2004-04-27 Water Board Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Mr. Nitsche replied that they would be happy to do the whole project or work with the County, whatever they can do to help. They realize that the Department is busy already, but they want to get water to Ocean View as soon as possible. Mr. Heck supported that by stating that the Board recognizes the Department just does not have the personnel to effectively do things sometimes and appreciated the community's willingness to help. Mr. Nitsche clarified that they are not asking for the County to just hand over the remaining $250,000.00 from the initial $500,000.00. Those purse strings could be held by the County and given out to them as they request, but he asked for some leeway. They were that confident in the community in 1998 to do the well - -they hired Mr. Bowles and were going to oversee the well going in-- hopefully, they will still have confidence in them. He felt they could do it quicker and at a lesser cost. Ms. Scarr referred once again to Mr. Dennis Lee's presentation on the alternatives for Wai`ohinu and transmission lines and was struck, in the Townscape report, by the options there are to think about extending the Department's current systems versus drilling more stand -alone wells as an option. She is not entirely clear on what the desirability is of phasing in stand -alone wells or phasing in connections. She felt the Board needs to think about that set of alternatives. She asked if Mr. Lee would be willing to make a brief summary of what he had to say on that. Mr. Lee state that when he was asked to look at the alternatives in bringing water to Ocean View and neighboring communities, he looked the end of the system, which is South Point. South Point is actually connected to the main system, which is Wai`ohinu/Na`alehu system. The source at Wai`ohinu, which feeds South Point, is a groundwater source under the direct influence of surface water. Based on that classification, the Environmental Protection Agency says the Department needs to either treat the water by conventional methods or replace it with a well. After looking at the cost of treatment versus establishing a new well and the dependency factors of the surface source (drought), the decision was made to replace the spring source with a well. Looking at the situation with the existing pipeline from Wai`ohinu to South Point and the condition of the pipeline as well as the pipeline materials, the decision was that the Department needed to also replace the pipeline. The project called for not only well development, but also called for the replacement of a transmission line from Wai`ohinu to South Point. In response to Ms. Scarr's question if the transmission replacement project is on the C.I.P. list, Mr. Lee replied it is not. It was part of phasing in. The first thing the Department needed to do was the Wai`ohinu well and reservoir. The transmission line is the second phase. In doing that, staff also took into consideration the needs of Hawaiian Ocean View Estates and surrounding communities. One of the concerns was that they needed to have a water point established - -one large enough to take care of at least three vehicles at a time. In the plan, they included a sufficient or adequate water point such that it could handle the demand for water hauling. The situation in Wai`ohinu at the present time is if there is a drought or the supply is low, the Department would stop all water haulers and send them to Pahala. That is the reason why they looked at not only EPA compliance requirements, but also looked at the drought situations and how it impacted water hauling to Hawaiian Ocean View Estates. Also in that second phase was not only establishing a pipeline from Wai`ohinu to South Point, but also establishing a water point at South Point. That Page 10 of 25 4- 27 -04min (Ocean View).doc