In January, the Commission on Water Resource Management ordered several of the leeward O`ahu parties involved in the Waiahole Ditch contested case hearing to show cause why they should not be found in violation of a commission order limiting their allocation of Waiahole water.
In August 1995, the commission issued its Order No. 8 in the contested case – a document that established quotas for Waiahole water consumption, based largely on past use. On December 21, 1995, however, the commission “heard testimony from representatives of parties… that Waiahole Ditch water was being used on lands in excess of that authorized” by the commission in August, according to the commission’s “show-cause” order.
Specifically, the order notes that a witness for Pu`u Makakilo stated that 150,000 gallons a day of ditch water are being used for golf course purposes at Pu`u Makakilo, contrary to “the Commission’s Order No. 8 which did not authorize any continued existing use for Pu`u Makakilo.” It also cites testimony of a representative of Royal O`ahu Resort, Inc., who said 750,000 gallons a day of ditch water were being applied to resort lands, “despite the Commission’s Order No. 8 which authorized only 4,800 gallons a day…”
Also named in the show-cause order is Eiko Nakama, a “Robinson Estate lessee.” Nakama “testified in December that he was using Waiahole Ditch water to irrigate his banana patch” – again, contrary to the August order.
Waiahole Irrigation Co. was the fourth named party in the show-cause order. WIC, a subsidiary of Amfac/JMB Hawai`i, “is responsible for the monitoring and delivering of water in accordance with the Commission’s Order No. 8,” the show-cause order state. “Testimony from both Royal O`ahu Resort and Pu`u Makakilo representatives indicate that WIC received payments for the waters delivered to both parties.” A hearing on the order was scheduled for February 20.
BLNR Considers Withdrawal Petition
In January, we reported on a petition from the windward O`ahu groups to the Board of Land and Natural Resources, asking the BLNR for a determination that the Department of Land and Natural Resources should not have intervened in the Waiahole contested case. The Land Board has never authorized the intervention of the department, which has joined with leeward parties seeking to keep Waiahole water flowing to the leeward side.
The matter was taken up at the board’s public meeting on January 26.
The report on the petition was prepared for the Land Board by Division of Land Management staff, which recommended that the board “decline to act” on the petition. “The issues raised by the petition appear to have been presented by motion to the Commission on Water Resource Management in the pending Waiahole cases in June 1995,” states the report, prepared by staff planner Catherine Tilton. Tilton writes: “The Commission has deferred action on the motion; it has not refused to act. It would clearly be a more orderly and efficient way to proceed to allow the issues to be addressed at CWRM in the Waiahole cases than for the Board to deal with them.”
The board, in the end, decided to accept staff recommendation and declined to act.
Richard’s Recusal
On January 10, embattled Water Commissioner Herbert “Monty” Richards submitted the following one-sentence letter to Mike Wilson, chairman of the Water Commission:
“This is to formally notify you and the other Commission members that I am recusing myself from participation in the Waiahole combined contested case hearing.”
Richard’s recusal followed two months of controversy over apparent conflicts on interest arising from close business dealing with leeward parties in the case. (These were first described in the December 1995 issue of Environment Hawai`i, in the article titled “[url=/members_archives/archives_more.php?id=1149_0_29_0_C]Water Commissioner Holds Lease Of `Ewa Land from Campbell Estate[/url]” and the [url=/members_archives/archives_more.php?id=1118_0_29_0_C]Editorial[/url] of that month.) The fact that Richards also had concealed his holdings of $300,000 worth of stock in Dole – another leeward party – raised additional questions.
In October, long before the extent of Richards’ stock holdings was disclosed, Richards participated in a vote of the Water Commission to deny a petition to have the island of Lana`i designated as a water management area. At the time of that meeting, Richards noted that he did own some stock in Dole, which owns most of the island and which is using water from the island’s sole aquifer to irrigate its resorts there. However, he indicated it was a trivial amount – equivalent to “a pregnant ant on an elephant,” was how he described it.
In January, the Water Commission took up the Lana`i designation petition so that its decision could be made without the taint of Richards’ participation. The outcome was the same – denial, but the matter to be revisited in late spring when additional data are available.
And the Winner Is…
In the dispute over Lana`i water, agents of the resorts claim that the water they are using for irrigation is, at more than 200 parts per million chloride, too salty to be drinkable. Therefore, their argument goes, they are in compliance with the terms of conditions imposed by the Land Use Commission that they not use any “high-level” water.
Opponents claim that regardless of the salinity of the water taken for irrigation, the source of the water is the same aquifer that provides domestic water; to take any water, salty or otherwise, from the aquifer reduces the amount available for domestic use.
And, in any even, opponents claim, water no more brackish than what the Lana`i resorts are applying to their fairways and greens is elsewhere considered perfectly fit to drink.
This point was graphically illustrated in the course of the Waiahole contested case hearing on January 11. Representatives from the Honolulu Board of Water Supply brought the them samples of water from two very different aquifer systems. The Pearl Harbor aquifer sample was taken from a well at Waipi`o, O`ahu, and had a chloride content of a mere 30 parts per million. The sample taken from a caprock aquifer well at Honouliuli, on the other hand, had a chloride content of 200 ppm – at the upper reaches of what is considered drinkable.
Commissioners and others were invited to compare the taste of the two samples in a blind test, with the samples marked only “A” and “B”.
It was no contest. Everyone who participated preferred water from source “B.” The “A” water, one commissioner commented, “tastes like ditch water.”
The big surprise: The “A” water was from the “sweet” well. The “B” sample was the “undrinkable” brackish water.
Volume 6, Number 8 February 1996