Days before the departure of the Big Island administration of Mayor Harry Kim, the Hawai`i County Planning Department released draft guidelines for monitoring water quality in West Hawai`i. The \u201cRevised Monitoring Protocol Guidelines\u201d would, if adopted, establish more uniform reporting standards for developers and other large landowners whose Special Management Area permits include water-quality monitoring requirements.<\/p>\n
\tAs the document explains, the need for uniform, consistent data on marine life and water quality was identified more than a decade ago in meetings of the West Hawai`i Coastal Monitoring Task Force. Guidelines developed back then have been used since to evaluate water quality monitoring plans submitted by SMA permit applicants.<\/p>\n
\tBut the reaction to the November draft has been mixed. While some officials praise the proposed guidelines as a huge step forward, the responses of others, including permit holders, have been cooler.
\n\tAmong those welcoming the proposal is Bill Walsh, the aquatic biologist in Kona who works for the state Department of Land and Natural Resources\u2019 Division of Aquatic Resources. \u201cA lot of the existing monitoring is piecemeal, hodgepodge,\u201d Walsh told Environment Hawai`i.<\/i> Walsh praised county planner Dana Okano, who was in charge of the project, for taking that and achieving \u201cquite a convergence of methodologies\u201d in the draft guidelines.<\/p>\n
\tIn Honolulu, Watson Okubo, with the state Department of Health\u2019s Clean Water Branch, was more skeptical. \u201cMy initial impression is, it\u2019s rather ambitious,\u201d Okubo said in a telephone interview. \u201cSo much so, I\u2019m asking, what are they doing all of this for? What are they trying to accomplish? If you do everything that\u2019s in there, it\u2019ll cost somebody a lot of money.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tIn fact, Okubo seemed skeptical about the very need for monitoring water quality in West Hawai`i at all. \u201cThe water quality is such that, it\u2019s good quality already,\u201d he said. \u201cTo me, I think the developers or whoever owns these companies should be asked to spend money in other areas that would help the environment. When you talk about water quality and compare Kona water with O`ahu water, it\u2019s like night and day\u2026. On O`ahu, it seems any good rain will turn Kaiaka Bay turbid and yucky. Look at Ke`ehi Lagoon \u2013 a little rain makes the place look like soup. So, generally speaking, Kona is pretty clean.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Need for Change<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n
In 2004, the county asked the University of Hawai`i at Hilo Marine Science Department to evaluate the data collected by SMA permit holders in West Hawai`i. Thirteen projects were identified as having a monitoring component in their SMA permits. Of those, however, monitoring reports from just three \u2013 Waikoloa resort, the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawai`i Authority, and Hokuli`a, the controversial agricultural subdivision \u2013 \u201ccontained sufficient data over a sufficient duration to evaluate temporal trends for water quality and compliance with [Hawai`i Department of Health] water quality standards; none of the other developments even came close to having sufficient data for these types of analyses.\u201d (Actually, the reports from NELHA stopped in 2002. For the period 2002 through 2006, NELHA did not file timely annual reports, and instead make up the deficiency with one huge make-up report in March 2007. As of mid-December, it was again in arrears on its reports.)<\/p>\n
\tAfter two years of work, in April 2006, the university evaluators made three recommendations to the county:<\/p>\n
\tFirst, the guidelines developed in 1992 should be \u201crevised, amplified, enhanced, adhered to, and enforced,\u201d with the guidelines being provided to developers before they apply for SMA permits.<\/p>\n
\tSecond, \u201ca countywide coastal water monitoring program needs to be developed to monitor long-term environmental changes at existing and future developments.\u201d This, the report said, \u201cwill provide crucial data for evaluation of environmental conditions and impacts on coastal resources and water quality. We suggest that the program be directed by Hawai`i County and funded from fees charged to existing and future resorts and developments in West Hawai`i.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tFinally, \u201cHawai`i County needs to develop an anchialine pond protection\/ management program. This program would include a) an enforcement policy of no net loss of ponds on both public and private lands, b) conducting an island-wide inventory of anchialine ponds, and c) establishing water quality standards for ponds. Without development of an anchialine protection\/ management program, anchialine ponds will most likely disappear within the next two decades.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tAgainst this background, Okano, a planner hired by the state Coastal Zone Management Program but working for the county, organized a series of stakeholder meetings in April 2008. The November draft guidelines were the initial outcome, but whether the project will be pursued by the new administration of Mayor Billy Kenoi is an unanswered question.<\/p>\n
\tFormer county Planning Director Chris Yuen said he did not know what his successor would do. \u201cI know the direction we were on,\u201d he said in a telephone interview. \u201cThe genesis of this was, the county collects all this water quality monitoring data\u2026 I wanted to see if there were any trends and have an independent review of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe UHH Marine Science Department, which undertook the review, suspected there might be a trend to increasing nutrients, particularly nitrates, Yuen said, but the data were insufficient to be definitive.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThe principal recommendation was to go back to the 1992 monitoring protocols that had been developed and agreed upon by the various players, but had not been acted upon.\u201d While many of the chemical parameters of water quality were being regularly monitored by the SMA permittees, \u201cit wasn\u2019t comprehensive or consistent,\u201d Yuen said. And biological monitoring at both the micro- and macro- scale was seriously lacking, he said.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIt was clear we couldn\u2019t just simply adopt the 1992 protocols,\u201d he added. The draft that was released just as Yuen was leaving office \u201cwasn\u2019t an ultimatum,\u201d he said, just \u201ca firmer draft of what we would want to do.\u201d It was sent out to stakeholders for their reactions and input, he said. The idea wasn\u2019t to increase the burdens on SMA permit holders, he said: \u201cIf we don\u2019t understand the burdens of this monitoring, they need to let us know. It\u2019s still a matter of discussion, but the idea is to make it standard and get a little more in the way of field observation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alarm<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n
Ron Baird, administrator of the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawai`i Authority, signaled his alarm over the draft at the December meeting of the NELHA board. NELHA\u2019s two SMA permits require extensive water quality monitoring, most of it chemical. Baird said that although he had been able to economize by eliminating two positions in NELHA\u2019s water quality laboratory, \u201cunder the draft water quality monitoring plan \u2026 the environmental monitoring program here would have to be substantially expanded\u2026. We will probably have to add a couple of positions in our water lab and begin a more intense monitoring program.\u201d The costs, he said, would be charged to all tenants.<\/p>\n
\tBaird also disparaged the need for the proposed changes. At the April meeting, he said, \u201cthere was considerable discussion by our staff, Dr. [Steve] Dollar, Dr. [Richard] Brock [water quality consultants], about this unrealistic academic proposal\u2026. When the draft report came out, all those concerns were totally missing, they weren\u2019t even referenced.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe new protocols involve \u201ca substantial amount of proposed clinical tests \u2013 frankly busywork \u2013 dissolved nitrogen, total nitrogen,\u201d Baird said. \u201cSome of these tests are totally without any reason. Some of these tests the Department of Health has said. these don\u2019t do any good at all, why would you test for these?\u201d<\/p>\n
\tBaird urged members of the NELHA board to push back against the draft guidelines. Board Chairman John DeLong seemed willing to oblige: \u201cIt sounds like we need to mount a lobbying effort, some kind of educational effort, so we don\u2019t incur needless expenses that we\u2019re passing onto tenants that clearly don\u2019t benefit the environment\u2026. Where should we focus our efforts?\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWith the new county planning director,\u201d Baird said.<\/p>\n
\tBobby Command, Mayor Kenoi\u2019s new executive assistant for West Hawai`i, was attending his first meeting as the county\u2019s representative on the NELHA board. \u201cI don\u2019t know how urgent this is,\u201d he said at the meeting. \u201cThe new mayor hasn\u2019t selected a planning director. I suggest we wait.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tBaird acknowledged that the new administration might not pursue the previous planning director\u2019s initiative. Still, Command was charged with finding out what the Kenoi administration\u2019s intentions were and reporting them back to NELHA.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThis is something I should get educated on, and brief you on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\tIn mid-December, Environment Hawai`i<\/i> asked Command what the administration\u2019s position would be on the guidelines. Command, who was a reporter with West Hawai`i Today<\/i> before joining the county, said he still needed \u201cto get up to speed on that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Monitoring Elsewhere<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n
When it comes to monitoring as a condition of permits for the SMA, which are issued at the county level, Hawai`i County seems to have taken the lead with the guidelines for West Hawai`i. A staffer with the City and County of Honolulu Department of Planning and Permitting said that that agency had no guidelines. Thorne Abbott, who is the CZM planner for Maui County, said that \u201conly a couple of projects\u201d in the Wailea-Makena area have water quality monitoring requirements included as SMA permit conditions, but the county had no uniform protocol for collecting the data. (Abbott, by the way, had high praise for the efforts of Hawai`i County, and particularly Dana Okano, to improve monitoring efforts in West Hawai`i.) In Kaua`i, a staff person with the county Planning Department CZM program said that the county had nothing similar to the West Hawai`i monitoring protocol, but it was certainly an idea that was worth considering.<\/p>\n
— Patricia Tummons<\/p>\n
Volume 19, Number 7 January 2009<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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