2020-08-26 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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but administrative rule changes. However, the code regarding private laterals could be done as an individual piece. Commissioner Fulton said it would be worthwhile to prioritize it. • He does not have an update on a tracer/dye study, but it will be a tracer study, as dye is more visual than a tracer in his opinion. They have checked on prices, and it will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, so a budget will be needed. No progress has been made other than checking with available contractors who have done it before. He said Dr. Bennett may want to provide his testimony at this point. Rick Bennett: The standard for this type of investigation has been created by what was done in Maui County by the University of Hawaiʻi. And I take a little pause in requiring that this test be visual to the human eye. The assessment of these tracers in Maui was done with spectrophotometry, because at these lower concentrations it’s not detectable to the human eye. I’m reminded of a tracer study that was done by DOH in the early 2000s, when they poured some dye in there and sent staff out to the coast, and they were looking for dye. They concluded they didn’t see any, and from that they concluded there was no connection. This is not science. We have the scientific methodology to put tracers into the groundwater and measure their flow and dilution scientifically. So my request is twofold. Number one, there are about a dozen peer reviewed scientific reports that talk about this hydrologic connection between the wastewater disposal and the ocean. I would encourage the County of Hawaiʻi to independently review those reports. I have collected them over the last 20 years, starting in 2006 with a study that was done by the USGS. I’m very happy to provide the full PDFs of those reports to the county so they don’t have to take the many, many hours and scouring the search engines to pull them down and download them. I’ve written up a review of some of the major findings. I’d be happy to provide that review. And on the basis of that review, then a scientifically designed study could be done to determine how best to use a dye tracer to establish or to refute the hydrologic connection between the sump and the ocean. My third request is that the protocol for that study be made public and put out for review, at least to the commission, so that we can comment on its appropriateness. In addition, you’ve got experts in our state—Bob Whittier with the Department of Health and Dr. Craig Glenn at UH-Mānoa—who have done these types of studies and could provide guidance. Done right, it will be expensive. And I am concerned that if done on the cheap, the experimental design will pretty much suggest the result. And that’s not science. So whatever is done will be scrutinized, so I encourage the county to do it right. That’s my comment. Dr. Kucharski said he has no disagreement with anything Dr. Bennett said, and he fully agrees and concurs with his comments. Commissioner Gaffney said a standard has been set from a legal perspective on the kind of study Maui County used, such that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on nearshore pollution caused by Maui’s injection wells. If the standards of the studies that Hawaiʻi County uses are anything less, they will not pass scrutiny. Director Kucharski said he agreed. 13