2014-05-27 Water Board Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Mr. Robinson expressed frustration that because of the NPS petition, DWS is going to have to spend $50,000.00 to hire a consultant to amend the WUDP. This comes despite all of the years of hard work and time spent by the community to do the Kona Community Development Plan (CDP), he said. The Manager-Chief Engineer said that one of the questions that has arisen amid the NPS petition was the full build-out situation in Kona. Full build-out would take Kona far beyond the current sustainable yield numbers in place, but DWS wants to stress that full build-out is being brought forward to provide better, more updated projections that are consistent with what the Kona CDP came up with. It does not mean that full build-out is necessarily going to happen, he said. DWS is working closely with the Planning Department and the Kona CDP Action Committee so that the information will be consistent. Mr. Robinson said he did not want to sound like a broken record, but it frustrates him that the Kona community spent all that time going to all those meetings of the Kona CDP, which was a plan that was created by the community. It was a lot of work. He said it was frustrating that now DWS has to go spend $50,000.00, which the ratepayers are going to fund, to refute everything that has been foisted on the community by the NPS petition. The Manager-Chief Engineer said he shared Mr. Robinson’s frustration, because there was indeed a lot of time spent at community meetings in Kona to present DWS’s case. He expressed the hope that this amendment to the WUDP will translate into fewer future public testimonies, public information readings, etc. DWS does spend a lot of time on this, and the Department shares Mr. Robinson’s frustration. Mr. Robinson asked who was going to explain to the hundreds of members of the Kona community that all their time and hard work on the Kona CDP was for naught. He said that all of these community initiatives mounted by the County and the State seem to have been a waste of time. The Manager-Chief Engineer said it would be DWS that would talk to the community. He explained that the consultant will come in, and DWS will do the additional legwork on the amendment to the WUDP. After that, the amendment would go to the County Council for adoption, and it would also go to CWRM for their blessing. He said he was not sure if this could be done by December (i.e., when CWRM makes their decision regarding the petition). The Deputy, to clarify, said that the amendment would incorporate all of the work that was done by the Kona CDP; he noted that the WUDP was done prior to the Kona CDP being finalized. DWS recognizes that there is a lot of information now available, regarding such elements as sustainable yield and population projections. He noted that the 2010 U.S. Census came out after the current WUDP. DWS believes that there is enough good, more up-to-date information available now that justifies updating a portion of the WUDP, which is what DWS wants to do. The WUDP was designed to be a dynamic document that is meant to be updated as better information becomes available, so that is what DWS wants to incorporate into the amendment. Ms. Lee Loy asked when the current WUDP was done. The Deputy said the WUDP was adopted by Council in 2010, so actually the work was done primarily in 2009. Ms. Lee Loy asked for confirmation that the $50,000.00 was being earmarked to update just a portion of the WUDP. The Deputy confirmed that DWS would not be updating the entire WUDP. There are a couple of aquifer sectors in West Hawai‘i, including the Hualālai sector that includes the Keauhou Aquifer Page 10 of 27 Water Board Minutes 5-27-14 js