DIRE Coalition: Don’t Inject, RE-direct . . . because the situation is dire.

                                                                 February 21, 2010

Hon. Charmaine Tavares

Mayor, Maui County

200 S. High Street

(Kalana O Maui Bldg. 9th Fl)

Wailuku, HI 96793

Aloha Mayor Tavares,

As you know, on February 10, 2010, the Maui News ran a story on injection wells, water reuse, and the DIRE Coalition.  We appreciated the article and ensuing public discussion of this important issue. At the same time, we felt that clarification of some key points was needed. So we are today writing to Chris Hamilton of the Maui News and providing him with a copy of the attached briefing document.  We hope that it will be clarify our position on these points and provide additional useful background.

For example, we have been, and continue to be, very appreciative of your leadership in setting the goal of ending wastewater injection and reusing all the water.  We hope our briefing paper makes that clear.

It is true that we have our differences and may continue to disagree on some points. We want to be clear, however, that we are in full support of your goal, and are eager to work with you and your Administration toward achieving that goal as soon as feasible.  We look forward to further dialog with you, your administration, the CWG, and the public on how best to find the expertise and resources necessary to achieve this goal.  We also welcome your thought about how we can reconcile any differences between us.

 We believe transparency and openness can help avoid misunderstanding. That is why we are sending you, your key staff, and the members of the CWG this briefing paper. If you disagree with parts of the briefing paper, we would appreciate receiving your specific feedback and concerns.  We regret that we have not yet heard back from you in response to our letter of December 20, 2009.

With appreciation for your leadership in setting the goal and in hopes we can work together to achieve it,

Hannah Bernard, Irene Bowie, Lucienne de Naie, Robin Knox, Tim Lara (Surfrider, Maui Chapter), Teri Leonard, Tony Povilitis, Jeff Schwartz, Ananda Stone, Rene Umberger

Enclosure

Copies: Ms. Mahina Martin, Ms. Kuhea Paracuelles, Ms. Cheryl Okuma, Mr. Leland Chang, Members of the Community Working Group on Water Reuse           

DIRE Coalition: Don’t Inject, RE-direct . . . because the situation is dire.

 A Briefing Paper on Underground Injection Wells

And Wastewater Reuse in Maui -- February 21, 2010

 Table of Contents

Despite Some Disagreement with the Mayor, We Applaud  Her Leadership in Setting the Goal of Phasing Out Injection Wells and Reusing All the Water and Have Sought to Cooperate

It is true that DIRE Coalition has some disagreement with Mayor Tavares and her Department of Environmental Management.  What is also true is that we have publicly and frequently lauded the Mayor for setting the goal of phasing out wastewater injection wells on Maui and reusing all the water.  And we have worked to cooperate with the County in achieving that goal. 

We have disagreed with the Mayor about how close we can come to achieving this goal or how soon we can reach it, but we have appreciated (and have said so on many occasions) Mayor Tavares’ leadership in creating the goal.

Similarly, when the Mayor asked three DIRE Coalition members to serve on the Community Working Group on Wastewater Reuse, they gladly agreed. Irene Bowie, Robin Knox, and Jeff Schwartz have served to the best of our ability.  You may check with colleagues on the CWG to see how they feel about the sincerity and value of our efforts to work in the Community Working Group (CWG).

Other residents of Maui have sued the county over the injection wells at Kihei. We have not sued. Instead, we have sought and continue to seek to work with the County and the CWG to find a solution. For the future, we think it important to highlight the ways we have sought to cooperate with the County. 

Cooperation Is a Two Way Street

This issue is not new, yet in the last 15 years, Maui County has made little progress in increasing wastewater reuse beyond 20-25%.  In 1995, Maui County received a report on Rate and Fee Alternatives for Reclaimed Water Service from Brown and Caldwell. It addressed many of the issues we will need to resolve to form a practical plan to achieve the Mayor’s goal.

We did not know about this study at the time we were appointed to the CWG.  While the CWG project team accuses DIRE coalition of non-cooperation, it is worth noting that the CWG project team did not tell the CWG about this study or make copies available to us. At the February 4 meeting after learning about the study from other sources, we mentioned the existence of this study and asked the CWG project team to make it available to all members of the CWG.  The project team has not responded to this request.

Likewise, although the issue of “replacement injection wells” came up in the CWG, the project management team did not disclose to the CWG that new injection wells with a 10-30 year life were being planned for Kahului, Lahaina, and Kihei. We learned about it only when the Department of Environmental Management sought an exemption from the Planning Director so that no environmental assessment and no Special Management Area permit would be required for two new replacement wells in Kahului. The Department of Environmental Management claimed in their application that the public had been fully consulted on this plan, yet the DEM never mentioned this in their multiple meetings with us. In our view, cooperation must be a two-way street.

When we told the CWG about the citizens’ initiative to supplement the work of the CWG, the project leadership team announced that since they had not been consulted about this initiative, there would be no involvement by the CWG in it.  This conclusion was announced without any discussion from or with the members of the CWG.  What the project management team did not say is that we first had proposed to the CWG project team a similar process, but that the CWG project team – consisting of representatives of the Mayor, the Department of Environmental Management, and the facilitator they chose – had earlier decided that the CWG would not even be allowed to discuss our proposal. (See Appendix A to this briefing paper, Leland Chang email to Irene Bowie, Robin Knox, and Jeffrey Schwartz, dated January 4, 2010).    

The Community Working Group’s Management Team Has Operated in a Way That Is Inconsistent

With What the Mayor Says It Is Supposed to Do

From the beginning, the intent of the Community Working Group has been unclear. Although the Mayor supposedly convened the CWG to “make recommendations on how to go from 20 percent recycled water use to 100 percent,” this has not been how the CWG has operated.  We asked for a specific written charge from the Mayor to the CWG as to its mission or desired end product, but – although she spoke at the first meeting – no written charge to the CWG was forthcoming.  When we asked for the Community Working Group to set up sub-committees to help develop a plan or roadmap for achieving the Mayor’s goal, we received the email in Appendix A from the meeting facilitator denying our request on behalf of the County’s CWG project management team.

That denial said in part, “The suggestion for additional CWG activity indicates a concern that there will not be sufficient time for the CWG to do its work. The project’s expected outcomes are well-informed expressions of community values and priorities, criteria with which to evaluate alternatives, and broad recommendations for future planning. We believe . . . that monthly CWG meetings over the course of a year will afford the CWG more than ample opportunity to develop meaningful input to these areas.  . . . Our project does not involve the development of a fully vetted plan, scientific research, technical and financial feasibility studies, or facilities planning. These elements will occur after the CWG process is complete . . .” [Emphasis added] [We are including the full email from Leland Chang, the CWG facilitator, to us as Appendix A to this letter, so you can judge for yourself.]

That is why we are surprised to see the Mayor’s supporters say that “finding funding alternatives and planning infrastructure is exactly why she put together the working group.” Clearly, there has been a problem of communication here. The Mayor’s spokesman says the purpose of the CWG is to develop a plan for needed infrastructure and ways to fund it, but the CWG leadership team says that is not what the CWG is supposed to do.  The Mayor’s spokespeople and the CWG project management team seem not to be saying the same things. It is our hope that these conflicting messages from the Mayor and the CWG project team can be clarified and resolved. 

Facilitator Chang’s email and the follow up discussion that occurred at the January CWG meeting made clear that the project team managing the CWG was not even going to allow the CWG to discuss, let alone decide, whether or not it wanted to work between the 3-hour once a month meetings to help develop a plan for achieving the Mayor’s goal. Again, you can check on this with others who attended that meeting.  They will verify that the CWG membership was never consulted on whether we would even discuss the idea of forming sub-committees and working between the meetings to put together a workable plan for achieving the Mayor’s goal. No such discussion was permitted.

That is one of the reasons why the DIRE Coalition decided to supplement the work of the CWG and why we do not see our supplemental efforts as “redundant,” as the Mayor’s spokesperson stated in the February 10 article.  We offered to provide the leadership and support to form four sub-committees that would help develop a workable strategic plan to meet the Mayor’s goal as soon as feasible and make maximum feasible progress until the goal is reached.  We suggested that this would give the public greater opportunity to participate in the work of the CWG. The CWG project team said no, we will not even allow the CWG to discuss it.

 County Efforts to Invite the Public to Be Part of Crafting the Solution

Have Been Woefully Inadequate

 Another reason why we offered to supplement the work of the CWG is that the CWG is being managed in a way that does not encourage public participation, let alone real public engagement.  For example, we offered to invite a local expert in public infrastructure finance to talk with the CWG about creative ways to pay for wastewater reuse. That offer was denied by the CWG project team, and we were told that he was welcome to come like the rest of the public and speak at the end of the meeting. Instead, the CWG was given nearly an hour and a half tutorial on the challenges of Maui’s budgeting process.  A total of 15 to 20 minutes at most is allotted for public comment at end of the CWG meetings (sometimes less). There is virtually no exchange between the public and the CWG. 

Several of the public speakers at the end of CWG meetings have voiced deep concern about the adequacy of the opportunities for public involvement in the work of the CWG.  Yet the project team managing the process has not responded to these expressions of concern, except in one respect.  The facilitator’s email described above does say, “If needed, one or two additional CWG meetings might be scheduled at the end of the one-year period to complete the community engagement process.” In our view, allowing a couple of meetings at the end of the process for engaging the community is clearly the form of openness without the substance.  The public needs to be part of shaping the plan from the beginning. Consulting the public in one or two meetings after key recommendations have been developed is simply too little, too late in our view.

Our Message to the Public: An Invitation to Join

In Developing the Water Reuse Strategic Plan

In our press release (dated February 4) we listed four sub-committees we will be forming:  1) Reclaimed water users and uses; 2) Technology: needed for cleanup and distribution of the water; 3) Financing; and 4) Policies and Government.  In that same press release we invited Maui residents with interest and expertise to join one or more of these subcommittees, including any member of the CWG who wanted to participate.  We were not asking for members to join DIRE Coalition. We are glad to work with anyone – whether or not a member of DIRE or of the CWG – who has a sincere interest in achieving the Mayor’s goal.   We hope that that invitation can be discussed in future stories on this topic.

 What a Satisfactory Strategic Plan For Water Reuse on Maui Will Do

The DIRE supplemental process will produce a strategic plan to meet the Mayor’s goal, not a final detailed set of engineering specifications or operational plan. That apparently is what the leadership of the Community Working Group mistakenly thought we were asking for from this process, but that was not our intent.  We expect to develop a reasonably specific strategic plan. It will provide for improving treatment of the wastewater, and reclaiming and reusing the water safely and beneficially on land. It will provide for phasing out of the injection wells.  It will contain reasonable ballpark cost estimates and proposed methods of funding.  It will thus contain proposed timetables for achieving the Mayor’s goal or coming as close as we can as soon as we can feasibly do so.

1900 Communities Have Succeeded in Improving

Wastewater Treatment and Increasing Reuse: Why Not Maui?

Over 1900 communities have implemented effective wastewater treatment and reuse programs. See, for example, the extensive list of the communities that are members of the WateReuse Association -- http://www.watereuse.org/?assoc&wra. We did not mean to convey that each of the 1900 communities had previously disposed of their wastewater effluent in injection wells. Most did not. Most had previously released the wastewater effluent into rivers, streams, creeks, and other surface water bodies.  Nor do we claim that each of these communities has accomplished this result in a year or achieved 100% reuse.

The point is that these communities have identified the technology, financing and beneficial uses necessary to enhance their wastewater reuse and significantly reduce their discharges of inadequately treated wastewater to the environment. Why not Maui?

 That is why we have trouble understanding the argument that Maui has done the best it could, and we cannot afford it. How can 1900 other communities have found ways to upgrade treatment of their wastewater and reclaim and reuse it beneficially, while Maui has been unable to reclaim more than 20-25% of our wastewater?  We need a can-do attitude to find workable solutions, not the “no-can-do” attitude that has kept us stuck in harmful patterns.

 Examples of Creative Financing Are Known

Methods for creative finance of improved wastewater treatment and water reuse are available and have been demonstrated.  Here’s just one example: The city of Prescott, Arizona arranged to pay for necessary wastewater treatment and reclamation facilities and distribution systems by auctioning rights to the water that was going to be reclaimed.  The auction resulted in bids up to $67 million. See: http://www.pvaz.net/Index.aspx?page=522. Similarly, over $30 million was allotted to the State of Hawaii for its Water Pollution State Revolving Fund under the federal stimulus law (ARRA), yet none of this went to Maui for phasing out injection wells, improving treatment, or water reuse. See: http://hawaii.gov/health/environmental/water/wastewater/pdf/iup-sfy10.pdf. We ask why not?

We hope that these examples, along with others, can be highlighted in future stories.

 Maui’s Environmental Leadership Has Not Been Open

About the County’s Noncompliance with the Clean Water Act

And the Costs of Current Wastewater Disposal

There is a key topic that did not come up in our recent interviews, but it is very relevant to understanding the overall story line.  The County’s Department of Environmental Management talks frequently about how much it will cost to close the injection wells, improve treatment, and reuse the water.  But they do not talk about the costs of not doing so.

Despite our requests to the Mayor, Cheryl Okuma, and the CWG, there is no discussion or acknowledgement that the County’s current use of injection wells without obtaining a National Pollutant Elimination Discharge System (NPDES) permit for any of these wells violates the Clean Water Act and could subject Maui taxpayers to fines of up to $32,500/pollutant per day of discharge for each county injection well on the Island.  NPDES permits are required by the federal Clean Water Act and state clean water program for each point source (an injection well is a “point source”) that discharges pollutants (bacteria, viruses, various nutrients are all in the injected wastewater and are all “pollutants” under the law) into waters of the United States (the near shore ocean waters are “waters of the United States” and the injection wells discharge these pollutants into the groundwater and through the groundwater into the ocean).

The County is already on record as knowing and acknowledging that the wastewater injection well effluent goes into the ocean through the groundwater. See the testimony of Dave Taylor, head of Maui’s Wastewater Reclamation Division, and of former Mayor Arakawa, who worked at the Kahului and Kihei wastewater treatment plants.  Dave Taylor said: “The other water, about four million gallons, maybe a little less, goes down the injection wells. The injection well water is -- does not go through the ultraviolet treatment. It goes down these deep pipes into the ground, they go down a couple hundred feet. And that water moves outward through the ground, eventually it comes out into the ocean.” [Emphasis added] http://www.epa.gov/region09/water/groundwater/uic-pdfs/lahaina/1345E.pdf, p. 8, and Arakawa: “I know that, in Kahului, the water goes into the injection well, it comes out almost immediately at the ocean side. We can even see traces of it bubbling up almost as a stream. In Lahaina, we're not much further. I believe the effects of the water getting into the ocean is [sic] a lot sooner than what we think.” Id, p. 91.

Two recent published scientific articles confirm pretty conclusively that the wastewaters from Maui County’s injection wells are in fact entering the ocean.  See Dailer, M.L., et al. Using d15N values in algal tissue to map locations and potential sources of anthropogenic nutrient inputs on the island of Maui, Hawai‘i, USA. Mar. Pollut. Bull. (2010), doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2009.12.021 and Hunt, A Multitracer Approach to Detecting Wastewater Plumes from Municipal Injection Wells in Nearshore Marine Waters at Kihei and Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii, USGS Scientific Investigations Report 2009—5253 (2009) -- http://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2009/5253.

In November 2008, we warned in testimony at the Lahaina hearing that the County was in violation of the Clean Water Act.  We got no response. In December of 2009, we met with Mayor Tavares, Cheryl Okuma, and representatives of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, Region 9, and again warned that the County was out of compliance and should be seeking NPDES permits. We followed that meeting up with a letter to the Mayor citing specific cases in which discharges to groundwater that then went to surface waters were held to be discharges to waters of the United States and thus subject to the Clean Water Act.  Again we have received no response. Most recently, the EPA has sent the County an order under section 308 of the Clean Water Act (which authorizes EPA to require information needed to determine whether there are violations of the Act ). In order to assess the impacts of the injected effluents on coastal waters and to determine compliance with the Act, EPA is requiring the County to undertake monitoring of the injected effluent, sampling of coastal seeps known to contain wastewater constituents, and to conduct introduced tracer studies at Kahekili to further examine the discharges from the Lahaina injection wells and their impact at Kahikili.

As of yet, we are still unaware that this issue or concern has been discussed by the County’s environmental leadership with the County Council or that the County has begun to seek an NPDES permit for each of its injection wells. Nor has this been discussed in the Community Working Group. This silence and inaction not only puts the Maui’s ocean waters at risk, and those who use them (see below), and the coral reefs in the near shore waters, but it also puts county taxpayers at risk. We stand to be subject of fines of hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of dollars if we continue to disregard the requirements of the Clean Water Act.  Our point is: this issue should be discussed openly and with respect for the values of the Clean Water Act.  Currently, we do not see that kind of transparency and open discussion with the public happening.

Potentially mounting liabilities for Clean Water Act fines are not the only unacknowledged cost of continuing to inject the wastewater rather than reclaiming and reusing it.  Among the other costs are: reduced value of property near the ocean where the wastewater enters the ocean, potential risks to Maui’s reputation and economy as a vacation destination if it becomes known that our ocean waters are polluted with inadequately treated wastewater, the increased damage that can occur from storms where the reefs have been destroyed, the costs of wildfires that could have been prevented or limited with recycled water irrigation of green belts, and the costs of illness and lost work resulting from infections for those who swim, paddle, surf, play, or work in the ocean. In addition, there is the added cost that taxpayers or ratepayers must bear for the development of new supplies of potable water (such as reservoirs, etc.) because we have failed to reclaim and recycle the water we now waste. 

The Health of Residents (and Visitors) Who Surf, Swim, Fish, Dive, Snorkel, And Work

In the Ocean near These Injection Wells is In Jeopardy

Maui has a dirty little secret, which we had better deal with quickly. Our rate of staph infection in Maui is the highest in the state per capita, and the state’s infection rate for staph “MRSA”) is substantially higher than on the mainland.  

“Since 1995, there has been a steady increase in the number of hospital stays for MRSA. Hospital stays for these infections nearly tripled after 2000 and increased twenty-fold after 1995. Hospital stays for MRSA infections are highest on Maui where there were 188 MRSA hospitalizations per 100,000 population in 2006, followed by Kauai with 176 hospitalizations per 100,000 population. [See 'Other views, By region'.] Hawaii’s hospitalization rate is higher than the Mainland, where rates range between 89 and 113 hospitalizations per 100,000 population.” http://hhic.org/mrsa.asp  

We are not suggesting that this high infection rate is due solely to wastewater from injection wells entering the ocean.  But there is strong and growing body of anecdotal evidence that pathogens in wastewater effluent entering the ocean may one of the factors contributing significantly to the high rates of staph in Maui.

The Hawaii Coral Reef Initiative reports, “Anecdotal reports suggest that Maui ocean users may face high exposure to this type of pathogens (e.g, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA).”  http://www.hawaii.edu/ssri/hcri/files/RFPrelease/HCRI_RFP_%282009-2010%29.pdf  See, for example, the testimony of Andrew Lehmann at the Lahaina hearing regarding his recurrent staph infections whenever he surfs near Lahaina, but not when he surfs in Australia or elsewhere. http://www.epa.gov/region09/water/groundwater/uic-pdfs/lahaina/EPA-hearing-transcript.pdf, p. 36. See also the testimony of Robin Knox at the Lahaina hearing in November 2008:

"I have to worry about getting sick when I go to do my job. My co-workers are sick. They have the antibiotic resistant staph infections. It's from diving in the places where the injection wells are come -- effluents are coming out on the reef. I have seen a friend come to the island for a week and swim in the ocean with a cut, and his foot swole up this big and had to go to the emergency room. There is no requirement for disinfection for most of the wastewater on this island. . . . some of it, thank goodness, gets some treatment in the County plants. And even that's not disinfected unless we reuse it. http://www.epa.gov/region09/water/groundwater/uic-pdfs/lahaina/EPA-hearing-transcript.pdf, p. 16

Likewise, see the testimony of Uilani Kapu: “I am a living testimony to having staph twice from our oceans out here. I got infected from these waters. My kids don't go into 'em anymore because of how many people have caughten [sic] staph.” http://www.epa.gov/region09/water/groundwater/uic-pdfs/lahaina/1345E.pdf, p 98  And see the testimony of Kekai Keahi: “I gonna start off with young kid days, yeah, when we used to go ocean, always out there, we get hurt, we get cut, the old folks used to tell us go (Hawaiian), go down to the ocean and go clean your cut, because the ocean gonna heal 'em. . . . Nowadays, I coach (inaudible) with 250 members. You should see the staph outbreaks we get. You wouldn't even believe one -- one guy, two years ago, got -- was so bad, he had staph, he had to go in surgery. They almost going to take off his arm. That's how bad he was.”  http://www.epa.gov/region09/water/groundwater/uic-pdfs/lahaina/1345E.pdf, p. 101.        

Kekai Keahi’s testimony makes the point that anti-biotic resistant staph infections are not just annoying. They can require costly hospital visits, or much more serious consequences.

As Robin Knox’s testimony points out, the wastewater on Maui is not required to be disinfected before it is injected.  Only the wastewater that is intended for reuse on land is disinfected. We question why the County has decided that is ok to send wastewater effluent down injection wells and into the ocean when it has not been disinfected?  The expedient answer may be that it costs less, but we question whether Maui residents think it is ok to expose their keiki, their ohana, their guests, and themselves to inadequately treated sewage effluent when they go swimming, diving, or snorkeling, or fishing in Maui’s near shore waters. We think not.

 Attempts to Paint DIRE as Impatient and Willing

To Fracture the CWG Miss the Point

At both hearings held by EPA at Lahaina, the testimony from the public was unanimous: injection of wastewater must be phased out as soon as possible on Maui and the water treated adequately to be reused beneficially and safely on land.  It is not just DIRE Coalition who is impatient for change. And our impatience is heightened by the increasing damage that is occurring to our coral reefs and our people. Since 1995, there has been little progress toward this end, until the DIRE Coalition formed and until the Mayor issued her excellent goal: “Ending wastewater injection and reusing all the water.”

EPA likewise is suggesting that Maui’s time for continuing to rely on injection wells to manage its wastewaters may be running out.  The time for Maui County to continue to operate these injection wells without an NPDES permit may also be short-lived. EPA’s “patience” may be running out as well.  The scientific proof of is clear: the injection wells are contributing to the decline of Maui’s reefs and the pollution of our already impaired waters.  Valuable water resources are being squandered at a time of drought, water shortage, and conflict over water rights. Where wastewater treatment processes are not designed, operated and monitored to achieve disinfection, it is likely that pathogens (bacteria and viruses from inadequately treated human waste) are entering the ocean through these wells and creating real threats to our health and our economy. Should we be “patient” with these conditions, as the Mayor’s spokesperson seems to imply? Or is “impatience” a virtue under these circumstances?

The Lahaina News thought not, when it editorialized “Get Rid of Injection Wells”: “Every day, an average of 3,000,000 to 5,000,000 gallons of treated sewage is dumped into the ground at the Lahaina Wastewater Reclamation Facility, and one million gallons is treated to R-1 quality and reused.  Add that up for years, and you have billions of gallons of nutrient-rich effluent marching toward the ocean.   With injection wells in use around the island, this practice is foolish on several levels.  The treated wastewater pollutes the ocean, harms reefs and the nearshore environment and fuels algae blooms.” http://www.lahainanews.com/page/content.detail/id/500110/Get-rid-of-injection-wells.html?nav=9

We take the Mayor’s goal seriously. Now the questions are how and when are we going to achieve the Mayor’s goal, and how are we going to pay for it?  We have begun to propose concrete processes to come up with the answers.  We have invited the public to join that process and that includes any member of the CWG.  The answers we are looking for are answers that the Department of Environmental Management should have come up with on their own. They have since 1995 to build a workable plan, but that plan has not been forthcoming. The CWG is not being managed to produce a strategic plan for achieving the Mayor’s goal. That is why a supplemental citizen’s initiative and sound strategic plan was – and is – necessary.

Why It’s Important to Have an Openublic Discussion of the Plan

     For Achieving The Mayor’s Goal before the Election

The need for change IS urgent. We cannot maintain the same behavior and hope to get very different results. Maui’s reefs are at increasing risk from many causes, and we cannot wait a decade or more to control one of the key significant contributory factors for their decline. International reef scientists agree. See Pandolfi, “Are We on the Slippery Slope To Slime?” Science, (2005) -- http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/307/5716/1725. So does the Hawaii Division of Aquatic Resources (DAR).  That is why the Administrator of DAR wrote to EPA in September 2008 saying,

 “. . . many of [Hawaii’s] reefs [are] showing substantial decline in the percentage of living coral reef cover over the past several decades. Of particular importance to [the Lahaina injection well permit] is the evidence we have collected that reefs immediately offshore of the [Lahaina facility] are experiencing substantial degradation. . . . [O]ur agency has very serious concerns over the potential impacts of wastewater injection wells on the health of Hawaii’s coral reefs. . . . “[S]everal years of coral reef monitoring data . . . clearly show that a correlation exists between wastewater injection, decreasing coral cover, and increased problems with invasive algae. . . [W]e also feel that reduction and/or elimination of wastewater injection would greatly reduce the total nutrient loads on our coral reefs. . . . Maui must move forward with more responsible water conservation measures, including programs in wastewater reuse” (pp 1-2) - http://www.pacificwhale.org/documentSetting/UserFiles/8-19-09%20DIRE%20draft%20testimony%20and%20written%20submission%20to%20EPA%20Lahaina%20Injection%20Well%20Hearing-1.pdf, p. 32.

It is not just the declining state of the reefs of Maui that requires urgency in our response. We are facing significant conflicts over water rights on Maui, and the reclaimed water we are seeking could be an important part of the solution.  Many of Maui’s near shore waters are listed as “impaired” – the politically correct term for so polluted that they fail to meet applicable water quality standards to ensure that they are “swimmable and fishable” as the Clean Water Act of 1972 requires.  

Time truly is of the essence in our view. And we do think that the issues are more than technical and scientific. They involve important public policy questions and values choices.  That is why we think it perfectly appropriate to raise the question of what Maui’s plan for achieving the Mayor’s goal should be in time for all the candidates to take a stand on this important issue before the voters decide who will represent them.

 We Remain Eager to Cooperate with the Mayor, the

Department of Environmental Management, And the CWG Project Team

Despite all these differences, DIRE Coalition welcomes the opportunity to work with the Mayor, the Department of Environmental Management, and/or the Community Working Group -- if we can all agree to work toward achievement of the Mayor’s goal and seek to make the maximum progress that is feasible toward that goal as soon as possible – whether it is five years or longer.  That is what we seek. If that is what the Mayor, the Department, and the CWG project team all seek as well, we should be able to find ways to work together in a spirit of mutual respect.

Appendix A – Email from Leland Chang

                                                                                     January 4, 2010

Aloha, Irene, Robin, and Jeff:

Mahalo for your email Saturday suggesting the forming of committees to help move the work along.  We appreciate your willingness to go above and beyond the level of effort that we have asked of CWG members.  The idea of committees was suggested by Jeff around the time of the first CWG meeting, and the project team has considered it.  I also had a chance to discuss this again with the project team this morning and I am responding on behalf of the team.

 The suggestion for additional CWG activity indicates a concern that there will not be sufficient time for the CWG to do its work.  The project’s expected outcomes are well-informed expressions of community values and priorities, criteria with which to evaluate alternatives, and broad recommendations for future planning.  We believe, based on past community working group efforts here and on Oahu, that monthly CWG meetings over the course of a year will afford the CWG more than ample opportunity to develop meaningful input in these areas.  If needed, one or two additional CWG meetings might be scheduled at the end of the one-year period to complete the community engagement process.  Our project does not involve development of a fully vetted plan, scientific research, technical and financial feasibility studies, or facilities planning.  These elements will occur after the CWG process is complete and will be shaped by the CWG’s recommendations. [Emphasis added]

 From a process standpoint, the project team is working to maintain an open and consensus-based interaction among CWG members by planning for all CWG deliberations to occur within the group as a whole.  For this to happen, it is important that all members be allowed to participate in all discussions throughout the duration of the project.  We are also mindful that Mayor Tavares invited CWG members to participate with a specific time expectation in mind (monthly, three-hour meetings) and we would be concerned about asking for an additional commitment of time from CWG members.

Again, we greatly appreciate your contributions to the work of the CWG and your willingness to do even more.  Your continued energy and support of this effort reinforces our optimism for the CWG process.

 Best regards,

Leland

"Jeffrey H. Schwartz" <Jeff@kelaassociates.com> 1/2/2010 11:01 AM >>>
Aloha Leland (and colleagues on the Maui Community Working Group on Water
Reuse),

Hau'oli Makahiki Hou!

In anticipation of the upcoming meeting on January 7, we would like to request time on the agenda to present and discuss a proposal for forming three sub-committees around the main areas of the CWG's work. Our goals are to make sure that we can move the work of the CWG forward between full CWG monthly meetings and to provide mechanisms for increasing community engagement and buy-in. We anticipate that our proposal could be dealt with in 10-15 minutes, perhaps less.

We would appreciate allowing time on the agenda for this item.

Mahalo,

Irene Bowie
Robin Knox
Jeff Schwartz