Thomas C. Leppert, president of the Lana’i Company, says that the dispute over the company’s use of water from the island’s high-level aquifer for golf-course irrigation is an honest misunderstanding. It was always the company’s intention to use brackish water from wells 1 and 9 in the high-level aquifer, Leppert claims, and the company made no secret of this.
Attorneys for the state and for Lanaians for Sensible Growth, take a different view. They maintain that the company agreed not to use the high-level water, confident that “alternate” sources could be developed in sufficient quantity. But, the company’s opponents claim, when those sources turned out to be not as plentiful as initially thought or their development was going to be costlier than what the company wanted to spend, the company began pumping the high-level water. As to the company’s claims that it clearly indicated its intentions to use wells 1 and 9, opposing attorneys say that to the limited extent that the company made reference to those wells, the wells were never identified as being in the high-level aquifer.
What follow are some of the statements on the subject that have been placed into the Land Use Commission records.
August 10, 1988:
John Mink, hydrologist for the Lana’i Company: “The fresh water aquifers are composed of permeable lavas intersected by impermeable dikes and other structures associated with the caldera of the original volcano and its rift zones. These aquifers are referred to as ‘high level aquifers’, they contain fresh groundwater that is not endangered by sea water intrusion. Individual aquifers are small but they are hydraulically connected to the extent that the area of high level water can be treated as a single unit in determining sustainable yield of the resource.”
March 1989:
M&E Pacific, Inc., “Water Resources Development Plan for the Island of Lana’i: Alternate sources … mean water resources outside the high level aquifer. Alternate sources also include reclaimable sewage effluent suitable for landscape irrigation. The alternate sources are a significant part of the overall water resources development plan, especially in anticipation of the fact that close to 80 percent of the demand for future water is estimated to be for irrigation.”
February 14, 1990:
Thomas Leppert, letter to Maui County Planning Department: “I would stress that any water demand for the Manele Golf Course would be from alternative sources (e.g., brackish, etc ).” A table attached to the letter shows predicted demands from two sources of water, “high-level” and “alternative sources.” The demand for irrigation of the Manele golf course is placed at .8 mgd, all of which is to come from “alternative sources,” according to the table.
June 15, 1990:
Leppert, in an interview published in Lana’i Times:
Q: Water has been raised as an issue related to Manele. How will a golf course at Manele affect water supply?
A: We have very specifically stated in all of our applications and in public testimony that water irrigation for the Manele golf course will not be from the high level aquifer.
October 22, 1991:
From transcript of a meeting of Lana’i Task Force, Maui County Water Use and Development Plan. Bruce Foote was water utilities manager for the Lana’i Company at the rime. Ron McOmber is with Lanaians for Sensible Growth. Goro Hokama is chairman of the Maui County Council and council member from Lana’i.
McOmber: The agreement was that you would have to develop a non-potable water source and not take it from an existing water source. That is the agreement.
Foote: The key thrust here, I think, is you protect the high-level potable aquifer for the use of the citizens of Lana’i. That we are doing. Well 1 is brackish…
Hokama: That’s not the point. Murdock himself said he was going to find new sources of water for the Manele golf course. Well 1 is not a new source.
September 9, 1992:
From transcript of a Land Use Commission hearing on expansion of Manele residential area. Renton Nip is a member of the LUC:
Leppert: I can tell you that the decisions [to close the plantation] were totally made on the agricultural side. It had nothing to do with the real estate… [T]he decision was never real estate versus agriculture. It never had to be.
Nip: It never had to be? … Given the water resources on this island?
Leppert: Absolutely… The golf courses are brackish. We’re not using any of the high level aquifer for that, sir.
May 12, 1993:
LUC hearing. Nip questions Vince Bagoyo, head of the Lana’i Water Company:
Nip: I recall the testimony being that there would be an alternative source of water that would be developed for the golfcourse. Now, the impression I had … was that it certainly would be physically distinct from the high-level aquifer. It would be from either a basal lens or something near the shoreline… I certainly did not think at the time the condition was imposed that we were saying, ‘well, they could use non-potable water from the high-level aquifer.’ Because in the back of my mind I also recall testimony… where there is some risk about withdrawing non-potable water from the high-level aquifer…
Bagoyo:… I think throughout the discussions the company always indicated that we are going to use wells 1 and 9. And wells 1 and 9 are brackish but they are within the high-level aquifer.
Nip: … Isn’t it true … that exploration was attempted and wells were attempted with respect to the basal lens and that kind of did not work?
Bagoyo: Like I said earlier, well number 13’s not producing… Well 12 is marginal…
Nip: Now, I suppose if the intention was to go with wells 1 and 9 initially or at the time we approved the petition, I don’t know why they were fooling around with wells 12 and 13… It doesn’t seem consistent, does it? Isn’t the truth of the matter, and perhaps what the company should [do is] come before us and say, ‘Hey, guys, sorry, we tried and we failed. It just didn’t work out, guys. We have to go back to the high-level aquifer. That’s our only choice.’ Isn’t that a more forthright way to approach it?
Bagoyo: It certainly is. However, I think quite a few people have used the potable synonymous to the high level.
May 13, 1993:
LUC transcript. Lana’i Company’s water consultant, Tom Nance, is questioned on his written statement by Deputy Attorney General Rick Eichor, representing the Office of State Planning.
Eichor: I’m curious how you came to the conclusion … ‘The groundwater compartments are probably the area and the water that people commonly meant when using the term high-level aquifer.’ Is that just a guess on your part?
Nance: Not really a guess. Part of it came from questions asked of me by the [Maui] Planning Commission… Part of it came from reviewing what I will describe as the confusing way that Well 1 and 9 have been addressed in reports. And a lot of it comes from conversations I had with Mr. Manabu Tagomori [head of the state Division of Water and Land Development, within the Department of Land and Natural Resources]…
Eichor: So you haven’t talked with any of the people on Lana’i to determine what their common perception is?
Nance: No.
Eichor: [Quoting from Nance’s written statement] ‘In my review of various applications it’s always been clearly stated that wells 1 and 9 were intended to be used for golf courses and other irrigation.’ … [But] was it clearly stated that the water for wells 1 and 9 was coming from the high-level aquifer?
Nance: I don’t believe it was clearly stated.
December 14, 1993:
LUC transcript. Questioning of Leppert by James Funaki, attorney for the Lana’i Company, and Alan Murakami, attorney for Lanaians for Sensible Growth.
Funaki: [Quoting from testimony of Leppert March 9, 1990] ‘… we are not using the high-level aquifer for the use of this golf course. …’
Leppert: … In a very technical sense that is not right, and I understand it’s not right, but the spirit at that time and what the issues were in our discussions was the potable versus non-potable, and we were trying to express as much as we could that the intent was not to use the potable water… I realize that has been a source of confusion, and I’m sorry for that.
Murakami: Was it your understanding… that wells 1 and 9 were in the high-level aquifer?
Leppert: Yes…. I think there was an overlapping of the definitions of high-level, high high-level, low high-level, potable, non-potable. So I don’t think there was a uniformity in the understanding of that at all. And again, I admit it to you, that there were occasions where I misutilized the terms looking back in retrospect…
Murakami: Didn’t the county in fact impose an even more clear requirement that you use no water from the high-level aquifer?
Leppert: We have a wording issue that I think is more difficult than the wording issue at the Land Use.
[Commission].. . We are working at the county level to get that dealt with…
Murakimi: So you don’t – at this point you do not agree that you’re violating Ordinance 2132 of the Maui County Council?
Leppert: We think there is a spirit issue on that and on spirit we said that we were using –
Murakami: Simply yes or no.
Leppert: No.
Murakami: Isn’t it true that you had an agreement with [Lanaians for Sensible Growth] not to use the high-level aquifer for irrigation?…
Leppert: Again, I’ll go back to the same point.
Murakami: So you don’t agree that there has been a violation.
Leppert: No, I think if you take the spirit of that, what was intended, the issue was the potable versus non-potable issue.
Murakami: In either of the conditions set, restrictions set in Ordinance 2132 or our agreement…. isn’t it true that there is no distinction between potable and non-potable water from the high-level aquifer?
Leppert: I think that is one very fair interpretation, given the wording… We believe the spirit of what we said all the way through is what we’re trying to do. We realize there’s confusion. We realize there’s misunderstanding. We want to work through that.
— Patricia Tummons
Volume 4, Number 8 February 1994
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