2018-09-26 Meeting Minutes (EMC)

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b. Status report by subcommittee pursuant to its investigation on how to address implementing the Commission’s resolution approved and adopted on March 28, 2018, to adopt a proactive pollution elimination program consistent with the goals of the Clean Water Act. Chair Bennett said the original intent was to write a white paper, which will be long and comprehensive. He still plans to do so, but in the meantime has put together a slide presentation, and it will fold into the next agenda item, which is the request from the Charter Commission. Chair Bennett launched into his slide presentation, explaining that it is a draft for discussion purposes. It was entitled Water Quality Policies and Hawaiʻi Island. He has spoken with several county people, and the members of the subcommittee were also very helpful. A few of the highlights of the presentation: • There is an aspect of human psychology that when people are confronted with negative information, 85% to 90% of them will deny it. This is the case with climate change. We are up against a human psychological defense mechanism. • Water quality and the policies that influence it on this island are part of a maze of federal policies and agencies, which delegate to the State Department of Health, which interacts with property owners and county departments. From time to time the EPA interacts directly with a county and private property owners. • The Coastal Zone Management Act was an attempt to get the states and their planning departments to think about how to do things in the coastal zone. • The Clean Water Act of 1972 had some lofty goals, many of which have never been achieved. • Many of the CWA’s programs and policies are designed for mainland states. Hawaiʻi is surrounded by water, and the ocean is ultimately the repository of all the wastewaters that do not evaporate. This concept was not well incorporated into the CWA, but it is our reality. • Infrared photography of the Kona Coast shows where the colder and warmer waters are. There is an almost perfect correlation between water temperature and the nutrient composition of the water. Cold water is nutrient rich, and people are the main source of the nutrients. • We have impaired water bodies in West Hawaiʻi from Miloliʻi to Mahukona. Though East Hawaiʻi does not have a lot of accessible shoreline, there is a similar pattern. • For most people, the water quality degradation is out of sight and out of mind. • In 2007 the Keauhou Canoe Club told him the bay was green and brown. A turbidity study was done, which showed it was phytoplanktons being nourished by the nutrients in the water.