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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-07-29 Jeff Silva, Colony 1 Testimony PL-CCH-2024-000022 From: Jeff S. To: WPCtestimonv Cc: Jeff S. Subject: Testimony Re: PL-CCH-2024-000022 and PL-SMA-2023-000046 Date: Monday,July 29,2024 7:43:19 AM Aloha Honorable Commission Members! My name is Jeff Silva and I am a resident of Ka'u in Wood Valley and an owner of a condo at Sea Mountain. I am licensed by the State of Hawaii as a Grade 4 Water Distribution System Operator and a Grade 1 Water Treatment Plant Operator. I am a member of the Board of Directors of Colony One AOAO and currently the Vice President of the Board. My condo is directly affected by the SMA application and is surrounded on all sides by the proposed development. As an individual owner I am also a partial owner of the land owned and controlled by the Association. The subject development plans are within 300 ft fully surrounding Association property as well as my personal condominium. I am therefore directly impacted by the proposed plan. I am also impacted as a resident of Ka'u. Punalu'u is the beating heart of Ka'u. As you know, the Association of Condo Owners has filed a Petition for Standing in a Contested Case Hearing regarding the SMA application at hand. The Association represents 76 units and I am one of many owners. I am also one of a handful of owners that are full time residents of Ka'u. Hereinafter, I will continue as the designated representative of the Board of Directors of Colony One AOAO. The Association has submitted documents showing my authorization to act as Representative of the Association in this matter. I will also refer to documents submitted with the Associations Petition for Standing, many of which are public documents. The applicant, BSB LLC, has operated openly and notoriously under the ownership of Eva Liu who also owns and operates Punalu'u Water and Sanitation LLC (PWS LLC). The two entities effectively operate as one entity and their own public statements and documents back up this assertion. Eva Liu purchased all of the lands included in the application as well as all of the water, wastewater, and fire suppression systems from Roberts Hawaii but separated the titles to the land and assets under different LLC's which are owned by Eva Liu. PWS is BSB and BSB is PWS for all intents and purposes and the managers of one entity shift to be management of the other and in many cases serve both simultaneously. This is why PWS is directly involved in the application even though BSB is the named applicant. The Associations concerns stem from a clear lack of the mention of the poor condition of the water related infrastructure at Punalu'u. This infrastructure currently supplies Colony One, the homes at Kalana Estates (above the highway), Kuleanas and homes down by the beach, as well as the County Beach Park. Punalu'u Water and Sanitation LLC is owned by the applicant and I will hereafter refer to PWS as the owner and operator of the water related systems. PWS acquired the Potable Water System, Wastewater System, and Fire Suppression System on or about May 13, 2020. Their purchase of the systems involved a lengthy process with the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) which generated many hundreds of pages of documents with the goal of ensuring PWS had the Technical, Managerial, and Operational capacity as well as the Financial capacity to properly upgrade, operate, and maintain the Public Utility in a compliant and safe manner. PWS made many assertions in this process. The documents the Board has submitted with our petition contains just a tiny fraction of the documents they submitted to the PUC as well as documents we secured from Hawaii County Fire and direct correspondence we had with the PUC and PWS. The Association was unaware of this transaction until approximately November of 2021 through some oversight during the PUC process. The Association and others relying on the water systems were not notified of the pending transaction and therefore could not express their or our concerns. Upon learning of the change in ownership the Association began expressing our concerns with PWS through various means including personal interaction with multiple people, zoom meetings, public meetings, and directly with the owner and persons of authority at PWS including their contract operators. From November 2021, when the Board first became aware of PWS's ownership, up to the present, little has been done to repair or upgrade the systems as laid out in documents submitted by PWS to the PUC. Please see the Aqua Engineers Report date July 1, 2020 attached to our petition. This Report lays out the extreme deficiencies in the systems at that time and little has been done in the intervening 4 years to improve the systems. PWS has again and again said very large "capital improvements" must be made, but the characterization that these expenses are "capital improvements" is false. In fact, it is a sustained lack of maintenance on behalf of PWS that has caused many of the issues that now seem large. PWS has failed to address backup and safety systems as well as fire suppression systems. These were supposed to be addressed in the first three years as a condition of their purchase. I draw your attention to pages 10-12 of the same report which lays out the proposed improvement plan and the reasons why the improvements were necessary back in July 2020. Most of the items listed have not been addressed in any way, most notably the last item, "Replace Wastewater Treatment Facility." Also of note is the near total lack of automation of all systems which is listed multiple times on page 10 as "Scada." The water supply has no backup well as noted under item 3 on page 3. Ninole Well B (the backup well) had been inoperable for 5 years plus and is no longer certified for potable use. On page 12, their plan states "repair or replace fire hydrants," which hasn't been done. Please see the photographs submitted clearly depicting the state of many of the hydrants, as well as the Hawaii County Fire Departments documents also submitted. In other words, we are one failure away from a major health and safety event. The Board and its representatives have repeatedly tried to spur PWS into action with little affect. You can find some examples in the documents submitted. We applaud PWS for hiring two highly qualified and competent contract operators. This occurred because Aqua Engineers discontinued their contract to Manage, Operate, and Maintain the systems sometime in late 2021 or early 2022. The current operators do not appear to have the proper support of management, advisers, and the finances normally available in a public utility of this type. The engineering work and larger improvements could be done by contract firms, but that requires a management team willing to hire and finance such things. PWS has proven unwilling. The Board would also like to draw your attention to page 8 and 9 and the "Equipment Listing, Remaining Useful Life," which gives a generalized listing of infrastructure and its anticipated lifespan based on accepted water industry standards. Note the many dashes on the right side, this means the life expectancy has been exceeded. Almost 4 years has passed since this document was filed with the PUC by the applicant professing their acknowledgment of these deficiencies and the willingness and capacity to make the improvements as spelled out in this report. The Water, Wastewater, and Fire Suppression Systems were designed and built in the mid 1970's. The infrastructure has been poorly maintained for decades including the Wastewater Treatment Facilities. The Treatment System design predates the environmental work that was done in 2006 and 1998. It would seem prudent to have more current environmental information to guide the County and others in their decision making process. This would appear important for the Wastewater Treatment Plant, but would also be important to guide Fire Suppression needs. All of us witnessed the tragedy that occurred on Maui at Lahaina and Kula. Punalu'u shares many of the environmental conditions that set Lahaina up for disaster. It can be very dry, windy, and has extensive fire load that dries out yearly. Fires occur nearly yearly and it is a matter of time before conditions align and combine with a weakness in Fire Suppression. Please see the documents we were able to attain from Hawaii County Fire. PWS has taken an effort to knock back some of the brush to help keep fire from spreading and they have our deepest thanks, but much more needs to be done in a timely fashion because valuable time has been wasted. The Association is seeking the following conditions be met prior to any SMA Permit approval: 1. That an Environmental Study be done to properly assess the Wastewater System deficiencies and needs and properly gauge Fire Suppression needs prior to any SMA Permit approval 2. That BSB and PWS (ie Eva Liu) immediately correct, repair, and upgrade the significant deficiencies to the Fire Suppression Systems and its Water Supply Sources and Backup Sytems that serve and protect existing structures and lives as was a condition of their purchase 3. That BSB and PWS fulfill their obligations as agreed upon as a condition of purchase before proceeding with any planned development 4. That BSB and PWS cannot proceed with planned development prior to fulfilling their obligations to their current users In closing, I would like to point out that the Board represents many owners at Colony One. The Owners opinions on the proposed development plans fall on a spectrum of for the development to against the development, but all owners agree that the water systems are paramount to our existence. The Boards position is to stick purely to the facts at hand and feel strongly that any development plan must take the dire condition of the water, wastewater, and fire suppression systems into account. However, the applicant failed to mention this in their application and has not fulfilled the original assertions made to the PUC as a condition of purchase. In addition, the applicant has made every effort to keep the information we have compiled from being presented to the Commision for consideration. For these reasons we seek the Commissions help in assuring accountability to prevent a health and safety tragedy that is clearly preventable. Mahalo nui Jeff Silva Representative for the Colony One AOAO