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Hilo aquifer, sustainable yield of 349 million gallons a day. But, their designation isn't the
<br />formation; it's just the lateral two-dimensional thing.
<br />The neighboring to the north aquifer, Onomea aquifer, 147 million gallons a day of sustainable
<br />yield is the Mauna Kea lavas. So, we would have a well that was classified being in the Hilo
<br />aquifer system but really would be pulling water out of the Mauna Kea's, from the Onomea
<br />aquifer system. It's just the Water Commission, two dimensions, doesn't account for formation
<br />differences with depth.
<br />The reality is if we could replicate what was found in the KP -1 well, it's very likely that this will
<br />actually be a free-flowing well at the depth 900 to a thousand feet below sea level, the density
<br />difference between salt water above, salt water below the fresh water, and the sea water at the
<br />shoreline will dictate a water level, static water level in this fresh water formation probably at
<br />least twenty and probably twenty feet higher than mean sea level. The ground elevation at the
<br />site is about 14 or 15, so we could, in fact, have a free-flowing well.
<br />But, the well construction, once we've hit this formation, we'll do a test with what's called a
<br />packer so we can isolate the fresh water zone. See what the head is. See what the water quality
<br />is. Get an idea of the yield. And, if that's going to be justified doing the bottling company, the
<br />next step would be ream the borehole, put in a steel casing, and basically grout seal all the way
<br />down to the fresh water formation so the salt water above doesn't come in, and we won't take it
<br />too deep so we don't pull salt water from below.
<br />So, the chance of surface activities at this site, contaminating the ground water that we tapped
<br />into is essentially negligible. If you've got a thousand feet of formation including this, basically
<br />this aquiclude of the saprolite layer separating Mauna Kea—Mauna Loa lavas up top and Mauna
<br />Kea lavas below.
<br />So, the draft of a hundred thousand or possible two hundred thousand depending on market is an
<br />incredibly small portion of what the sustainable yield of the aquifer is. So, any adverse effect on
<br />any prospective other use of the aquifer is going to be negligible.
<br />CLARKSON: Any
<br />NANCE: Just another point that Sidney asked me to talk about. This is a free-flowing system.
<br />It's driven by high-level rainfall, recharging the aquifer. So, it's a flow through natural flow
<br />system, and the water that we're tapping, if we didn't tap it, it would discharge well off shore.
<br />We've actually hit this same kind of fresh water way below the salt water in West Hawaii, and
<br />in those areas what we found is that the fresh water, even miles inland, has a substantial
<br />response, to the ocean tide because it's connected to where that water is ultimately discharging
<br />into the marine environment.
<br />FUKE: JustI'd like to kind of like just make one final point, that, you know, there may be
<br />some issues as far as like well, you know, if you're going to harvest this water, then will it mean
<br />a depletion of the overall resources, and correct me if I'm wrong, Tom, but you know as part of
<br />the Onomea aquifer, the State Commission of Water Resource Management, they determined
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