21-05-26 EMC minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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harbor and connect to the wastewater treatment plant. We’ve got a commitmentof $2.5 million from the Legislature which will include planning. He also wanted to remind the other commissioners that there seems to be a constant problem with Catch-22. We have this opportunity to sewer Honokhau but at present there’s no larger plan to connect to the wastewater treatment plant and return recycled water back. We were frustrated enough by that and the obvious need to sewer Honokhau that we (the DLNR Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation) are prepared to pay for the connection. And there is also a developer that also needs to make a connection. We are thinking about just getting it done because it doesn’t appear that it’s going to be done unless it’s forced. That’s the kind of Catch-22 that we run into. We are ready to do something important with regard to wastewater, and then there are hiccups that prevent the completion. And also it’s a very easy thing for bureaucrats to say, I’m sorry, we can’t proceed because X-Y-Z, and really those things are created blocks. They are not necessarily true and they don’t represent the reality, and we have to do something. Finally, he was involved in an interesting webinar with regard to water rights in the and an interesting part of the discussion is who owns the water, once recycled water goes back into the ground and recharges the aquifer, and who is responsible for the water condition. One of the interesting things about using R-1, R-2, even R-3 water to recharge the aquifers in the State is that there are a lot of negative things – chemicals, pharmaceuticals, radiological products from imaging and cancer treatment and other things like brighteners in laundry detergent, sucralose and other things that pass through humans and wastewater treatment plants. Those things individually and collectively are a negative to the human population and to everything alive on Earth. So we need to do some long-term thinking about the recycling of wastewater and what that means to the future, particularly because we live on islands. Chair Adams encouraged the Vice Chair to bring specific proposals, if any, to the Commission for action. Vice Chair Gaffney said it doesn’t appear the County is going to be prepared to make that connection in the next three years, and we (the State) are hoping to be able to do it sooner than that, although there are questions about easements and other things that need to be worked out with the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands and so forth. The basic decision is, the practical action is to make the connection immediately, and then in a discussion with Director Mansour, it came out that anyone who should connect to the connection we put in between the harbor and the wastewater treatment plant after the fact would have to pay in part to reimburse the State for having done that. It’s our presumption that we would make the connection now rather than waiting the three to five years that it takes the County to do it, and then later on get reimbursed for the parts of the connection into which the other people tap. Commissioner McIntosh o DEM to re- identify more reasonable cost solutions (No report) Commissioner Olson o Champion cross-agency and multiple stakeholder engagement in addressing life cycle issues of waste and wastewater management. Have joint commissions 5