2019-02-07 Hearing Transcript - Piilani Partners LLC SMA 18-070

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the way, it's also not exactly hydrologic. It's, you know, it follows a roadway, for example, so it's identifiable geographic things that, you know, in a lot of cases, don't actually have, don't actually reflect the groundwater conditions. The other thing is it's two-dimensional. At the site that we're going to drill, we could very well run through at the start Mauna Lani [sic], Mauna Loa lavas, and likely that water is brackish to saline. What we're going to be tapping which I'll be illustrating in a minute is water that is in the Mauna Kea lavas that are 900-1,000 feet below the ground surface in that location. So, the UIC as drawn is two-dimensional. It doesn't look to the situation that where we've got where the drinking water exists makai of that line but at great depth in the Mauna Kea lavas. BUNN: Thank you. Could you please describe your involvement with Pi`ilani Partners' proposed project? NANCE: I got approached to provide a design for the well, to do the permitting with the State Water Commission to get a well construction pump installation permit and then to provide the kind of information that I'm going to be providing today. BUNN: Thank you. Mr. Nance, I'm showing you something that I downloaded from the website of the Commission on Water Resource Management. It identifies aquifers on this island, and I believe the Commissioners now have copies. Could you please identify the aquifer from which Pi`ilani Partners proposes to draw water and explain how that aquifer was formed? NANCE: Okay, first, cartoon, if you'll bear with me. [Mr. Nance illustrated on an easel.] The boundary on that thing between the Hilo Aquifer and the Onomea Aquifer is the surface contact between those two lavas, and Mauna Kea being the older mountain, lavas come down like that. The Mauna Loa lavas being, came across and banked against it, and the boundary between the Hilo, Hilo Aquifer and the Onomea Aquifer is that surface contact. Depending on where you are if you're down near the shoreline, it's 10 -foot elevation. If you go up the Saddle Road to the Saddle Road Well A, which I'll discuss subsequently, this surface contact actually has nothing to do with what's happening in the groundwater at depth. It was a convenient way to draw a line when you didn't have the information that goes into that. But, you can drill a well here that taps into the Mauna Kea lavas, and the State Water Commission because it's on this side of the line will call it in the Hilo Aquifer, and they will count the amount of water taken out of these Mauna Kea lavas as having been extracted from the Hilo Aquifer even though the Hilo Aquifer typically is the Mauna Loa lavas and the Onomea Aquifer is the Mauna Kea lavas. So, if I talk about how this thing—the details I'm going to, the details I'm going to give you now are based on the two deep boreholes that were done '93 and '99 by the Hawaii Scientific Drilling Project. One of them, the 1993 well that extends about 3,000 feet was close to, was close to where the Hilo Breakwater comes into land and the second one in 1999 that went to more than 10,000 -foot depth was in an abandoned quarry site in the Hilo Airport. But, at the site where we're going to drill the well, subject to approval, ground elevation is about 14 feet. When we drill down, we're drilling into Mauna Loa lavas which cover the area that we're drilling in. 10V1111.11 11