2018-06-27 Meeting Minutes (EMC)

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Director Kucharski said the information is on their web page, but if people don’t know to look it up, it doesn’t help. Chair Bennett said there is a motion before them to support Bill 154, and Commissioner Gaffney called for the question. Vote: All commissioners voted aye in support of Bill 154. Director Kucharski thanked Councilmember O’Hara for pushing for the bill. b. Discussion on the planning process to be used to find customers for the upcoming R-1 water system. Director Kucharski reported that he was in Honolulu yesterday for the first meeting of the Water Reuse Task Force, which was recently created to look at water reuse opportunities in order to provide guidance, and recommendations for the state. One of its goals is to increase water reuse by 100 million gallons by 2030—30 million gallons is reuse, 30 million gallons is aquifer recharge, and 40 million gallons is in conservation increases in the next 12 years. The group went over a lot of basic issues and looked at what is being done. Hawaiʻi recycles and reuses about 14% of its wastewater, which places it at number 3 in the nation per capita. This makes it look like Hawaiʻi is doing well, but the bar is low. For Hawaiʻi County, the biggest reuse is for golf courses. There is no groundwater recharge in the state of treated/recycled water. The group is looking for additional interested people, and Director Kucharski gave them Chair Bennett’s name. In the upcoming meetings they will be dealing with best practices and barriers to reuse, and in October they will be putting together strategies to propose for the 2019 legislature. There was a request to get demonstration projects together, and both Puakō and Kealakehe were discussed. The County is looking at how the R-1 will be distributed and what the rules will be, and what uses of R-1 will be allowed and not allowed. Director Kucharski said if any of the commissioners have ideas about reuse or can think of a demonstration project, let him know. He would love to do R-1 in Hilo, but he doesn’t know what they would do with the water as Hilo does not need excess irrigation water. It would be a few hundred million in piping to get it to somewhere where they could use the water. How to handle water reuse in a wet climate is an issue to be looked at. Commissioner Gaffney said the power plants are an idea, as they use huge amounts of water. It potentially would be a public-private partnership. Director Kucharski said that was a good suggestion.