By HARRY EAGAR
Staff Writer
WAILUKU -- The state Commission on Water Resource Management decided again Wednesday not to designate Iao aquifer, but it also set up an automatic trigger that could lead to designation within months.
Maui member Buddy Nobriga made the motion. ``I don't think we should be trying to tell (the Board of Water Supply) how to do it . . . but I want to put the horse right in the ball field.''
In almost every month since mid-1991, the Department of Water Supply has pumped more than 90 percent of the estimated sustainable yield of the Iao aquifer to water Central and South Maui. From mid-1995 until early this year, pumping has exceeded 100 percent of sustainable yield -- 20 million gallons a day.
These figures are based on 12-month rolling averages. In wet months, the draw falls below 90 percent. Exceptionally, early this year, it fell to about 75 percent.
In dry months, it rises as high as 22.7 mgd, as it did in July.
The daily take is averaged over a year. Right now, the 12-month rolling average is 19.985 mgd, just a whisker below Nobriga's trigger.
Rae Loui, deputy director of the commission, said that if pumping continues at about July's rate, 22 mgd or so, the rolling average could reach 20 mgd in November.
The commission would then have to take a vote to ratify its decision, but Nobriga said his intention was that there would be no more debate about it.
The commission staff has been recommending designation since 1995, but the commission has continued to defer a decision.
Member Lawrence Miike, state health director, said he interprets the law to mean that the commission must designate. He had plenty of support Wednesday.
Lawyer Isaac Hall, representing Maui Malama Pono and others in an environmental lawsuit over East Maui wells, told the commission, ``There's been no situation that's as compelling as this one.
``The fate of these water resources is more important than the entanglements of Maui politics.''
That was a reference to, among other things, the refusal of the County Council to endorse a water shortage plan proposed by the Board of Water Supply. Having a plan is one of the ``milestones'' the commission has set up to allow Maui to show it is making good progress toward a solution.
That has been the justification for delaying designation.
About 20 people testified on the question Wednesday. No one not connected with the water department or county government opposed designation, and most demanded it immediately if not two years ago.
But Water Supply Director David Craddick told the commission it could afford to wait a bit. Chairman Mike Wilson asked if he could get below 18 mgd for the next couple of years.
``I don't know about below, but down to 18, yes,'' Craddick said.
That depends on several factors -- approval of 1.5 mgd from Iao Ditch, getting 1.5 mgd from North Waihee well No. 1 and getting at least 1 million gallons from two wells at Hamakuapoko.
Commissioners were concerned that none of those sources is firm.
Iao Ditch has not been approved by the Health Department pending technical questions and the emotional question of banning swimming in Iao Stream.
Hydrologist John Mink has advised that North Waihee should be easily good for 1.5 mgd, and Craddick says pumping begun in the past three weeks backs him up. But Loui, a former Maui water department director, continues to advise the commission that the long-term take from North Waihee will be zero.
The East Maui wells cannot begin until the court accepts a supplemental environmental impact statement, and Hall is asking the court not to let the Hamakuapoko wells be used before the entire project is studied, which will take a long time.
Craddick also expects to get some relief from conservation and some from reuse of treated sewage. Until a couple of months ago, he was also getting plenty of cooperation from Mother Nature.
But commission member Herbert Richards said, ``I want to caution the people of Maui. We are in an El Nino. Look at the records of 1982.''
At the beginning of an El Nino weather pattern, rainfall in Hawaii usually increases, as has been the case since late last year. But in the second year, drought usually follows.
Since more than half the demand on Iao aquifer is for irrigation, a drought could play havoc with Craddick's planning, if consumers do not voluntarily conserve.
He cannot force them to conserve, except by declaring an emergency, because the County Council did not approve the board's conservation rules.
Although they were similar to the Upcountry rules, which worked last year without a great outcry, the council deemed them inadequate.
Craddick said he thought the council confused the penalties in the rule with a rate increase.
Critics didn't like the penalties and some, including the commission staff, thought the triggers were too lenient.
Sally Raisbeck also called them unfair.
Two-thirds of domestic water use in South Maui is for irrigation, and half in Kahului.
In rainy Wailuku, the typical household consumes less than 400 gallons per day. In Wailea, the typical single-family household uses 2,000 gallons per day.
Department conservation efforts have included low-flow shower heads (6,000 distributed) and low consumption toilets. The department has induced the Maui Planning Commission to recommend xeric (desert-adapted) plants in South Maui landscaping for new projects.
But there were numerous complaints that the department has not done enough on conservation. The public, several said, remains uneducated about the problem.
Raisbeck said the across-the-board cutbacks in the water shortage rules would favor the rich in million-dollar golf course homes.
``My lawn (in Wailuku) is brown, my neighbors' lawns are brown,'' she said.
Deputy Corporation Counsel Gary Zakian told the commission that even though it has designated many aquifers where usage was not so near the limit as Iao, Maui is a special case. Unlike other counties, authority is divided among the Board of Water Supply, the mayor and the council.
The board has had immense difficulties getting any money out of the gatekeepers on the eighth and ninth floors of Kalana O Maui. After four years, this year a rate increase was allowed that will still leave Maui water the cheapest in the state.
Commission member Richards observed, ``If designation happens all of a sudden, I think things would go to the `real decision makers' a lot faster.''
Craddick said it would help if the commission staff would argue in favor of the water shortage rule with the council. It is similar to Honolulu's rule, he said, and ``we know the Honolulu rule works.''
After all the debate, the commission voted 4-1 for Nobriga's automatic trigger, with Miike dissenting.
But the trigger was set at 20 mgd.
In the public testimony, Jonathan Starr, an engineer from Kaupo, raised a question no one could answer.
A list of all the aquifers in the state shows the amount of rainfall, runoff and infiltration. Infiltration is the amount that soaks into the ground to recharge the aquifer. (Excess irrigation also contributes to recharge.)
Sustainable yield is calculated by taking a percentage of infiltration. The factor is 75 percent or less.
Thus, in every aquifer, the sustainable yield is considerably smaller than the infiltration.
Except Iao. There, infiltration is pegged at 15 mgd, sustainable yield at 20 mgd.
Starr says he thinks the true sustainable yield of Iao could be around 11 mgd to 12 mgd, perhaps as high as 15 mgd.
Craddick said he could not explain why Iao is different from every other aquifer. Neither could Avery Chumbley, president of Wailuku Agribusiness, owner of much of the land and some of the water in Iao.
Nor could anybody.
The commission was stuck with using 20 mgd, since that figure can only be changed through a formal process. But Craddick and Chumbley both said they wanted to find out more about Starr's discovery.
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