and before we get into anything else i'd like to ask everybody to please put their cell phones are silent mode so that we will not be interrupted thank you very much and i would like to introduce the members that are here today relates to the counties of water of beetle believe the policy more commonly known as the show me the water bill and this is a very popular bill and gets talked about a whole lot the committee is in recei the following we have received come to communication sixteen dash fifteen from the chair of the committee myself relating to chapter fourteen point twelve mo we can decode intitled water availability we've receive correspondence dated may nineteenth twenty sixteen from the director of water supply transmitting the following a proposed building titled a bill through an ordinance amending chapter fourteen point one to mohican a code relating to water availability the purpose of the proposed bill is to be buys chapter fourteen point twelve of the county water code to allocate potable water based upon population projections noted in the general plan and the water system capacity projections be a proposed bill entitled a bill for an ordinance amending section fourteen point zero one point zero four zero molly county code relating to definitions the purpose of the proposed bill is to revise section fourteen point zero one point zero four zero of the county water code to amend and insert definitions i would like to think mr taylor and then for working so hard on this measure to bring it forward in a timely manner as you know we had a meeting here in the existing a bill and we had a lot of testimony and what we heard was that people did not want us at that point the proposal was to repeal the ordinance and we got overwhelming testimony that it shouldn't be people and now we're looking at amendments we have not made any decisions one way or another this is a proposal we are here today to listen and to listen to your testimony and to discuss possibly amending the policy  i want you to understand that you know we're very very interested in what you have to say and we're going to consider it very seriously and like to do that i think it's really really important and i know my members of the committee also feel better when they have a lot of good public testimony and we know how the public feels as well is listening to people who know a lot more about this than we do so without any objections to a wooden leg to begin with public testimony today and we're going to of course to do as we normally do testimony will be limited to the items when their agenda if you wish to testify piece and up into a desk located in the lobby or one of the district offices of this did on the agenda testimony is limited to three minutes two and a half minutes alike will turn yellow we need to read will being read if you are still talking at the three minute will kindly ask you to try and wrap it up when testifying please state your name and bill you are representing if anybody said yourself we are status of collection a connection i'm sorry to the district offices and keep this law in place the community stated so now you are asking us again in another way if not repeal the bill should it be changed why similar question similar answer no yes we to hear the same faulty logic for the from the same specific segments making the claim that this bill is the reason for a lack of affordable housing please examine the current law and read what a tells us and why it should not be changed real affordable projects are exempted from the current law how can that impede affordability if the bill protects current sources of our water our population is exploding climate change is having a greater effect let's proceed cautiously and protect our resources diverted stream flows are finally being rectified which can result in less water for development read what types of developments are exempt under the current or before you consider changes further we ask is maui the only place with a dire need for affordable housing hardly do all these other locations have such a law no so then there is something else causing th situation perhaps it is the growing disparity in community wealth numerous times we have heard from director taylor advising new legislators and the community that there's plenty of water on maui just tell me how much you want to spend and all advice how much water i'll get you there's no water shortage just a reasonable funding shortage so is so therefore there is no place under the ninety five percent ten year projection if somebody spends the money to transport to where the developers want to build deserts can be made to can be made to appear like rain forests it just takes lots of green to make a place look green please the proposed amendments do not further the intent of the original bill or of our public trust responsibility if government should learn any lesson from its own history it would be to follow the established public trust doctrine and recent court decisions in law guiding policies and decisions to protect our water and resources poor decisions based on priorities and values not shared by the citizens result in expensive litigation mammoth fines this also affects ongoing efforts to address fairly and with scientific accuracy water resources in the yet to be completed and adopted maui county water use and development plan absent clear objectives and evaluation criteria backed by community and cultural values of water resources is an invitation to expensive litigation and even more delays for approved subdivision building permits requiring a verified reliable long term water resource in my previous career as water and waste water engineering consultant i've testified many times  the availability of water and adequate water planning and policy i think that this is a good opportunity to take a step back and not water or water down what we have already thank you morning good morning members good morning to you and like the previous speaker i have a career and water resources and have worked for many national and international water resource en firms and i do not support the policy change and amendments at this time like the previous speaker believe you should leave the current policy in place until the water use and development plan is complete and i want to draw to your attention that the county officials have often said to me that the care of the overall water resources is a state responsibility and that the county really is only focusing on drinking water supply and i'll just say that's not true because the county does have a public trust responsibility to take care of that overall resource in your decision making so we can see if we look at the status of the eloqua for  that the state programs that the county often relies upon are not always there for the people of my county and my island so we need to be at the county level more effective in protecting that overall water resource because nobody's going to be able to develop a well or take more water from the streams if we don't take care of the overall resource and while i personally do think there are flaws with the existing policy i think it should be left for now until we know more and it at least has the benefit of focusing your attention on having an adequate developed water source prior to approval subdivisions and this also gives the council information that you might not otherwise get on what's going on on the island overall with development of water resources that information could be used in the development of policies that do protect the overall resource better than we are now the current policy does cause me concern i was a regulator of water companies and louisiana and when we had a similar policies that direct the subdivision developers to develop their own water source is what we ended up a parish or the equivalent of a county that had more than fifty water companies and that was very difficult at both the county and state level to regulate and i don't think we want to encourage that so when you do reconsider this policy hopefully after the development plan is final i encourage it'll review and expand the scope of show me the water not not contract it the water resources can be damaged even from affordable housing uses that if we want to make water available for affordable housing as a priority we need to still make sure that we're balancing that out somewhere else and we're taking care of the overall resource so again i encourage you to wait and i encourage you to reexamine and see how we can improve this ordinance thank you  members hope i showed up to the right meeting my only reason for appearing today is i just wanted to support director taylor's proposal i believe in the two thousand sixty fees to allow the expansion of fixture units and a fee to be charged for them now i don't know where that fits and today you are discussing the amending what we call the show good morning everybody thank you very much for your identification in the paper early enough i tried to get it out it was actual and it was excellent and i hope that all of these  agenda today speaks communication county communication sixteen dash fifteen i read all of those below but some of that information was very familiar because we've been hearing about it for years and a couple of things that really stuck in my mind something positive considering using reverse osmosis we pleaded for that back in the early two thousand when the country of us aided by st committee was working on the water contamination stuff up country and the answer was no because we don't have enough money and when we say how far we are in debt now because we are having to use other apply after the horse is out bound or whatever  water director who's going to be dealing with this who has dealt with this in the past and my answer was just on the time degree yes because the current water director hasn't been the water director forever here we may be aging him with the stuff he has to work with but we didn't start that so taking a look at that people are saying well how come it hasn't been rectified  how come the person who sends their request and we address this doesn't come to the meetings is excused from a lot of them so and i don't have an answer for that either i hope he well but just to make sure that we are following the laws that exist not only in the county and in the state but the e p a federal the one from home we get all the future debts for the show me the water the money that's coming from the fed to the state to here to here our june eight said we can't just keep ending you all this money we're not sure you're going to pay it back we've handed your money before it hasn't been used necessarily of what it was supposed to have been used for the estimates that were given more are not accurate allowing developers to escape responsibility for water source development will not create more water it will only force the county to pay for source development which will raise property taxes and make housing less informal for everybody including existing homeowners somebody needs to pay for source development and before show me the water was adopted developers would put in the pipes and then expect the county to find the water and show me the water put a stop to that right now our policy one hundred percent affordable housing and that's a good thing we need affordable housing and we should provide water sources for those projects as long as it doesn't damage the resource but the current workforce housing policy says we need twenty five percent so if we're going to make the affordable projects compete then we're going to be getting seventy five percent on affordable in many cases so from a policy perspective should we be subsidizing developers by providing water sources for an affordable houses when most of the housing goes to out of state buyers that's not justifiable and we should keep our policy strong so that we're giving affordable housing priority and water allocation january sixth when he last met it was pointed out that changing the water policy before updating the water use in development plan would be putting the cart before the horse and director taylor said he was working to come up with a draft revision within six months water use is occurring is even more reason to upgrade the water use and development plan prior to changing policy we need to err on the side of caution changing now changing our policy now would be rushing the process and make public  input to the water use in development plan meaningless at least feel meaningless to the citizens much like recent attempts to weaken our community plans the water departments proposed changes are significant and leave much to interpretation of the water director in the wrong hands that could result in damage to our awkward first water allocation should be based on factual evidence like the existing requirements for a report by a licensed engineer who risks losing his stamp if they do something wrong and department of health approval certifying the existence of a long term reliable source of water so that we don't get a short term unreliable source of water water allocation policy should not change depending on the interpretation of whoever holds the director position regarding what is an adequate supply so in summary we ask that you leave the water availability policy unchanged with its current exemption for one hundred percent affordable housing and with a focus on aqua firs and watersheds instead of just the pipes and pumps that extract the water from them up to date of the water use in development plan should be completed before any policy changes are considered model thank you very this microphone down pretty well my name is lee c n d nay i'm testifying today as the conservation chair of the sierra club the group my understanding is from these many meetings we've had have looking for compromise because we feel that there are some problems with this bill there are some folks that feel it should be completely repealed and there are others who feel that it's doing a good job and that some water military policy is needed including i think our own water director said that you know some guidance is needed so we're at this crossroads of a couple of amendments being a pro proposed one amendment makes a very simple change it just examples all housing developments that have a residential work force housing agreement with the county if you're watching at home and i know lots of folks are because they e mailed me that they couldn't come today but they've been watching  this is not a compromise this amendment this amendment basically says this bill applies to nothing so the bill still exists and it doesn't apply to anything that's the same as repealing it so it's not really a compromise then we have the hard work that director taylor has done submitting a view of how to clarify aspects of the bill that he feels you know would help his department we appreciate the work director taylor is put into this in the in this a lot of thought and work however this is not really a compromise because it redefines what we're looking for in the bill and in redefining that unfortunately we're leaving out the core principle of water use under our constitution under our water code under our county charter and under our county code which is that this water is a public trust responsibility the county has an affirmative duty to be part of that responsibility in its water planning that's what a water use and development plan is for the state water code is very clear this this water needs to be protected for the public trust however we can use it we can use it if we can submit plans the county needs each county needs to submit a plan in the plan there are objective set for how we want to plan things and those objectives guide things like the policy of water and able ability one of the key things the water use envelopment plant is supposed to address is reliability of water sources we don't have that planned yet so now we're talking about not looking at reliable water sources but adequate pipes and wells and delivery systems tell you it's a little frustrating to see the actual water which is a public trust left out of our planning process and this is why citizens sue because it's like the law says one thing and then we have policies that do another how else are you going to get heard so i hope you hear the people today let's punish the water use and development plan so it gives us some clear guidelines maybe our water use in development plan will say we want to prioritize our water uses to make sure that affordable housing projects over a certain percentage maybe it's not twenty five percent maybe we get a little incentive here over thirty five percent get priority for water meters maybe we could up the bar a little bit we don't have that we don't have those guidelines in place because we don't have a water use in development plan created you may realize that in our county charter the plan is supposed to be updated annually to reflect changes in development patterns we have been doing that you don't have to redo the whole plan you just in to update the sections so we maybe need to take a whole new approach on this thank you for listening aloha thank you very much for being here thank you for your testimony members and the questions are seeing thank you this well they've been thank you chair the final person signed up to testify here in the chamber is gilman and we are both here before you today having received the testimony from ohio which a no that you all have received and i just wanted to touch upon some of those points there that makes because we don't have a water use and development plan which is as i understand currently being looked at by the council we've had a series of meetings throughout the community which have had involved and interested individuals and there have been people who haven't been available to come to those meetings but are still impacted by this water use and development plan and i think we need to have we need to see that we need to look at what people have been working on we need to look at all the different figures that are there before we look at completely doing a conceptual framework because you know if we're looking at a framework one that relates to infrastructure capacity rather than impacts to our water resources is going to see us not very far in the future looking to develop more water resources and i think that should be part of this i mean to look at exempting developments that provide affordable housing that's a great thing as well because we all know we need affordable housing however those developments that utilise entitlements and credit to get out of building affordable housing yet still are able to benefit from this type of exemption is is not fair and it's not right for the rest of the people of mali of my we county we need to be looking critically at water resources i do know that you've as i said that you have received or you are going to be in receipt of this water use and development plan and i ask that you look at that you take a critical look at that before you make any decisions on changing this framework because by removing public trust considerations from the water policy this framework would eliminate important and beneficial planning mechanisms that consistent with your duty to uphold the public trust to uphold the public trust doctrine and look after our water resource this bill would also exempt any development with the workforce housing agreement from these mechanisms but again i ask you to see are these places really affording us housing for the people that desperately need it when we look at those areas like wild and mckenna and la i know where some of these developers are able to trade housing credits and no housing goes into those developments i'd like to make sure that this particular exemption does not apply to them because it shouldn't finally because there are other exit existing statutory mechanisms that already grant these exemptions i think that this is just a supplemental thing really that would prohibit people from getting more involved that would allow more rampant development without any kind of thought to affordable housing which is a critical thing that's just going to become a tag word and i think it should we have to bring it back to us to the people to the county to make the decisions and not the developers we do not need other people telling us they need exemptions and more credits and incentives to build things that they should already be building that should already be regulated and demanded by our county so i thank you for all the work that all of you have done i know this is a difficult it's a difficult issue because there are pressures from all sides but i thank you for doing it and i hope that you all will decide on the right thing hollow thank you very much members any need to clarify the testimony saying no thank you thank you there's no one further signed up to testify in the chamber and i think we have some papers coming ok would you like to check in with the district office ok why don't we would you please check in with them for me and meanwhile i can't get the paperwork you ladies the next person signed up to testify in the chamber is kelly king good morning chair good morning councilman members like  councilman council chair i am learning a lot from the testimony and i wasn't sure i was going to testify but i do support previous testimony about waiting until the water use in development plan is completed before we make changes any changes or amendments to this show me the water bill one of the things that i have been doing is and you all know i'm running for for council council seat this election is i've been meeting with a lot of experts on different issues concerning water water resources water quality and there are a lot of people out there who know a lot and like you said you we don't have to be the experts to make policy but we have to know where they are and we have to know and we have to be in the information to the table one of the one of the issues about an adequate water supply is we haven't seen it out in the community we don't know where that is and i want to make the point that we have an annual energy conference because energy is one of  the core things that we need commodity in this county we need to have an annual water conference as well that's open to the public where we can bring this information to the general public i think if we had more information in the public but there are probably a lot more people here testifying even i mean i think this is a president group though don't get me wrong by the people that i've been talking to just on the street don't understand you can't just come to  say we have adequate water supply you have to show us the water where is it and where is that infrastructure the other things that i think need to be talked about in a public forum our water efficiency measures and what are we doing i know there's some requirements for water efficiency in the fixture policies but people aren't widely aware of that why they're important and then where are we at with our e p a and where are we at with our federal regulations that are coming down on us i mean this is one of the reasons why you know it's got shut down because of e p a regulations for the emissions and a huge fine was levied back in the mid two thousand on maui electric company so we don't have conversations on this either with the e p a i've had i'm on oahu a lot with the energy policy forum so i interact with the e p a and i think we need more of a presence here or bringing them here to talk to us about where we're at with our water issues on with the e a and finally you know where are we at with the federal monies there are federal grants available i've actually there's one that i've been working on with a group in california expressly address things like waste water issues and money that's available with matching funds so i want to bring that to the table and have the council think about this if if or maybe even the administration if you're watching let's have an annual water conference and i remember looking at this i'm looking at this form the department water supply it says by all by water all things in life water food and energy are the core needs of us in our county and we should be addressing all equally thank you is a very complex issue and even myself i'm learning a lot about the current laws in the county ordinances and also the state laws but my concern is the children and i'm concerned about my children and future generations how do our decisions today and our current policies that we change today how's that going to look twenty years from now or forty years from now or even a hundred years from now no i know we can't project far into the future but my fear is we'll make a reaction decision today for something today but ten years from now what it was going to look like for my kids and their kids and the future kids and so even though i understand it's a complex issue with affordable housing and other issues going on with the bill i feel that we should keep the conversation going with the current laws that are in place before we make exemptions to the rule or we do other things that counsel this rule that's in place for the rule what is the intent the intent of the rules to protect the water and it's not just for one group over here or one group over there or for double housing for the what i'm reading in the books is for everyone and everyone and i and i'm ok so if i give one group this going to affect the other group there and those laws like farmers and everything else that's going on i understand it's a complex time michelle anderson this dentist and welcome back thank you madam chair members keep showing up like a bad penny but this is my baby i know it is and since i'm here why not the purpose of the water availability ordinance is to protect public water resources for more reuse and to put in the source and it sust these proposed amendments invalidates that purpose and turns the ordinance into a water meter issuance ordinance at the time this ordinance was adopted all county water systems were operating at maximum capacity based on conservative industry standards for major mean i mean it's water system budget for has been taken from the counties control by the state commission on water resource management for over in this source and threatening it's sustainably yield this is a primary source for all of south maui and central maui the greatest number of it  of any county water system in addition to taking over that management of this sector at this sacred source the commission on water resources management ordered the county to drill at least five legislation was crafted over a three year period over eighteen meetings we worked in collaboration with the department of water supply the department of public works corporation council and even members of the development community who suggest in suggestions i took to heart and their contributions contributed to a well designed ordinance regarding the engineer report review which i understand is being deleted from the ordinance you can delete it but you still will be a well water well application for review because it is required by the department of health and its inner agency review of the well application suppose someone wants to drill a well where the county of angele wants to drill a well to receive to service department of homeland lots and they are a priority user call out any problems they might have but the placement of the well i know the list looks onerous but it's basically the same list that the department of health goes through and their engine ears go through that criteria so when it comes to the department of water supply they've already reviewed it they're just asking county of mally do you have any concerns in regards to these criteria we don't live there you do you might have information that they don't have that's the purpose of the county's review they send it to all counties they have a very rigorous inner agency review  required in the department of health regulations for a new well so this review should be no problem for a trained hydrologist let's be clear if the county had water available in its systems developers would be getting water meters and they wouldn't be complaining it isn't because of this ordinance it's because there is no additional water available based on industry standards the state of hawaii water system standards set the criteria for surface and ground water capacity and is found in sections one one one zero zero four and zero eight at the adopted standards for surface water systems the demand should not exceed exceed eighty percent of the average unexpected short falls like drought failures and maximum fire flow during a fire it appears these amendments are asking you to set lower standards for water system capacity and sustainable yields if you adopt this you will codify these lower standards did leading the long term reliable source of water definition which is the heart of the ordinance and replacing it with adequate water system comes acidy undermines the whole purpose of protecting the county sources from over and over use what is adequate water system capacity this is the this is the determining factor in this proposal for issuing new water meters yet it is not to fight is it whatever the director wants it to be if you're going to start issuing meters based on ninety five to one hundred percent of maximum reliable capable capacity you better water but so do anderson can you conclude please so do it in writing yeah but so do the next generation thank you members if i could manage  i would like to leave this i didn't have time we'd love to have it this is not my testimony i'll leave you that but this also is  a budget of all the counties water systems based on the standards used by the department at the time we passed this ordinance showing that all systems were overcapacity and i think it would be very educational for the members i don't know you might remember it when you see it very much remember i said right next to you and yeah happening this i think is a template that needs to be followed i don't know wh i see we have one yes not a tear our next test fire is tom blackburn rodriguez to be followed by faith chase testifying as a representative gold maui aide and before i get into the details of my testimony i would like to say that go maui also takes a position and we are glad to be supported by the key a community association valued tomorrow the sierra club and the office of wine affairs and you will see from my testimony why i am pleased that they are also supporting our position though my respects an honors the work that has gone on to bring th places before the committee today sadly the proposed legislation is unclear overly complex and arbitrary we need an ordinance that is fair and reasonable and workable golmaal its position is that we have been waiting for new water since two thousand and two the show me the water moratorium has done nothing to improve the situation similar to the old housing ordinance until it was revised to make it more feasible we need more than placeholder numbers from the unquote and how they compute quote estimated ten year forecast unquote unless it's formulas are clear and the data used to compute them transparent then the director could plug in any numbers he wants to calculate and inadequate or adequate supply the draft bill takes us backward not forward and fails to address the key issues number one inability to develop source and to deliver that water to the areas needed one of the challenges cited as a reason for the legislation is the growth of subdivisions recently we have seen the cancellation of three large plant subdivisions including spencer homes old wall of village and home a ridge tolling over six hundred units and many of these units that are planned will not be built because they cannot get financing finally please note that the authority to approve water service applications that this legislation speaks to is already from my understanding in the hands of the water department director in chapter fourteen point zero four value county code water services section fourteen point zero four point zero one zero subsection a thank you again for the opportunity testify and thank you  hardworking staff civil service personnel the water department personnel and this council are struggling with this complex issue and we do appreciate their hard and sincere word aloha thank you very much it's members any need to clarify the morning water resource committee forgive me i was on a wahoo is a really important court case on oahu today that i chose to mess because i found out about this last night i was out of range maybe it was notified on friday but it's a really short short alert about this i have been going to the water use and development plan what are you some development what you call that component of the water department and their meetings in different areas i went to the one in hanna and then i went to the one a country i'm not satisfied with their work i know those two women are doing their best and pushing paper as best they can but it's a very weak outreach and i really don't understand how any of that kind of information if i might be wrong i'm just assuming that you might be using that information is gathered by these two women as they go across all the regions to make decisions about any kind of changes i honestly haven't had time to read i just brush over all the changes but i am in opposition to touching this bill just like i was one victory you know tried to bring it up a few months ago i don't understand how you can make any conscious decision with so many different variables up in the air and no one's to speak not specifically to the two women but to the outreach that i'm not satisfied with the water use and development committee  whatever you call that you know ha they scheduled that meeting on graduation and then we said and we have we have the most principal seat cliffs and tropical rain forests in all the state if you want to look at a map it goes all the way around from whale all the way around to kabul and you would think that that area would be do we do diligence would be done to have a meeting rescheduled and they sort of promised you know i promise is a strong word but they said yes we reschedule it i called i called they asked other friends to call and say hey they did it anyway on graduation we know only three people show up showed up do you want to do it again and they said no they're not going to reschedule it then i decided to help with their outreach and i asked for copies of the survey the four page survey which is  i forget her name but you know a really respected unnamed community leader asked me to talk to attorney the one that works for a cns a and b whatever hey she's in the room maybe she'd like to divulge a little bit like what the position is of the company said she's here and we're in a work group now this is the work of this not just the information on this is the work of one and the moderator the one he cut her off or didn't even let her speak and said oh we have a meeting with them next week ok now i'm really short because you know it is a little bit pressure but i really object to her cutting her off when we're there to make a make some so you know to get to the bottom of things anyway this i'm opposed to this i'm sorry i'm not well more well versed in it  surprise i think it's audacious i don't think you know i think you should just stop until you things get figured out yet everybody knows there's a bunch of stuff up in the air i want to cry but i'm just i'm sorry that have to be mrs white's i love you and i just i'm sorry this is your committee i'm sorry this is  time and i just please just stop until you get real information you don't have enough information right now to make any kind of decision thank you thank you very much a members and you need to clarify th d members with objections i will close public testimony for today objection so ordered members we we if you could please turn this thing up in the neighbor offices neighbor thank you very much mr weldon bring members would you like to take a very short break now i mean a short break now before we get into listening to the director and some discussion you're up to ok we'll take a short break will the meeting please come back to order before we get into the remarks of our director chair would like to think everybody who came today i'd also like to think that to supporters who sent in written testimony we did get quite a bit of written testimony and i'd like to thank everybody who did that it's very helpful to us we are not going to make any decisions today if you read the agenda you saw no they just ate it back she will be taken today but we certainly are going to and thanks members and i really appreciate the public coming out with their constructive criticism or even just criticism because as i was telling one of the public at the break it doesn't help us if we don't know what they think is wrong so i think this was very constructive and i want to address some of these comments with the comments from counsel hopefully we can start having some ideas about what to do next so i want to start with former member anderson's opening comment that i completely agree with this draft ordinance we provided is turning the show me the water from something that was meant to protect sustainable yield and source depletion into a meter issuance policy she said that's what it's doing and i agree that is its intention and that was my intention this is sort of your first fork in the road do we need this to be a protection of water resources were for year olds and those kind things or is that state water commission's job through state water code compliance and contested case hearings and cetera my belief is that's already done at the state level were part of that the purpose of what you have in front of you is to say this is a meter issuance prioritization for the department not a protection of the natural water resources which is already done at the state level some of the issues about that were brought up about water used to element plan and public trust issues those are also dealt with at that state level the water used to develop in plan basically what it's going to do it's not going to get into this subdivision versus that subdivision it's going to allocate resources to to various public trust uses one is municipal our municipal use is basically a bucket that will be in the water used to go out and plan saying county of maui department of water supply should be allocated this much for municipal uses the purpose of the bill we provided is to take that bucket and say how does this council want to divide up the pirate ization of that bucket it's not going to replace the she may disagree with it but that is my intention to turn it into a how do we allocate the water we have so that's your first fork in the road do you think we need to do a water opera for protection bill or do we need a water allocation of our water bill i think we need the second so that's first what we're trying to do the second there was a there was a number of testifiers testified about lack of clarity of the definitions so let's go back to be existing bill and we talked about the key phrase in it long term reliable supply of water ok that's what's in the existing bill and everything's built around that phrase is there or is there not a long term reliable supply of water six words you start thinking about what that means long term means it's as the director is supposed to look long term doesn't really say that well their long term is one year or fifty years but the rector supposed to imagine a time in the future and say at that time in the future is there a reliable supply of water so that means reliable supply of water he says the director supposed to look at some point in the future calculate two numbers supply versus demand and say is one greater or less than the other and make some decisions based on the by every choice yes or no but the current bill doesn't have any direction of what that means it doesn't say how long in the future or exactly what is being compared to so let me give you two sort of bookends of what that might mean long term reliable supply of water we could interpret that and say is in fifty years there are enough water to somehow treat and somehow get to people and my answer is yes we live in the middle of the ocean we can do d us there's reuse there's all kinds of technology so there is definitely from that definition a long term reliable supply of water the answer is always going to be yes you could take the other end and say if we subdivision right across the street and there's a pipeline in front of the road are we saying that long term reliable supply of water means that that guy when he goes to build a house fifty years from now i guarantee him pressure at his property right the answer to that always going to be no i can't guarantee that so the current phrase long term reliable supply of water is itself way too vague what this bill does it tries to be a meter issue inspired ization bill and it tries to define long term reliable supply of water with these mathematical definitions that some people call the overly complex it was sort of a simplified as i thought we could get it and still be workable so that's what it does and why it does it there's three ranges i was going to finish up with this there is ninety five percent ninety five to ninety eight percent and greater than ninety percent we wrote this bill trying to be a template saying that whatever your belief is whatever your ideology or philosophy you should be able to implement it simply by changing numbers for example if you take this bill and you think there shouldn't be any show me the water bill all you have to do is change ninety five ninety five ninety ninety eight to ninety nine point seven ninety eight point nine and ninety nine point nine percent and even at ninety nine percent make the allowable subdivisions up to one thousand units that's essentially will never ever ever kick and that would be like not having you show me the water bill or if you think we should immediately have a building moratorium because water resources are so in jeopardy change those three numbers to thirty percent forty percent and fifty percent and even if we're at fifty percent divisions that's essentially creating a moratorium it will never get out it will never have that much extra so what this bill does is it like i said it first takes this fork in the road and says we're trying it's not trying to be all things to all people is trying to allocate the municipal water that we have allocated through the state process allocating it to counsel chosen priorities in some better defined mathematical way that follows whatever policies or whatever direction the council wants to follow it should be that anyone who was got whatever their or their policy should be able to take this thing mark it up mark up the numbers differently and it should meet what their goals are that was our goal whether or not we reached that i'm not sure but that was the intention to do those things so i'm certainly available to answer questions  hope that helps address some of what the testifiers said what we're trying to do not trying to do and while we may move to the future thank you thank you very much direct your members any questions com at their meeting which will be in cologne it is getting a briefing on status today where we are today the estimate is that in the fall probably around november a draft should be given to the board of water supply for their approval by ordinance they have a certain number of days and after that it comes to the council so we're targeting the fall to provide that draft if you want to call it supply i don't remember how long you've been working on that but it is a recall it's been quite some time it is been several years and in fact it's if you really look at what's been happening  last time this body saw the central portion was before my time that was approved by the council sent to the water commission where the water commission didn't approve it because their view was essentially what that was was a central maui department of water supply portion of the plant it didn't even address the non department of water supply uses so the water commission said that's not enough for them to approve they can't approve such a small piecemeal piece of it so these efforts been going on for more than a decade what we've done is rather than doing it piecemeal we're simplifying it rather than trying to get into all the details of essentially having it be a department of water supply infrastructure plan which was the direction it was previously having and we really went back to what the law says it has to be a county wide water allocation plan focusing on that and is doing its job or is supposed to be protecting the resources do they completely i mean is it their job to completely protect our resources or do you think we need to  publish those numbers and they they vote on that we have to abide by that it's not up to us we don't get enough you know we don't get a but is out on every water every for in every source of water yes supply yes even if they're not designated yes much water can we use if you look at every stream and essentially every stream in every opera for has a number of the maximum sort of usable number from the state water commission and we are bound to operate like everyone else's within those so i don't see a need for us to add a safety factor to that and i don't see a much more importantly that we have any authority to do so the council could say for example we want to be safe so take all the all the sea worm sustainable yields and department of water supply should take another ten percent off those and base all your calculations on that you're free to do that you know in the same way that you can take any water quality standards or make  stricter for us but you can't loosen them so if you believe say water commission is doing their job and then this is being handled if you believe state water commission isn't doing their job and i've told this to people before then the issue is really to the state le them proper resources or having them do a better job or etc as a water utility manager and my colleagues other water utility managers feel the same way in that we start with what the state water commission says and we say you know that's our not to exceed number and we work within their  going after the maximum sustainable you we could lower that a little bit is that what the current show where the water bilbo's know if the current show in the water bill doesn't do that it still leaves it up to the director to define long term reliable supply and it still leaves it up to the director to define long term reliable supply because there is no definition of that there is no definition that in state law there is no definition of that in county law it is really the director's call of what that means it is not defined ok and lastly on this subject you you made a supposition that you and your fellow directors are saying this or if folks out there don't think that they're doing their job then the way to do it is getting more money at the state legislature do you and if you can't answer this because of conflicts but do you think that they're doing their job adequately see worm level i don't know because i'm not a hydrogen ologist if you really look at what they're doing when they're when they're quantifying sustainable yield they're taking these very complicated u s g s reports which are science you've had some of those people come and testify here which you know i can understand from a working levels of water utility engineer what they mean but i don't know if they're right or wrong and staff data i could not reproduce that no one on my staff could reproduce that it is how you geology not engineering and i just have to assume that that process which is a very public process is adequate but i have no way to second guess that you know the science used to do that ok and my last question on this whole bill we wouldn't be in this situation if we were able to develop more sources that correct there was some other comment there was some other public testimony about the system standards and i say this we talk about how the system would fail if we just over develop it and we didn't have this bill and we didn't even track it when people came in for building permits or subdivisions we just approved we kept looking people up in ok'ing people  conservation measures right we now we have the water shortage bill stage one stage to stage three as it gets deeper if we didn't track this we didn't projected we didn't have a show me the water we didn't have a show me the water bill and we just kept looking people up and we look back twenty years from now what we'd see is that we didn't over promptly or first because we're going to shut them off and we had an e c one limits what you're going to see is that how often and for how long we had to invoke the water shortage bill you might see that the for the first five years we only use stage one three times the second five years we've stayed one five times and stage two wants and the last ten years we had the stage three twice you know and we use stage one you know sixty percent of the time that's what failure would look like failure isn't going to be the system collapsing failure isn't going to be over pumping aquafers failure is going to be forced conservation more often than you're comfortable with just like there's no show me the traffic bill but just imagine we had one where the public works director before signing a building permit had to say there is a long term reliable supply of it of roads how do you do that no matter how busy are or how crowded it on a highway gets from cow noah to baldwin avenue it just backs up more but the road doesn't collapse and eventually it clears essentially that's the analogy to how the water system is go can be forced cutbacks for a short duration until we're through it it's going to be the peaks that we don't get through not the averages so that's i think what a lot of people don't understand is having too much development is not going to hurt the aqu concerned about forced cut back stage ones to shoes stage three we're landscaping is forced to cut back you know people have to not wash their cars off the kind of stuff to make those those values then you can just let everything happen you know again you're not going to deplete the opera first because we're going to shut the pumps off you're not going to create a public health problem you're going to have forced conservation to the point where people are saying hey why am i being forced to conserve so other people can have houses that's what failure of over over subdivisions would look like from the department of water supply standpoint so i think if you look at how the water system operates that way that's what we're really getting into here and a water meter allocation policy about how that means coming from you to use the as even doing any kind of policy changes without this plan do you see them part of this plan before we can even have the conversation of policy changes reason i don't think we need to wait is because the water used to go in and time is basically to lay out a long term strategies of matching where water sources are going to match uses department of water supply is only the user of you know ten or fifteen percent of the total water used on maui the water used to go in time is mostly about other things not us we're very small user you know which pumps need to be upgraded it's not going to be about why not because it's too detailed for a planet that i disagree and i i really think they should be set up first before we even come back on the table and talk about policy changes i think the testimonies that uses this as a concern should make us also make this a concern so that as we plan on future resources for the sake of affordable homes are other source of development whatever it may be we have this as our guideline and it also says that it's stated in the charter to indeed to provide this surprises taken this long for us to receive it but i don't believe there are any risks the water use development plan you know even if one is adopted by the state water commission does not dictate any specific document that sets some constraints so i don't see that there's really any there's clearly a bit they have something to do  other looking at the future and saying how much water are we going to need you know obviously that's part of this but because the intention of what we wrote is to be a how do we allocate the municipal water reliable capacity to applicants whether that's a lot of water or a little water and what the wat change this if we have a lot we issue a lot if we have a little we have to issue a little that's why they're based on percentages of our infrastructure capacity and they don't have numbers it doesn't say oh she'll be up to ninety thousand gallons for a  percentage of the maximum meaning if there's more maximum you know from sea water commission then there's more interest last there's less so it's built so that doesn't have to change me that's a way to explain it this wouldn't i can't imagine anything would happen in the water us to change this and then the other question i had was with the twenty responses to mr couch as questions is it correct to assume that the sustainable yields that are listed in each area on the reports that we get from the carbon are those sustainable yields consistent with those that or are those identified by sea worm or those with their numbers ok so what you're suggesting is that if i'm understanding here point correctly but you're saying that in any case we can beyond those sustainable yield in each of those aquifers that's correct and then my understanding also is if we are replacing a least a portion of the water we get from shaft thirty three with  the the ground water that we've been allocated it can additional one point five billion dollars one point five billion gallons a day ground water surface water actually the that there's actually two different things the additional surface water from najaf has is basically a completely separate is local but we do have a whole ways to water and it will be meeting and it will be a conference on maui november second to fourth it's going to be at the way mia beach mary are still people that are interested in at the alamo on a hotel that's open to the public that's usually in february and the other is the h w w h b w y waterworks of station conference which each one of the four water departments takes turns hosting so it's on each island every fourth year so there are two water conferences every year that these issues and from the different islands are talked about their presentations on these issues and they are both open to the general public information about the what are you claim can you tell me exactly what they're getting they're not getting a draft plan you know they're getting it tomorrow they're getting a briefing from our staff about what the process has been so far what the board should expect to receive in november what the public process has been and general parameters of what is the water used to plan what decisions are to be made and how what type of information is looking like it's going to be an thank you very much and thank you for that information carries trying to work very closely with the water board i've been asking that director that he would be very nice if we could move things but the water board before they come to this committ when i'm asked how does the water board feel about it that i can say the water board mad and the director can stay and give us a report on what's going on at the water board i think is very relevant to us making decisions here and i know that members are always curious about would you know i don't know where you are and planning this for rehearing this but i'd sure like to see the water use and development plan before we even think about doing this one  again only because it'll give us another perspective and maybe we can work on what we need to change in this bill or come up with a new bill or leave it as is all of the above but until we see that even though he says what he and i understand what he's saying about we're going to get a certain amount of allocation regardless i still would like to see the overall picture before we go into review all of the testimony that we have received they will certainly look at a lot more resources and there will be much discussion with staff before we bring this matter back again members without your objections they would like to defer this matter from directions so ordered chair would like to thank again all the test the players all the resource people that have come today and i think our director for all the hard work that he's been doing think thank our staff and thank you members i really appreciate your time and attention this is really really put to you know i look at it every time i get a water bill or something from the water to put my name when it says you know water is the source of