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you an idea, a flavor of what we do, we sample from coastal wells that are mauka of the
<br />development so we get an idea of what the groundwater is as it flows makai towards the sea.
<br />So we sort of know what levels of things are in that groundwater. And then we sample in the
<br />anchialine ponds and, in some cases, little coastal wells near the shoreline as well as out into
<br />the ocean.
<br />What we have seen over the years have been some spikes in certain nutrients in the anchialine
<br />ponds with absolutely no effect to the anchialine system, to the organisms in the system. And
<br />you'll say to me, well, gee, how can that be? Everybody that's taken biology knows that if
<br />you put nutrients in water, it'll turn green and it'll turn to heck. Basically, what happens is is
<br />this system has -, these anchialine pools have evolved with a natural groundwater feeding
<br />them. And that natural groundwater on this coastline, all the way from the north end of the
<br />Island all the way around the other side of South Point over into the eastern side of the Island,
<br />the anchialine pools have highly variable levels of nutrients. In some places, they are very,
<br />very high, in other places, they're very, very low. This is complete, as far as we know,
<br />completely natural.
<br />The materials come through a whole variety of sources. We -, and I don't want to go into a lot
<br />of detail here, but if you want to talk to me later, that's fine. Nitrogen, for example, is fixed
<br />by nitrogen fixing bacteria. You've got all kinds of nitrogen fixing bacteria in the soils here,
<br />and kiawe trees are a nitrogen fixer. These are all sources of inorganic nitrogen, if you will,
<br />into the system. So some places, as I said, these concentrations are very, very high and in
<br />other places they're very, very low, and we have the same critters, the same organisms in
<br />these anchialine pools.
<br />And I will say that in the anchialine system, the organisms that live in there are -, many of
<br />them are very unique to these systems. You have a very unique system here on this Island.
<br />They're extremely -, biologically extremely interesting. But anyway -. So the organisms are
<br />pretty much, from what we can gather, immune to the levels of nutrients that pass through the
<br />water that they're living in. It doesn't seem to impact them at all. The algae, which you
<br />would think would go nuts with a lot of nitrogen, for example, does not because, for those of
<br />``
<br />you that know these ponds, there's paeula, the little red shrimp that live in them, they're
<br />``
<br />real small. paeula are basically herbivores, and so they keep the limu crop down, and so
<br />the system stays pretty much in balance. It's a very, very nice system. NASA, by the way,
<br />has spent some time looking at these systems, the organisms in them, because they live for a
<br />long time, and they can live in sealed up containers and things. That's a different story.
<br />Anyway, so we have seen instances where nutrient levels have gone up, has had no impact in
<br />the anchialine pools.
<br />While I'm talking about anchialine pools, I'll we also sample, have sampled in a variety of
<br />locations on this coastline, looking for pesticides. The only thing we've found, we've found
<br />one thing. The one thing we have found is arsenic. Now arsenic is a active basis for a lot of
<br />the herbicides, but the arsenic levels we find, and this is primarily in the sediment, the arsenic
<br />levels we find are well below EPA guidelines. We find arsenic also in the groundwater,
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