Last October, the Commission on Water Resource Management granted permission to Waiawa Development, LLC and Kamehameha Schools to withdraw roughly one million gallons of water a day from the Waipahu-Waiawa Ground Water Management Area in Central O`ahu.<\/p>\n
Over objections from the Sierra Club, Hawai`i Chapter, and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, CWRM approved the issuance of two new well permits for the water, which will be used to irrigate Waiawa\u2019s golf course, the centerpiece of its Gentry Master Planned Community.<\/p>\n
Originally, landowner Kamehameha Schools had sought Waiahole Ditch water for the golf course. But with Waiahole water still the subject of an ongoing contested case, KS decided to abandon its surface water request and seek only a groundwater permit.<\/p>\n
The permits first came to the Water Commission for approval on August 17. At that meeting, the Sierra Club and OHA submitted testimony suggesting that the wells, if allowed, could potentially affect the salinity of wells down gradient.<\/p>\n
Barry Usagawa of the Honolulu Board of Water Supply added that his agency also had concerns about the effects of pumping mauka wells on water quality in lower wells.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t know the impact at this point. We know the aquifer is fairly thick and we will probably not see those kinds of impacts for a number of years. But the way I think we could resolve this is to continue to monitor the situation, monitor the chlorides and well yields,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
OHA noted that golf course irrigation is a non-public trust use in a designated water management and should not be approved until a comprehensive plan for native Hawaiian uses, among other things, is developed.<\/p>\n
Sierra Club-Hawai`i executive director Jeff Mikulina objected to the use of high-quality drinking water for golf course watering and recommended the developer use reclaimed or recycled water.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it\u2019s not available yet, maybe we wait for it to happen. Maybe we wait for the entire Waiawa development to be complete where they put in those facilities and create the R1 [recycled] water. Or maybe we use this sort of desire for golf course irrigation to help leverage those facilities, perhaps a regional facility in Central O`ahu,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
OHA and Mikulina also opposed issuing the well permits without updated state and county water plans.<\/p>\n
Mikulina said that an updated Hawai`i Water Plan and O`ahu integrated resources plan would provide context for future water withdrawals, \u201cespecially for our overtapped aquifers at Pearl Harbor.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t like this idea of planning by conditions where you just go until you hit something, and then you go in another direction,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
CWRM staffer Lenore Nakama said she believed the permit\u2019s standard conditions were sufficient to protect the public trust. \u201cShould public trust purposes be competing in the future, the commission can revoke permits,\u201d she said, noting that the sustainable yield of the aquifer is estimated at 20 million gallons a day.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe permit is approved with the understanding that treated wastewater will become a source, provided the Department of Health has no problem with its use over a potable aquifer,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Water Commissioner Lawrence Miike expanded on Nakama\u2019s argument.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy understanding of public trust purposes is there is no absolute priority, one way or the other\u2026 The Sierra Club, or whoever\u2019s asking for things to be set aside [before] you deal with other issues, that\u2019s not a correct reading of the law. But when the issues come up, we can always take water away from permittees if it\u2019s shown that the presumption in favor of a public trust purpose can\u2019t be overcome\u2026The law does not require us to set aside resources in perpetuity for a particular purpose,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Patrice Liu, project director for Waiawa Development, LLC, noted that the amount of water her company was requesting is less than the Water Commission\u2019s guideline of 4,000 gallons per acre per day for golf courses.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur plan is to convert to R1 effluent when it comes available in central O`ahu,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Although Miike didn\u2019t object to using effluent as a future alternate source, he was annoyed by the fact Waiawa was no longer considering using Waiahole Ditch water.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne can\u2019t just refuse to consider an alternative\u2026,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
An attorney representing Waiawa attempted to explain: \u201cThe problem is, we can\u2019t apply for Waiahole Ditch water \u2026 because we have been instructed by Kamehameha Schools that we cannot.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Water Code requires those seeking water permits, whether for surface water or ground water, to evaluate practical alternatives first. And during the Waiahole contested case hearing, the issue had been raised that ditch water could be considered an alternative to ground water, and vice versa. KS and Waiawa chose to resolve that dilemma by withdrawing the request for Waiahole water.<\/p>\n
Miike, who is also the hearing officer for the Waiahole case, said, \u201cIt\u2019s a funny way of trying to get around the law of doing a practical alternatives test\u2026 Underlying this, I know what kind of trouble you\u2019ll get into if you apply for Waiahole ditch water given the history of the Waiahole ditch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Waiawa representatives noted that during the many public hearings on Waiahole, testimony was overwhelmingly opposed to Waiawa\u2019s use of ditch water as an alternative.<\/p>\n
Miike countered, \u201cThat doesn\u2019t meet the practicality test. That meets the people are mad test. We face issues all the time\u2026.If you want to avoid controversy, that\u2019s one of the issues, but it doesn\u2019t meet my test of practical alternatives.\u201d<\/p>\n
The commission ultimately voted to defer acting on the permits that day because of reservations raised by the Board of Water Supply about drilling new potable water for golf course irrigation.<\/p>\n
Usagawa had suggested that Waiawa use existing potable wells on site instead of drilling new wells.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be able to encourage the use of recycled water, it\u2019s important that a golf course does not have its own private wells\u2026,\u201d he said. \u201cOur experience in `Ewa really points this out.\u201d Once a developer gets comfortable using its own private wells, Usagawa said, it doesn\u2019t really want to incur the costs of switching to recycled water when it becomes available. The BWS, then, ends up subsidizing a lot of recycled water use. (Recycled water users pay just one-fifth of the cost to process the water, he noted.)<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not recovering our costs,\u201d he said \u201cIn trying to leverage golf courses to use recycled water, if they\u2019re a BWS customer, then we can switch them over\u2026Making them a customer is better for us.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this commission allows them to drill their own well, they become the developer and could step back and sell the property with the well. Then we have to deal with the [new] developer to try to bring recycled water to the course and they don\u2019t have financial capacity\u2026 and the BWS has to do the rest and we probably will not do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
When commissioners asked whether the county had an ordinance requiring the use of recycled water if it\u2019s available, Usagawa said that \u201cavailable\u201d is a very broad term. \u201cIs it next door? Is it affordable?\u201d<\/p>\n
After the August meeting, BWS and Waiawa later came to an agreement that Waiawa must use alternatives to potable water when they become available, and the Water Commission, including that as a condition of the well permits, approved the withdrawals at its following meeting in October.<\/p>\n
— Teresa Dawson<\/p>\n
Volume 16, Number 6 December 2005<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last October, the Commission on Water Resource Management granted permission to Waiawa Development, LLC and Kamehameha Schools to withdraw roughly one million gallons of water a day from the Waipahu-Waiawa Ground Water Management Area in Central O`ahu. Over objections from … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[128,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-december-2005","category-water"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489","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=1489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}