State Water Division Contracts Are Issued Before Permits Received
The state Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Water and Land Development has routinely signed contracts for water development projects without assurance that permits for them will be issued by the state Commission on Water Resource Management.
The practice recently came to light in the case of Makaleha Springs, where DOWALD long ago signed a contract to have a water collection system built on Kaua`i, but still awaits issuance of a permit from COWRM. (This was discussed in the March 1995 cover story of Environment Hawai`i.)
In February, the Board of Land and Natural Resources once more allowed DOWALD to enter into a contract for a water development project for which DOWALD has yet to seek a COWRM permit. The well is to be drilled at Koke`e, Kaua`i. According to the DOWALD staff report to the Land Board, “the existing well [at Koke`e] lacks sufficient capacity to meet existing demands of the park and has been pumped ‘dry’ on several occasions… The development of a new well is required to provide a safe, reliable source of water to meet the needs for drinking, sanitation and fire protection.”
At the Land Board’s meeting of February 24, 1995, DOWALD’s Ed Lau stated that the contract allowed DOWALD sufficient time to obtain the needed permits from COWRM. The contract, Lau said, “has a stipulation, without increase in price, that it is understood the notice to proceed may be delayed until February 1, 1996, at no additional compensation. So we anticipate the time needed to do the permitting. We do not anticipate a problem with this well in the area with the water commission…”
Land Board Chairman Mike Wilson commented, “this is conditioned on the permits being obtained, correct?”
Lau: “No… We would attempt, if — it depends on the reason for denying our proposal. We’ll attempt to negotiate or relocate the well, we know that we need to provide a water source, if that particular location, for whatever reason is not acceptable to the commission, we’ll attempt to find out those reasons and adjust our location, or source. So, we — which may require a renegotiation of our contract, at additional cost. But at this point we do not see a problem.”
According to Mason Young, administrator of the DLNR’s Division of Land Management, the well water would feed into the system that delivers water to the state park at Koke`e and the people who have houses there. Although the houses are on water meters, Young said, the state had no plan to adjust rates to recover capital costs of improving the water delivery system.
The existing system has a capacity of about 60,000 gallons per day. Lau said that if the new well is as productive as DOWALD hopes, it should more than double that capacity.
The state had estimated the well would cost $82,500 to drill. The winning bid of Mel’s Water Works was $73,575.
Beyond drilling the well, DOWALD has wants to improve the Koke`e water system by building four 40,000-gallon reservoirs, Lau said, but there are no immediate plans to move forward on this stage of the work.
The motion to approve the contract for the well was unanimously approved.
Navy Plans Clean-up At Lualualei Facility
Last month, interested members of the community met with the Navy to discuss the Navy’s plans to clean up hazardous waste at the Lualualei Naval Radio Transmitting Facility. Engineers from Ogden Environmental and Energy Services, the engineering firm hired by the Navy to develop a plan for the clean-up, attended the meeting as well. A draft of the plan, formally known as a Remedial Investigation/Feasibility Study, or RI/FS, was supposed to be ready in April 1995. Field activities may begin as early as October 1995.
Most of the known pollution at the site, along the Wai`anae coast of O`ahu, is thought to result from the improper disposal of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a potent cancer-causing substance used for years as the fluid in electrical transformers. PCB contamination has been confirmed at transformer sites at Building 26 and Building 81, two of the six areas within the NRTF where hazardous waste contamination is suspected. It is suspected at a third area (Building 67 transformer site).
A fourth site where further study of potential contaminants will be conducted is known as the Building 65 disposal area. According to the Navy, this area was used in the early to mid-1950s for disposal of drums, small quantities of oil, trash, and construction debris.
A landfill used from 1948 to 1952 will be studied as well, although it was never intended to receive hazardous wastes.
The sixth site on the Navy’s list is an area near Building 1. There, two wells were used in the late 1940s and early 1950s for the disposal of old engine parts.
The radio transmitting facility is one of two Navy facilities in Lualualei Valley. The second is the Naval Magazine, which lies to the east of the transmitting facility. NAVMAG Lualualei, as the Navy refers to the magazine, is not included in the clean-up plans for the NRTF.
Volume 5, Number 10 April 1995