Hawaii First Water

NEW HAWAII STORMWATER UTILITY SPARKS STATE EXEMPTION DEBATE

(August 2021) By Justin Jacques, Water Environment Federation.  On the Hawaiian island of Oahu, efforts have been underway since 2015 to establish a stormwater utility that would charge each of the island’s property owners a monthly fee based on the amount of impervious area their land contains. The decision would provide Honolulu and its neighboring municipalities with a new, dedicated funding source for projects that aim to discourage flooding, protect local water quality, and enhance climate change resilience.

Randall Wakumoto, civil engineer for the City and County of Honolulu Department of Facility Maintenance (DFM), explained during a July 15 Water Environment Federation (WEF; Alexandria, Virginia) Stormwater Institute webcast that although the new utility would address “one of the biggest threats to the island’s sustainability and resilience,” the proposition of a new fee has faced considerable opposition. For example, in February 2021, members of the Hawaii House of Representatives introduced a bill that would exempt all state-owned properties from any fees imposed by the new utility.

Proponents of the exemption described in written testimonials that state-owned properties, particularly airports and harbors owned by the Hawaii Department of Transportation (HDOT), are already subject to an array of regulatory requirements for stormwater management and that an additional fee based on impervious space would be unnecessarily burdensome. Detractors, however, argued that exempting state-owned properties would place additional financial stress on Oahu’s residents, whose taxes currently make up roughly 75% of the City and County of Honolulu’s stormwater management budget. Financial documents from an advisory group driving the utility’s establishment state that residential properties own 85% of the island’s parcels, but only about 44% of its impervious area.

“The bill eventually died and was not passed during this year’s legislative session,” Wakumoto said. “However, it did shed some light on the subject of how a stormwater utility would affect various state properties, and what alternatives could be considered to allow for a working relationship to exist between the county and the state government.”

For the rest of the article…

How Water In Hawaii Became A Matter Of Public Trust

(September) By Chad Blair in Civil Beat.  Article XI, Section I of the Hawaii Constitution states that, for the benefit of all generations, the state and its political subdivisions shall conserve and protect all of its natural resources, including water.

Water along with land, air, minerals and energy sources are held in public trust, a major outcome of the 1978 Constitutional Convention.

And yet, in spite of this bedrock principle, battles over water rights continue through the present day, most recently and prominently seen in East Maui, where taro farmers and environmental groups have tangled with large developers and land owners for decades over diversion of stream water.

A new book, “Water and Power in West Maui,” written by Jonathan Scheuer, long active in helping groups manage environmental conflict and preserve resources, and Bianca Isaki, an attorney and director for the North Beach-West Maui Benefit Fund, reminds us that struggles over controlling access to fresh water are hardly limited to East Maui.

It’s a statewide issue, and it is fundamentally about “perpetuation of political and economic power and privilege,” as a blurb for the book accurately states.

See the rest of the article in Civil Beat here…

 

‘It’s Not Sexy’: Kahele Eyes Overdue Hawaii Projects For Biden’s Jobs Plan

April 2021/ Civil Beat, Nick Grube: Before U.S. Rep. Kai Kahele returned to Washington last week, he joined professional surfer Laird Hamilton for a boat tour of the Hanalei River on Kauai.

Hamilton pointed out the invasive hau bush along the riverbanks and talked to the congressman about the heavy rains that erode the hillsides and submerge the roadways, occasionally cutting off the tiny North Shore community from the rest of the island.

Kahele also witnessed the disappearing shorelines caused by coastal erosion and rising sea levels triggered by climate change.

Pro surfer Laird Hamilton gives U.S. Rep. Kai Kahele a tour of the Hanalei River on Kauai. Kai Kahele

A freshman lawmaker who sits on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Kahele wanted to see firsthand how Hawaii’s bridges, roads and highways were holding up so that he could report back to his colleagues how much money the state might need should Congress pass President Joe Biden’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan.

What Kahele saw, however, was not pretty.

In an interview with Civil Beat, Kahele described walking through a decades-old wastewater treatment plant that he thinks might be the “worst in the country” and visiting waterfronts where treated sewage is dumped onto the shoreline “right onto the rocks.”

“It’s not sexy,” Kahele said. “But if you saw what I saw you would know this is something we need to address.”

For the rest of the article see this link…

Water Scarcity: A National Security Challenge

April 2021:  (Comment:  here is a piece that I co-authored about the international dimensions of the freshwater scarcity problem and implications for US national security)

Climate change is responsible for an unprecedented rise in tropical cyclones and other extreme-weather events, but related threats are also manifesting. According to a February 2021 study, rising temperatures may be responsible for a six-month summer in the Northern Hemisphere by 2100. A longer summer means greater water consumption. (Remember running through the sprinkler as a kid? Those days may be numbered.) Higher temperatures may also fuel longer, more frequent droughts and alter rainfall patterns that further degrade the environment and disrupt the water cycle.

Combined with a burgeoning global population and increased water demand for agricultural and urban purposes, the United States must brace for dwindling supplies of fresh water domestically and worldwide. In an unclassified memo released last year, the National Intelligence Council projected global water usage to increase by as much as 50 percent by 2050 as the world’s population grows by 1.5 billion. Already, there are 2 billion people with limited or unreliable access to sufficient supplies of clean water, according to the memo.

The Intelligence Community’s attention to global water security is understandable. As the single most critical resource to public health, food supplies, and energy production, the scarcity of fresh water portends escalating international competition for its availability. A September 2020 study by the World Resources Institute recorded 2015 as the first year with more than 20 interstate conflicts over water resources; within three years, that number more than doubled.

here is a link to the rest of the piece…

International Tropical Islands Water Conference

April 2021: (Editor Comment:  This virtual UH sponsored water conference has a small fee for students, but has a very robust schedule of events which will be a “one of a kind” water educational event for Hawai’i)

This virtual event will be held April 12-15, 2021 from 11 am – 3 pm Hawaiʻi Standard Time*, and is organized by the Water Resources Research Center (WRRC, Hawaiʻi) and Hawai‘i EPSCoR ʻIke Wai at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, in collaboration with our partner water centers: the Water Environmental Research Institute of the Western Pacific, University of Guam (Water and Environmental Research Institute) and the Virgin Islands Water Resources Research Institute, University of the Virgin Islands (Water Resources Research Institute), and the Water Resources Research Act Program of the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

here is the link to website and registration page

Scientific breakthrough: First images of freshwater plumes at sea

March 2021: University of Hawaii: The first imaging of substantial freshwater plumes west of Hawaiʻi Island may help water planners to optimize sustainable yields and aquifer storage calculations. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa researchers demonstrated a new method to detect freshwater plumes between the seafloor and ocean surface in a study recently published in Geophysical Research Letters.

The research, supported by the Hawaiʻi EPSCoR ʻIke Wai project, is the first to demonstrate that surface-towed marine controlled-source electromagnetic (CSEM) imaging can be used to map oceanic freshwater plumes in high-resolution. It is an extension of the groundbreaking discovery of freshwater beneath the seafloor in 2020. Both are important findings in a world facing climate change, where freshwater is vital for preserving public health, agricultural yields, economic strategies, and ecosystem functions.

Here is the link to the original article…

EPA requires seven Kauai cesspools to be closed to protect groundwater, fines Hawai‘i DLNR again

(March ’21)

Four prior EPA enforcement actions against Hawai‘i DLNR have closed 74 cesspools, collected $407,400 in fines

03/04/2021
Contact Information:
Alejandro Diaz ([email protected])
808-541-2711

(Comment:  Closing “large” cesspools is a good start on closing the 90,000 individual cesspools on the islands by the State’s mandated 2050 goal)

HONOLULU – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has taken enforcement action on Kauai to direct the closure of seven large-capacity cesspools (LCCs) and collect $221,670 in fines from the Hawai‘i Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR). In 2005 EPA banned LCCs, which can pollute water resources, under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

“EPA has taken several actions against Hawai’i DLNR and encouraged them to conduct an audit of all remaining properties to identify any remaining illegal large capacity cesspools to prevent future fines,” said EPA Pacific Southwest Regional Director of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Amy Miller. “Large-capacity cesspools can contaminate our groundwater, streams and ocean resources. EPA will continue efforts to identify, fine and close all remaining LCCs in Hawaii.”

EPA is authorized to issue compliance orders and/or assess penalties to violators of the Safe Drinking Water Act’s LCC regulations. EPA’s enforcement action to close LCCs owned by DLNR is based on an August 2019 inspection and additional submitted information. The enforcement action includes the following DLNR properties:

  • Camp Hale Koa: Located in the Kokee Mountain State Park, EPA found three LCCs associated with the campgrounds. A non-profit organization leases the property from DLNR and operates the land parcel as a camping property that is available for daily or weekly group camping. These cesspools have been closed.
  • Waineke Cabins: Also located in the Kokee Mountain State Park, EPA found two LCCs serving the cabins. The United Church of Christ, under its Hawaii Conference Foundation body, leases the property from DLNR and operates the land parcel as a group camping property. These cesspools have been closed.
  • Kukui Street commercial property: Located in the town of Kapaʻa, EPA discovered two LCCs serving 4569 Kukui Street. aFein Holdings, LLC, leases the property from DLNR and operates the land parcel as a multi-tenant commercial property. The Kukui property must close the cesspool by June 30, 2022.

Since the 2005 LCC ban, more than 3,600 LCCs in Hawaii have been closed; however, many hundreds remain in operation. Cesspools collect and release untreated raw sewage into the ground, where disease-causing pathogens and harmful chemicals can contaminate groundwater, streams, and the ocean. Groundwater provides 95% of all local water supply in Hawaii, where cesspools are used more widely than in any other state.

How Efforts To Save Hawaii’s Forests Are Preventing A ‘Freshwater Crisis’

February ’21 repeat of an excellent September ’20 Civil Beat article by Claire Caulfield.  (Larry note:  this is a great report on why the forests play a major role in filling the aquifers in Hawaii)

When Serene Smalley hikes into the Koolau mountains, her goal is to kill as many plants as possible. Armed with a machete and syringes full of herbicide earlier this summer, her sights were set on the mule’s foot fern: a giant Jurassic-looking plant.

Smalley pulled out her cellphone, scrolling through a map app with hundreds of white pins. Each GPS marker pins the suspected location of a mule’s foot fern. A local conservationist spent weeks during the pandemic combing through satellite images and identifying the GPS coordinates of mule’s foot ferns on the mountain range.

Oahu Watersheds Poamoho Wahiawa Serene Smalley Invasive Fern

Serene Smalley uses a machete to fell branches of the fern before injecting a small amount of pesticide into the base of the plant.

Kuʻu Kauanoe/Civil Beat

To the untrained eye, a mule’s foot fern can look like a native plant, the hapuu fern. “The hapuu is very lacy and pretty,” she said, while the fond of the invasive fern is pointed. “Which reminds me of a snake.”

Some of the offending ferns are right off the Poamoho Ridge Trail near Wahiawa, but to reach others she will have to scale steep slopes in the rain. Smalley invested $60 in specialized shoes that look like hooves and have metal spikes embedded in the soles for traction. They were designed for fishermen and she uses duct tape to stabilize her ankles for the long hike ahead.

For six years Smalley has been scaling mountains, camping on remote peaks and navigating mudslides to kill thousands of non-native plants. She’s one of only about a dozen elite volunteers trusted by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources to assist in the dangerous task of eradicating invasive plants from the nearly 2.2 million acres of protected forests across the state.

“I can definitely see progress,” Smalley said. “It’s very, very rewarding.”

Oahu Watersheds Poamoho Wahiawa Summit Wide

Watersheds provide clean drinking water, carbon sequestration and help prevent floods and droughts. A University of Hawaii study estimated the Koolau Range provides between $7.4 billion and $14 billion in value to the state.

Kuʻu Kauanoe/Civil Beat

These volunteers, along with hundreds of state employees, dozens of environmental groups and an army of local hunters are fighting an uphill battle to protect Hawaii’s forests — and Hawaii’s drinking water.

Here is a link to the rest of this excellent article…

Hawaii’s Fresh Water Leaks to the Ocean Through Underground Rivers

(Nov ’20) By Matt Kaplan, NYT.

There are few things on the island of Hawaii that are more valuable than fresh water. This is not because the island is dry. There is plenty of rain. The trouble is that there is tremendous demand for this water and much of it that does accumulate on the island’s surface disappears before it can be used.

New research by marine geophysicists reveals that underground rivers running off the large island’s western coast are a key force behind this vanishing act.

Fresh water is often pumped on the island from aquifers formed from rain at higher elevations where it is easy to access. The drawback is that if too much water gets pumped to meet demand, little remains to travel through rocks to farms and fragile ecosystems that depend upon it. To make matters worse, recent studies of this water labeled with isotopes and tracked over time have revealed that these aquifers are also heavily leaking somewhere else.

“Everyone assumed that this missing fresh water was seeping out at the coastline or traveling laterally along the island,” said Eric Attias, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hawaii, who led the new study published Wednesday in Science Advances. “But I had a hunch that the leak might be subsurface and offshore.”

The big island of Hawaii is like an iceberg. Only a tiny fraction of the island sticks out of the ocean. The rest is submerged. To study the hydrogeology of these sections, Dr. Attias turned to electromagnetic imaging.
Ocean water conducts electricity exceptionally well because of the presence of dissolved salt ions. By comparison, fresh water is a rather poor conductor. Aware of these different electrical properties, Dr. Attias worked with a team at Scripps Institute of Oceanography to tow a 3,200-foot long system behind a boat that emitted electromagnetic fields down through the submerged coastal rocks near Hualalai volcano on the west coast.

 

ImageDr. Eric Attias and his team deploying the controlled-source electromagnetic sounding device off the coast of Hawaii.
Credit…University of Hawai’i

Dr. Attias’ work shows that within the rock of the island below the waves, there are underground rivers of fresh water flowing 2-½ miles out into the ocean. These rivers are flowing through fractured volcanic rock and surrounded by porous rocks that are saturated with salt water. Between all of this salt water and the flowing fresh water are thin layers of rock formed from compacted ash and soil that appear to be impermeable and thus keeping the two types of water separated. In total, these rivers appear to contain enough fresh water to fill about 1.4 million Olympic swimming pools.

For the rest of the article see

For Honolulu, Rising Seas Deliver Flood Risks Three Ways

OCT 2020/Brett Walton, Circle of Blue/

Build a wall?

The biggest source of flooding linked to sea-level rise for Hawaii’s capital city comes not from the sea itself. It comes from underground.

It seems like an intuitive response for protecting a coastal city from rising seas. Just raise your external defenses. But the intuitive response, in certain cases, is also the wrong response, says Shellie Habel.

If the plan to prevent flooding in a city like Honolulu were to be simply block the ocean, “it’s not going to work,” Habel told Circle of Blue. Water has other, less obvious ways of invading, and that stealth movement has implications for water pollution and transportation in Hawaii’s largest city.

Habel is a coastal geologist with the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources and Hawaii Sea Grant. She is the lead author on a study that investigated three flooding pathways in Honolulu, all of which are a consequence of rising seas. The study is the first to attribute the percent of flooded area in the city that is due to each factor individually and in combination. The likelihood that floods will come from multiple pathways simultaneously — and cause more infrastructure damage — rises along with the seas.

In Honolulu’s case, a sea wall would be a losing strategy against sea-level rise because a wall would not address the most serious flooding problem. The largest source of inundation for the city’s roughly 350,000 residents is not the ocean. It’s groundwater.

Habel and her colleagues found that little more than 2 to 3 percent of flooded area in Honolulu’s urban core is a result only of overland marine flooding. That range holds for the four sea-level elevations that the study looked at.

Groundwater flooding, by contrast, is the predominant individual source of flooding. How does this happen? Groundwater in the coastal region is hydrologically connected to the ocean. When the Pacific swells, so does the inland water table.

A hypothetical wall on the Honolulu waterfront would fail to prevent flooding, Habel said, because water would still bubble up from underground and come through backed up storm drains, which are the third flooding pathway. Groundwater flooding today swamps basements and roadways in low-lying areas and is noticeable in underground parking garages.

“So even if you put in a sea wall, even if you change the type of drainage management, you still have flooding,” she said, adding that a solution that only addresses marine flooding will not work because 97 percent of the total area that is projected to flood will still flood from rising groundwater and storm drain backups. Places like New Orleans and cities in the Netherlands, which also have groundwater flooding problems, employ pumps for that purpose. “In order to mitigate all the flooding you have to adapt to all three pathways.”

For the rest of this article see…