2015-04-28 Water Board Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Ms. Lee Loy asked if there would be adequate water units to support that number of lots. Mr. Barry said yes. Mr. Uyeda noted that under the Agreement, a new control building and equipment will be installed. He asked what happens if the existing equipment has hazardous materials. He asked how that would be handled, and who would be responsible for the cost of cleaning up the site. His other question involved the calculation of the amount of equivalent units; he suggested that Mr. Kawahara answer the first question first, and then Mr. Uyeda could give more details on his second question. Mr. Kawahara drew the Board's attention to Page 7, Section 2.6, of the Agreement, which references hazardous materials. He said he wanted to be very clear that any of the improvements and new equipment such as the new pump and motor, the pump control building and all of the appurtenances will be entirely the responsibility of Kamakoa Partners. DWS is not contributing anything towards the upgrade, Mr. Kawahara said. Any hazardous materials will be handled by the contractor and Kamakoa Partners, he said. Mr. Uyeda asked Mr. Kawahara to explain the report that Mr. Tom Nance had done as an attachment to the Agreement. Mr. Kawahara referred to the letter from Tom Nance Water Resource Engineering, dated April 16, 2015. The letter, citing 40 years of historical data done by the hydrologist in the area, took up the question of whether there would be any impact to the ground water discharge along the coastline. On Page 1 of the letter, Mr. Nance commented on the potential impacts of increasing the pump capacity, Mr. Kawahara said. The letter does not mention it, but according to CWRM files, when the well was originally drilled by the State of Hawaii, it was actually pump -tested at 1,000 gallons per minute (gpm). However, somewhere along the way, DWS chose to put in a pump that did 700 gpm; an increase of 300 gpm (to bring it to 1,000 gpm) would still be within that original pump -testing. It would bring Well A to the same capacity as Wells B, C, and D in that well field. Mr. Kawahara quoted the second paragraph from the bottom of Page 1 as saying: "Based on the (sustainable yield and the calculated rainfall recharge) numbers above, increasing the draft by Lalamilo "A" with a larger 1,000 gpm pump would result in a decrease of the shoreline charge on the order of one (1) percent. That small a reduction will not be detectable by measurements, or as changes in anchialine ponds, or in the nearshore environment." Mr. Kawahara said that on the last page of the letter, Mr. Nance commented that the aquifer's boundaries, as defined by CWRM, should be changed and realigned, to reflect actual field conditions. If CWRM were to include the other wells in the area, the impact of the increased pumpage of Lalamilo A would be even less than one percent of the present groundwater flow to the shoreline. Mr. Kawahara said, in summary, that Mr. Nance was asked to comment on what he believed the impact would be along the coast from the increased pumpage, specifically addressing the public trust purpose of the Traditional and Customary Practices of gathering and fishing along the coast. Mr. Kawahara said that was very important to him personally, since his own family farms, and lives off the land and the ocean; he himself did not want to see any adverse impact going on along the coast. Mr. Uyeda asked for clarification from DWS staff on how the equivalent units were calculated on Page 9, Section 3.1(b) of the Agreement. Mr. Inaba said that when DWS looks at pump capacity going from a 700 gpm to 1,000 gpm, that is a 300 gpm increase; that would represent the maximum day. The maximum day is by definition, 1.5 times the average day, he said. When DWS calculates the actual usage, it calculates it by the average day, which is what DWS gets on its actual meter readings. DWS is Page 4 of 15 Water Board Minutes 4-28-15 js