Group pulls plug on Hilo bottling plant
By MICHAEL BRESTOVANSKY Hawaii Tribune-Herald, July 18, 2023
A second attempt to build a bottling plant in Hilo has been abandoned after community opposition.
The 1893 Beverage and Kanaka Cafe was a proposed facility that would extract and bottle water from an aquifer beneath Hilo, the second such project in five years planned for the same site.
A draft environmental assessment for the project, published in April, proposed it would include a facility to bottle and sell throughout the state up to 200,000 gallons of artesian water per day, as well as an on-site cafe, located on a 2.5-acre parcel on Piilani Street behind the Manono Mini Mart.
But partners for the project announced Monday it has been dissolved after public backlash and a failure to receive support from key Hawaii County Council members.
“The 1893 Beverage Company manufacturing project has been dissolved due to the lack of support from the County Council,” according to a statement by Jeni Waipa, wife of DuWayne Waipa, president of Hawaiian Kingdom Brands, the business entity behind the proposed facility.
