's been involved in. At a testimonial dinner last week to mark his retirement as chairman of the West Maui SCWD, cattleman Lindy Sutherland, one of the toastmasters, said he was going to get all his stories about Buddy out that night, because there were 20 other organizations listed on the "Mahalo Buddy" list.

"I not going to 19 more."

The short list has to include St. Anthony School, Kiwanis, Boy Scouts, the Maui County Fair and the Hawaii Cattlemen's Association. In the community, the Nobriga family is known for cattle, ice for big events, Coke and Roselani ice cream.

Although Nobriga is never seen without his smile, he is outspoken about things he disapproves of, and he has been a persistent and tough in-fighter in one important public policy issue after another for two generations. When interviewed in his office in Kahului last week, he had a copy of A. Gavan Daws and George Cooper's "Land and Power in Hawaii" on his desk. He had been asked by the commission commemorating the 50th anniversary of statehood for a statement, and he was refreshing his memories.

One of his favorite stories about getting things done concerns federal money for the first big erosion project he got involved in, after the disastrous Napili floods 40 years ago. Conservation districts had to compete to get to the top of a priority list for federal money, and Nobriga had the idea of visiting all the condominiums in the area (as well as civic groups) to ask them to write their congressmen. The result was better than even he expected.

He got a call from one of Sen. Daniel Inouye's staffers asking, "What did you do? We are getting letters from congressmen in New York and all over asking about this gulch in Maui."

Nobriga didn't win 'em all. He still thinks the voters made a mistake in 1978 and again in 2002 when they changed the county charter to demote the semiautonomous Board of Water Supply (BWS) to an advisory body, with decision-making authority transferred to the mayor and County Council.

As a farmer - formally, a rancher, but he says, "We're all grass farmers now" - he worries about taking surface water away from agriculture for domestic purposes, especially in view of the petitions to restore water to steams in West and East Maui.

On the BWS, he spearheaded the drive to drill wells in Waikamoi, where he says there are "40 million gallons (a day) of almost distilled water" available, with no contamination problems, since the land was never farmed.

Environmental protests tied up that project, and when Alan Arakawa was mayor he settled a lawsuit by the Coalition to Protect East Maui Water Resources by agreeing to scuttle the East Maui water development plan. In exchange, in Arakawa's view, he got use of two wells at Hamakuapoko. However, the County Council later capped those wells because of DBCP contamination, eliminating an option for supplementing Upcountry water systems in times of drought.

Nobriga has a big fund of stories about how the county has messed up projects. The West Maui SWCD laid out areas where storm waters would go, and "the county allowed subdivisions in them."

He's had equally frustrating encounters with businessmen and academics, too.

The SWCD held up the construction of Kapalua Resort for a while. It's a complicated story, but the late Colin Cameron of Maui Land & Pineapple Co. brought in an Arizona "hotshot" to develop the project. The manager was a doctor, "of what I don't know."

"He'd never seen hills like we have, where it goes from 6,000 feet to sea level in seven miles. I think he took us as little country boys."

At any rate, there was an old mango grove of 30 acres, planted by D.T. Fleming, that was being converted to pineapple. Pine is plowed deep, Nobriga knew, and he advised the hotshot not to open more than five acres at a time in case a heavy rain should fall.

He was ignored, the rain did fall and a flood of mud swept through the Napili Kai Beach Club. Eight thousand cubic yards of muck and most of a restaurant ended up in Napili Bay.

That led to the creation of the Honolua watershed project. The hotshot was replaced, and Cameron became a big ally of the SWCD.

About that time, Congress mandated grading plans in USDA conservation districts, and led by Nobriga, the West Maui district got involved in getting the county to establish standards. SWCDs in other parts of the state held back, he said, unwilling to take responsibility.

They claimed that as volunteers, they couldn't take the risk. Nobriga wasn't afraid. Relying on the technical expertise of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, he insisted that projects pass under WMSWCD review. Over the years, he passed verdicts on a lot of maps for development.

"I sign and tell the county it's all right."

The county didn't always keep up with the warnings that the district entered on the maps, but in general he feels West Maui is better off for it.

He considers some of the other volunteers serving on SWCD boards as shirking their duties.

"They seem to be in it just for the trips . . . Only us on Maui accepted responsibility."

Perhaps it's the smile, but despite his frank talk, Nobriga is popular with a wide range of statewide organizations, serving on the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources Board of Advisors and as an officer in numerous agricultural groups.

He's been equally insistent about hard work with his own children.

"All five. They'll tell you, 'Don't work for your father.' ''

However, all five do, and now he has great-grandchildren beginning to learn the ropes on the ranch and in the ice house.

Garret Hew, who heads East Maui Irrigation Inc. and has worked with Nobriga for years, says, "He was always a community leader, he wanted to help people."

For more Maui news, visit www.mauinews.com.