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Oʻahu is an island of lava and water. Neither can exist without the other. The land’s riches have attracted people for centuries; in fact, it was the first of the Hawaiian islands that colonizers set their eyes on in the 18th century. These days, it’s home to the state’s largest number of Native Hawaiians outside the mainland. These are their ancestral lands—lifeways that foreigners continue to desecrate.

Five years ago, the U.S. military contaminated the island’s waterways when underground storage tanks spilled over 180,000 gallons of toxic petroleum into the groundwater. People got sick and rose up to demand accountability. After public pressure, the U.S. government shut down the facility and removed most of the fuel from the site. In June, the U.S. Department of Justice finally reached a $17 million settlement with 3,600 people.

Mai Hall, a Native Hawaiian and military spouse whose family got sick from the water, is relieved to receive some material support to manage her children’s lifelong impacts—but money can never repair the harm to the land. Hall has been on the frontlines of fighting for her people and their water. Without her community’s voice, who knows where the crisis would be today.

Their efforts, however, are not over. Since the U.S. settler colonial project began 250 years ago, Indigenous lifeways have fissured, but resistance to empire is growing. As Hall says, “They took the land, they poisoned our water, and they’re not facing the consequences of their actions.” It’s past time that the U.S. government does. The water deserves more—in Hawai’i and beyond.

This interview has been lightly condensed and edited for clarity.

Yessenia Funes: I wanted to first ask you if you could ground us in where you are and describe the lands that helped shape you and your advocacy.

Mai Hall: What I’m hearing is a ho’olauna, or an introduction.

ʻO wau o Mai Kapuaoʻihilani Mei Lin. Noho au i ʻĀliapaʻakai, aka, hanau ʻia o Kalihi, ma kona o Oʻahu, ma Hawaiʻi. Which means aloha, my name is Mai, and I live in Salt Lake, which is called ʻĀliapaʻakai, but I was actually born in the ahupuaʻa of Kalihi in the district of Kona, on the island of Oʻahu.

Read the full article about Native Hawaiian water protectors by Yessenia Funes and Mai Kapuaoihilani Mei Lin Hall at Nonprofit Quarterly.