The following exchange occurred at a meeting of the Maui Board of Water Supply on November 22, 2000. David Craddick, director of the Department of Water Supply, and Ellen Kraftsow, of the department’s Water Resources Division, are questioned by Board chairman Elmer Cravalho and members Robert Takitani and Jonathan Starr. County Planning Director John Min is present as well.
Mr. Takitani: Do you have any idea what outstanding commitment or value is, as to the outstanding permit requests, as to how many gallons that would equate toÉ?
Ms. Kraftsow: I think it’s in your staff reports right now.
Mr. Takitani: Tell me how much.
Ms. Kraftsow: It comes up to about a third of a million gallons.
Mr. Starr: In other words, equal to the `Iao Stream. Could I take that one step further? É I see we have the planning director here. I was wondering if he has any way of giving us an idea of how many housing units or meter units we’re looking toward, regarding development for which permits have been issued in South Maui, in Central Maui.
Mr. Min: I don’t have that information with me. We can put it together for the board.
Mr. Starr: I would like to see thatÉ.
Ms. Kraftsow: May I make one little clarification?
Chairman Cravalho: Yes, ma’am.
Ms. Kraftsow: The question that Mr. Takitani asked: Actually, that’s just water reservations that have been accepted. Because when we answer the Planning Department about permits, we tell them no guarantee of water is granted or implied. The number I’m giving you is outstanding reservations for water, but in terms of É permits and approvals, it would be high.
Mr. Takitani: Do you have any idea?
Ms. Kraftsow: We can put it together for you. É There are some large developments out there like Wailea 670, but we do kind of estimate – there have been no commitments of water yet, but we do estimate with each review what each thing would use. So we can go back and put together a back count. But it would take awhile.
Chairman Cravalho: Let me see if I understand you completely. Projects that may have been approved but without any water commitments – would that be a correct statement for me to make?
Ms. Kraftsow: I think so. The water is not considered guaranteed until they actually applied or received a meter.
Chairman Cravalho: Building permits may have been granted?
Ms. Kraftsow: Discretionary permits.
Chairman Cravalho: To your knowledge, has there been representation from the department into the meetings of the Planning Commission or Planning Department?
Ms. Kraftsow: We put this information in our letters and we make ourselves available for when they request them.
Chairman Cravalho: Has the department and/or staff expressed any kind of concerns with respect to any projects that have been planned or requests have been made for approval?
Ms. Kraftsow: We typically express concern, but what we found is that for a while we started recommending denials, and it wasn’t really paid attention to at the time. So we tried another tactic which was, ‘okay, we’ll give you an estimate of how much water we expect the permit would use.’ We have been doing that consistently for years now, so, ‘you guys are the land use decision makers, here is how much water it will take, you decide what is acceptable.’
Chairman Cravalho: In your judgment, do we have enough water to meet the potential consumption demand for all projects that have already been approved? É
Mr. Craddick: The answer is no.
Chairman Cravalho: Do we have enough water?
Mr. Craddick: The answer is no.
Postscript: Craddick told Environment Hawai`i that as of April, Planning Director John Min had not provided the Board of Water Supply with the requested information on approved developments in South Maui.
Volume 11, Number 11 May 2001
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