2021-07-28 EMC minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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that are out there for community development, like the U.S. Economic Development Administration and so forth? Director Mansour said we are chasing grants as well. For the North Kona Sewage Pumping Station request, we hope to get that $19.5 million grant funding. We have been talking with our delegation in Congress, trying to make sure we can tap into federal funding for wastewater treatment. That has been our daily , even if you get a billion dollars, you are going to tip scale on debt ratio because most of it is going to be loans. Our Finance Department is going to look at it and say, you are not going to get $1 billion all at once, but at least we got $200 million, which is a good start. We never had that much to start with. Things are changing, we are pushing for projects, we are pushing for change, and we hope to start seeing the fruits of it. Vice Chair Gaffney commented that his concern as a taxpayer on the island is that the debt level gets pretty onerous. b. -term and long-term plans for recycled water management and cost recovery. Does DEM intend to push DWS to handle the sale and distribution of R-1 water (as other counties do) or does DEM intend to manage those specifics of recycling from within DEM? (Gaffney) Vice best approach. It has been pointed out in the past that the Department of Water Supply already has a system for managing water billing, and so it would make sense for DWS to manage all He asked the question because he wanted to know what direction DEM is going in, and though the Vice Chair is still going to continue to ask because there might be a better way. He was frustrated at the time when DWS said they were not interested, because practically it works well on Oahu and Maui, where DWS manages both drinking water and reclaimed water. So he will continue to pursue the question even though the question was answered. Chair Adams said there is a difference between sending bills for sewering, which is the current practice, versus managing and looking for opportunities, and working with users, and managing the recycled water, in addition to doing the billing. She thinks that is what the Vice Chair is talking about, which is who is managing where that water is going to go. Vice Chair Gaffney says DWS gets involved when someone proposes to build a subdivision. They need to see what the plumbing for that looks like, where the pipes are coming in to the properties, and so on and so forth. Metering is also something they have a hand in. It seems like a natural extension, and it has been proven in other counties that it makes more sense for it to done for a single agency rather than two agencies overseeing effectively the same thing. We can continue to discuss this over time but at some point this probably goes to the Council and to the -governmental. 15