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<br />Charter, they serve and advise the County Council, and would like to know how the Council <br />feels about receiving input from them on subjects that are gray areas right now. <br /> <br /> Chair Bennett said they will take the matter of changing their scope to <br />Councilmember Richards. He will contact him to set up a meeting. Commissioner Gaffney <br />suggested Councilmember Villegas be included. <br /> <br />d. Discuss a recommendation that the Department of Environmental <br />Management apply for a National Pollution Discharge Elimination <br />System (NPDES) permit for the Soil Aquifer Treatment (SAT) pond <br />operations of the Kealakehe Wastewater Treatment Plant R-1 Upgrade <br />Project. <br /> <br /> Chair Bennett said he had asked former Honolulu Councilmember Steve Holmes to <br />speak to them on this agenda item, as he has some experience with it. <br /> <br /> Mr. Holmes said he sat on the Honolulu city council from 1991 to 2003 and was the <br />energy and sustainability coordinator under Mayor Harris. He has dealt with many of the <br />issues the EMC has been talking about. Honolulu has faced massive lawsuits brought by <br />plaintiffs such as The Sierra Club. He said the County of Hawaiʻi has an NPDES legal issue <br />today, in that wastewater is going into the sump, and it has been shown to eventually reach <br />the coast and nearshore waters. An NPDES permit is needed today, and will also be needed <br />for the planned SAT ponds. The county is in violation of the Clean Water Act today, and he <br />wants to make this clear to everyone. <br /> <br /> Mr. Holmes said the Maui case is potentially going to go to the U.S. Supreme Court. A <br />whole lot of money is being spent in lawsuits rather than in fixing the problem. Honolulu <br />violated NPDES permits thousands of times and faced huge potential fines. Merely having <br />an NPDES permit does not get you off the hook. What gets you off the hook is when you <br />recycle water rather than dumping it into a hole in the ground. The county could avoid <br />having to dump the water into an SAT pond if storage were included as part of the <br />infrastructure of the R-1 project. <br /> <br /> Regarding the department’s lack of staff, Honolulu had the same problem and had to <br />gear up big time because of lawsuits. Honolulu had the same limitations the county is <br />facing today in terms of civil service hiring. To resolve it, they brought in consulting <br />engineering firms, which allowed them to beef up and quickly meet court mandated <br />deadlines. The county has a lot of legal authority to address these things. Given the <br />challenges, innovative solutions are needed. He urged them to work with the Council, and <br />he said he would volunteer his time to do so, since he is a former councilperson. He would <br />have flexibility the EMC does not have and would be glad to help. <br /> <br /> Mr. Holmes said another issue is that the county has liability under the Public Trust <br />Doctrine. He spoke about how the former Hilo WWTP was in very bad shape and was not <br />even doing primary treatment. The tanks were impacted to half their height with solid <br />sludge and were non-functional. He filed a lawsuit and the courts saw it his way. The <br /> <br />