At the February 20 meeting of the Commission on Water Resource Management, commissioners and members of the public alike praised the Maui Department of Water Supply for the plan it had drafted with its consultant, Corolla Engineers, to conserve water and address water shortages in the county.
But there remains the question of whether private companies that control a large share of the county’s water delivery systems will buy into the plan, if and when its water conservation triggers and measures are adopted by the Maui County Council. The issue loomed large in the minds of commissioners during a briefing on the plan by DWS planning program manager Eva Blumenstein and Jessica Fritsche of Corolla Engineers.
“That really is a missing component to this plan,” commission chair Dawn Chang said.
Blumenstein said she had not yet received feedback on the plan from the water companies. The Water Commission’s drought and water conservation coordinator Neal Fujii added that he, too, had not heard from any of the private purveyors on their conservation efforts.
To some, the lack of input — at least so far — from the private purveyors underscored the value of the commission’s decision in June 2022 to designate the Lahaina Aquifer Sector, also known as Maui Komohana, as a ground and surface water area, which gives the commission control over water allocation.
Kapua Sproat, director of Ka Huli Ao Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law at the University of Hawaiʻi, pointed out during her testimony that the Maui DWS had opposed designation of Maui Komohana, arguing that a working group that included government agencies and the water companies would be a better approach to resolving water conflicts.
In Maui Komohana, “the county [system] is less than 30 percent of the water that is being provided. What is the status of that [working group]?” Sproat asked. “Coordination is going to be absolutely essential. If some of that is taking place, great. If the county rule isn’t amended and Eva isn’t able to enforce with respect to private purveyors, I think the Water Commission’s role with regard to water use permitting and the individual shortage plans is going to be even more important.”
Under the state Water Code, all water use permittees in designated water management areas must submit a water shortage plan to the commission for its approval.
Fujii explained that although a water shortage plan is not the same as a water conservation plan, “there are elements that are very similar and they blend into each other.” He noted that Maui’s shortage plan includes water conservation measures to be implemented during “Stage Zero,” before any well chloride or surface water triggers are met.
“That could be a model to follow,” Fujii said, adding that the Water Commission has some say in what individual shortage plans should look like when it issues water use permits.
Currently, Water Commission staff is processing about 140 water use permit applications that were submitted in response to the designation of the Lahaina aquifer sector, mostly for existing uses.
The Maui Plan
Although still in draft form, the DWS plan includes some very specific triggers and conservation targets and measures for Lahaina, Upcountry Maui, Central Maui, Hana, and Molokaʻi. For all areas, a Stage 1 shortage — the Alert stage — would require a mandatory 10 percent reduction in water use. Stage 2, which would be a severe shortage, would require a 20 percent reduction. Stage 3, a critical shortage, would require a 30 percent reduction.
The groundwater triggers for all sectors would be tied to “production-weighted” chloride levels in the well systems there and would not be tied to any single well. The chloride levels for Stages 1 (186 mg/L) and 3 (466 mg/L) were based on a 2012 USGS report on the Lahaina area describing when caution should be taken with regard to withdrawals and when an aquifer is actually threatened. When chloride levels are around the Stage 2 level, the well water begins to taste different.
The surface water triggers varied by sector: Hana and Molokaʻi had no surface water triggers. For the Lahaina area, the triggers were tied to estimates of how much water would be flowing in the streams in the next 10 days compared to the three-year average flow. For Upcountry, the trigger would be tied to reservoir levels. And for Central Maui, there would be just a Stage 1 trigger: when the average surface water production at the ʻIao water treatment facility was projected to be less than 50 percent of the mean over the next month.
The draft plan recommended nine actions during a Stage 1 shortage, including allowing landscape irrigation only two days a week and prohibiting the refilling of pools using potable water. Among the conservation measures implemented during a Stage 2 shortage, landscape irrigation would be allowed only once a week, no new permits for pools would be issued, and personal car washing would be prohibited. Cuts in agricultural uses of water in Stages 1 and 2 — 10 and 20 percent, respectively — would be voluntary at first and mandatory after 180 days of shortage.
During a Stage 3 shortage, landscape irrigation would be prohibited and there would be a moratorium or net zero demand implemented on new system connections, among other things.
After the plan is finalized next month, Blumenstein told the commission, the DWS intends to incorporate some of its measures into a bill before the Maui County Council. Currently, the Maui County Code specifies what indicators should be considered in a shortage, but does not address specific indicators for groundwater or include stages of a shortage, she said.
Responses to a shortage are left to the DWS director’s discretion and have varied over the years, leaving the DWS uncertain of its assessments and customers wondering whether the resulting restrictions are reasonable, she explained.
Although it’s required by the state Water Code, Blumentsein noted that Maui County has not yet developed plans for designated water management areas, including Molokaʻi, ʻIao, Nā Wai ʻEhā (in Central Maui), and the Lahaina Aquifer sector.
The plan is meant to address all of the county’s existing water use permits, as well as the permit the county is seeking for the Lahaina sector. “We wanted to brief [the commission] on the plan before we submit our water use permit for West Maui,” Blumenstein said.
The county’s water conservation program started in the 1990s and is more critical than ever, she said. “We face less rainfall, see lower stream flows …”
Assuming a high-growth forecast, the county would need to provide 55.6 million gallons of water a day to its Maui users by 2040, up from about 41.5 mgd as of 2022. With the proposed conservation measures, however, that number in 2040 would be only 44.5 mgd, she said.
Buy-In
Given that — at least in the Lahaina sector — private water companies provide most of the water, commissioner Wayne Katayama asked Blumenstein whether she had the ability to reach out to them, “or is this water plan just focused on only DWS resources?”
“Yes and no. We only have jurisdiction over our sources. We recognize this problem and challenge going back a decade and more. … It doesn’t matter who owns the source. We all lose if we are having a deteriorating aquifer or stream,” she replied.
She said the county is meeting with the larger purveyors in West Maui and the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands on Molokaʻi to see if they will buy into the county’s plan and whether contingency agreements could be put in place.
Any mandatory restrictions on water behavior that the county might adopt, such as an irrigation schedule, would not be able to be enforced against the private companies, she said. “We can’t pull their meter.”
“Who would be the organization responsible to ensure the water system remains intact? … Is there a compliance element to this? The more critical stages, especially if you’re in 2 to contemplating 3?” Katayama asked.
Commissioner Lawrence Miike interjected that the Water Commission has the power to limit the how much water permittees in a designated water management area receive, whether it be the county or a private user. “So at least from our side, we can do an overall reduction. That leaves it up to the purveyor to decide how to reduce their allotment,” he said.
Commissioner Aurora Kagawa-Viviani suggested the commission could try to foster greater discussion with the private purveyors. She noted that in Texas, where there are different irrigation districts, “you have people who are more progressive next to people who aren’t and the conservation in one district benefits another and there’s some inter-district tension because of it. The whole point of management is we consider all of these together. …
“Maui DWS is really aggressively tackling their shortage plan right now. It would make sense for us to think about our aquifer system area. … Maui DWS can encourage the other purveyors to do their part, but we also can and should.”
Tweaks
With regard to the contents of the plan, commission staff and members of the public suggested a number of changes.
Jonathan Likeke Scheuer, a consultant for the DHHL, and Wayne Tanaka of the Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi suggested that a trigger tied to any contamination of water sources also be included.
They and others also suggested that public trust uses be given priority when water restrictions need to be implemented.
If DHHL uses are public trust uses, what does it mean if they’re affected the same as non-public trust uses? Scheuer asked.
Sproat and CWRM hydrologist Ayron Strauch also recommended that the surface water triggers in the Lahaina sector not be tied to a three-year average flow.
A trigger tied to a percentage of the 3-year average daily flow “might not capture the acute stresses that are occurring on a three-week or four-week window, especially if there’s no storage,” Strauch said.
Sproat recommended a “hard floor” trigger for both surface and ground water.
Tanaka also suggested, among other things, that the county include lining its reservoirs as a conservation measure. The surface water triggers for Upcountry are tied to forecasted reservoir levels. Yet, Tanaka pointed out, the county depends on leaky, unlined reservoirs. “The reservoirs could empty themselves during long drought periods,” he said.
With regard to the recommendations that the county plan be amended to prioritize public trust uses, Commissioner Miike said he thought it would be better for the commission to address those issues. “We don’t want it to be put on the county or their plan will never move,” he said.
Commission Urges County System Use
For Temporary Housing on Maui
In the wake of the wildfire last August that devastated Lahaina town, killed more than 100 people, and left thousands homeless, federal, state, and county agencies have been scrambling to develop temporary housing sites.
The fact that the Lahaina aquifer sector is a designated water management area means that unless the temporary housing sites in West Maui are served by the Maui Department of Water Supply, they would be considered new uses. And that would mean they would have to file a water use permit application.
According to interim water deputy Dean Uyeno, commission staff has already received 140 water applications for the Lahaina sector, with about 120 of them for existing uses.
Water for temporary housing would be considered an existing use by the county, he told the commission at its meeting last month.
He was unable to tell the commission which proposed temporary housing sites, if any, would be affected.
“Things have been changing almost weekly, so I could tell you one thing today and it might be different tomorrow,” he said.
“We are encouraging them to try to utilize the county water supply to facilitate the process. Otherwise we would have to go through our 140 permits before we issue a new permit,” chair Chang said.
One site proposed for Kaʻanapali is served by Hawaiʻi Water Service, not the county, commissioner Kagawa-Viviani noted. She also pointed out that the aquifer that supplies water in that area, Honokowai, has a history of high chloride levels.
She asked whether the Kapalua site, which had a recent ground-breaking, was served by the county.
“Could be. We haven’t gotten the full details on that,” Uyeno replied. He also said Hawaiʻi Water Service does rotate its well pumping in response to upticks in chloride levels.
Chang stressed that what’s being considered is temporary housing that will be in place for just two to three years. “This effort is not intended to look at permanent affordable housing.”
— Teresa Dawson
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