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injection for sewage treatment plants and so forth, that nexus of nutrient enrichment is revealed on the coastal waters, and also by using nitrogen isotope analysis to actually identify that the source of this nitrogen is being incorporated in the algae. So if you look at an injection well – and these typically are very close to the shoreline and apparently the leachate that comes out into the reef, coming up from the sediments – as you move away from that, the nutrient concentration in the near shore waters of the sediments gets less and less and less and less. So there is a clear signal that these human inputs in those sewage treatment plants are high on the list of impacts, or having a direct contributory affect on the near shore water. And then this other work – nitrogen isotope analysis – is suggesting that those nutrients are in fact being incorporated in the algal tissue. So it’s almost the smoking gun for what’s really driving the proliferation of algae in the last few decades there. But in terms of having a level of which all of a sudden things become critical, I don’t know if I could say that; I don’t know if they could say that, either.Part of the issue on Maui – what makes it complex – is compared to the fish populations, the herbivore populations, which seem to be a key element in sort of keeping levels of algae down, even if nutrients are rising. We are in a very good situation here.Our algal feeders or herbivores or Parrot Fish populations, the Surgeon Fish populations, are very high, so they graze the stuff. Now when you compare our populations to Maui, it’s a different game; populations are very much lower there, likely due initially to over-fishing. But once the algae starts accumulating, if you lower the population of fish, it changes the whole habitat, so that areas maybe where Manini and important herbivore could settle out before, now there is algae covering it, they don’t have a shelter, they don’t even settle there. So it just becomes as positive feedback loop of, you know, more algae because of the nutrients, less fish because of the fishing, more algae, more algae, until you end up with a situation that’s just algal dominated. Waikiki is another example of that. So we are buffered somewhat by our wonderful reef fish population. But I think what the study from University of Hawaii was saying is that we are kind of on the edge of the window that, okay, we have the nutrients increasing in the coastal waters and anchialine ponds, maybe it’s being held back by fish, but if something depresses fish populations, very quickly that could change. We could have a state change from coral rich to algal dominated community. So you know that’s pretty much all I can say on that, is that we may be on a cusp of change, radical change. And the change would be expressed in more protected areas. If it’s in a wave exposed area, it’s going to be buffered by the water exchange. So embayments or places that are more protected would be the first areas – sort of a canary in a bird cage. GRAHAM: Thank you very much. Commissioner Rho? RHO: In your testimony you mentioned those anchialine ponds, and I think I’m quoting you correctly, you say that the nutrients or the chemicals in the ponds, I guess in Waikoloa, are way out of compliance. Is that not what you said? That is what you said? WALSH: Correct. Yeah, the authors of the report from UH presented at another aquatic conference in November. And there was one slide that they presented, looking at past and present water quality conditions in the anchialine ponds at Waikoloa, and two of the nutrients that they focused on: One, nitrate, which is really the critical nutrient for algal enrichment, from the 1991 to 2002 period, had increased by over 300 percent and then phosphate EXHIBIT C 12