On May 20, the state Agribusiness Development Corporation\u2019s board of directors approved a new water user agreement that will require anyone drawing from the agency\u2019s Bott Well Pump Station to pay $0.89 per thousand gallons. The well, which has a 3 million gallons a day (mgd) capacity, currently serves 1,000 acres in the area. The ADC has a Commission on Water Resource Management permit to use up to 2 mgd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\tLarry Jefts\u2019 Kelena Farms, the largest tenant of the ADC\u2019s lands acquired from the Galbraith Estate several years ago, has for years been paying to pump and distribute the water to his farm and those of his neighbors, according to an ADC staff report. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The report explains that Jefts, a former ADC board member who the agency hired years ago to prep the Galbraith lands for farming, chose to provide the water himself because he thought it would be cheaper than what the ADC might charge. But as more farmers have received licenses to farm the former Galbraith lands, their well water needs are now too expensive for Jefts to shoulder anymore, the report states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ADC\u2019s plans to divert water from nearby Lake Wilson to irrigate the 3,000-plus acres it\u2019s bought from Galbraith, Dole Foods, and others have not yet panned out. So the farmers continue to rely heavily on the well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c[T]here is currently no additional assessment issued by ADC for water delivery largely in part due to the lack of water users, irrigation staff, and agreement or condition in the License Agreement that provides a structure for such an assessment,\u201d the staff\u2019s report states. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\tStaff had initially proposed charging the farmers $1.50 to $1.80 per thousand gallons of well water, but later reduced it to $0.89.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\tBefore the board unanimously approved the agreement, member Kaleo Manuel, who voted with reservations, questioned how staff had arrived at the rate it intended to charge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ADC\u2019s Ken Nakamoto did not say exactly how it arrived at $0.89\/thousand gallons. He said operating costs are unknown. \u201cAs it stands, the farmers are doing the operation themselves. We do the maintenance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To Manuel, who is also the deputy director for the state Commission on Water Resource Management, the rate and expected revenue from it seemed random. \u201cIt would give me more confidence if there was something to base the numbers off of,\u201d he said, adding that tenants would then have confidence and a good understanding of what they were paying for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most water systems are regulated in some way and usually have rules for how rates are set, he continued. \u201cI want to make sure we, as a board, are protected if disgruntled tenants \u2026 refuse to pay the fee. \u2026 These numbers don’t seem to come with justification. I know we\u2019re trying to keep rates low,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\t\u201cThat\u2019s the challenge. How do we keep it low and be able to accomplish maintenance [and handle] unforeseen damages,\u201d Nakamoto replied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\tManuel recommended that the ADC consider doing a cost of service study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ADC executive director James Nakatani explained that the water user agreement is a way to \u201cstop the bleeding.\u201d \u201cWe cannot subsidize the farms 100 percent. We followed the good advice from people like Kelena Farms. The board should just be patient with us. This is just a first step.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The original proposal to charge $1.50 to $1.80\/thousand gallons was based on another system\u2019s pumping costs. \u201cThat\u2019s pretty high,\u201d Nakatani said. \u201cWe just need to get a handle on this cost. \u2026 The idea is not to make a whole lot of money on the system, but at least break even and make some money for CIP [capital improvement projects] and projections. We need to move forward. Without some type of water rate structure, we\u2019re going to have a hard time with this project here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To Manuel\u2019s suggestion regarding a cost of service study, Nakatani agreed that it was a good idea. \u201cThe problem is, we\u2019re just between hops. We don\u2019t have all our farmers. We\u2019re still building out a system. We\u2019re taking our best guess from our biggest user. It\u2019s probably on the low side. We want to make sure, because this is agribusiness development, we want our farms to succeed. \u2026 We\u2019re not there yet. I think we\u2019re on the right track,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2014 Teresa Dawson <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On May 20, the state Agribusiness Development Corporation’s board of directors approved a new water user agreement that will require anyone drawing from the agency’s Bott Well Pump Station to pay $0.89 per thousand gallons. The well, which has a … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,351],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-12721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agriculture","category-eh-xtra","tag-teresa-dawson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}