we'll the regular meeting of the water resources committee please come to order today is wednesday september fourteenth two thousand and sixteen and it is approximately a couple minutes after nine in the morning the meeting  now in order like to ask you if you would please check your cell phones to make sure that they are on the silent mode here to be sure that we won't have many interruptions i'd like to introduce the voting members that are camping is cochran is excused and i think that the entire membership of my committee we also have with us this morning dave taylor the director of water supply good morning item stems from a presentation we had recently related to the upcountry water meter priority list and the second item really relates to backflow prevention before we get into our agenda any further this morning the to take a point of personal privilege and i'm going to ask our water director to update us on the water emergency situation that is going on here as a result of the crazy reading we had last night mr taylor it's on green green thank you so obviously this is on t v so today's date is september fourteenth it's nine o'clock in the morning so this is an update about what happened last night through this morning right now in all of central and south maui there is a boil water notice so everyone in central and south now i this is from why hey to  a all the way down to mckenna everyone in all of those areas needs to boil water until further notice this boil before they drink it it's fine to shower with but any food preparation  should be boiled before that food preparation boil the water needs to be held at a boil for three minutes before you ingest it going to brush your teeth you know obviously let it cool first this boil water notice will go on probably to at least noon tomorrow because that where we have crews sampling right now but these tests have to be run overnight because there's bacteriological studies after be done and we have to wait for the results so the earliest the boil water notice will be listed lifted in central and south maui is tomorrow late morning or noon if there's positive results it may go on even longer so please follow the county website wait till you hear the press releases will be very vocal about this but it's important to boil water anyone who has ice that was made night that usually runs at around one hundred million gallons a day before the u s g s system went offline it was at three billion gallons a day i was up there last night and it was flowing a sealed tunnel and we have a pipeline hooked up to that tunnel or we did have a pipeline of dr that tunnel that went directly into our ultraviolet system and then into our system so we hiked up there so last night around eight o'clock that system all of a sudden started registering super low water so we thought probably the pipe broke so we shut off the system yell valley road from capon e y to the fork in the road has had no pressure since nine o'clock or so last night still off we hiked up there at first light this morning we hiked up the river bed and the whole bank is gone the pipe is gone there's and i would estimate at least five hundred meters of just ground that's just gone the trees are  the boulders are gone it's just it's all gone the pipe is gone even the tunnel was physically damaged so that's about a half a million gallons a day source that is offline so further notice so that was almost certainly what happened is that dirt got into the system it came into the main tank the tank you see at the fork in the road to where the go hates and that is the centerpiece of the whole system so dirt got into the system from the heavy rain and breaking a pipe and crews are out right now flushing the whole system crews are out sampling the system so again until we can get the whole system cleared and get all the testing done the boil water notice will continue so that is again will certainly continue to lease late morning or tomorrow afternoon and will keep everyone informed we don't know we also have some treatment plants down all across the county because there's a lot of the rains were so hard that a lot of the dirty water came in and blinded the filtration quitman so those are shut down so we have some various conservation notices here in error so i just ask people to please pay attention to their their news if their county web site will keep updating those and we do not know what we don't know yet is whether or not there's any damage to why luko water company's intake above the nature center that is the source of our yell treatment plant water and also the source of water for other people so i was on the phone with them this morning the water is still too high for them to get back there and we couldn't that far back this morning it was still too high so more to come but we're still in damage assessment and  i'm sure you'll see pictures soon of capon e y and the area above it it just looks like a giant took a trial and just cleared the whole area out it's unrecognizable so that's the root of our problems we'll keep people informed but it's important again boil water for three minutes before using it to make food or using it for any drinking purposes until further notice that in my report of where we are right now madam chair thank you very much mr taylor and i'm assuming also that over and over again today on their channel they're hearing this now so i'm just asking that and then that he repeats some of this at the very end of the meeting in case people come to him in late i don't have any  there that petition know i can repeat that and that's fine i would just say that watch of the time because there will be updates and i'm just concerned that people there's new updates and people are hearing this as the status so i would just check the county website is being updated with these kind of things that's probably the single best place to get the latest information the alerts but this morning when i was out by the local river i could see dick stream length and height of the water that i've never seen in many many years and this is down by happy valley now the other thing is the cr heed their warnings very very important to heed the warning and most importantly madam chair is that we expect more rains in the next few days as heavy or heavier than we have had so we can expect more challenges so be prepared and that's all we can say is prepared if you don't have to go out don't be going out and trying not to use water wherever water is not necessary the good news was that daily as we lose half a million gallons right now a lot of people not water yards irrigation systems are closed off residents between japan and why in the fork in the road have no water at all right now crews are flushing the system probably by lunchtime or so that should be repressurize that will still be under boil water notice so there are water trucks if they're not there they should be there soon where people can get water in the al valley but that water should be back on around noon time or so thank you very much and you know this brings to light something that i hear in my house a lot you know my husband is a retired water department employee and he always used to tell me if you folks talk about you know first responders and people that are really important in emergency nobody ever talks about the world or people but here we go we celebrate them today and thank you very much for putting yourselves in danger and being out there to get the water back i'd also like to recognize the presence of chair white monitor good morning and thank you for being here ok members if you have no objections i'd like to start with taking public testimony ok we will proceed testimony will be limited to the items on our agenda today if you wish to testify please sign up at the desk located on the eighth floor lobby or one of the district offices testimony is limited to three minutes and upon request one minute to conclude at three minutes the light will turn yellow and four minutes light will bring red if you are still talking at that point i will kindly ask you to stop when testifying please state your name in who you are representing if any one or group we have established a connection to the district offices to be fair we will rotate through each of the sites on our face don lono do you have anyone wishing to testify thank you very much done a good morning in our lanai office denise for now and is good morning do you have anyone wishing to testify are twenty seven apostles ahead of me because of ordinances switcheroo good so that means i've moved up one hundred thirty three positions things have improved towards the end may fifteenth two thousand and fourteen to november thirtieth through the fifteen which is seventy months seventeen months and fifty five slots that is thirty nine per year by director taylor in a recent maori news article for your information the last meter award letter was written when i checked last week hugo was written three months ago for parcels seventeen be application da madam chair one of your great achievements was fourteen thirteen there are sixty five an applicant on the priority list is being process i mean water meter letter is available and whose premises directly from the department's existing water system determined adequate by the department to supply possible war what does that mean whether any constraints on the water department if it's fire for requirements that's the sampson that we were given so i wish that was better defined furthermore we pleaded with you to allow two parcels subdivision into two extra parcels instead of one and unfortunately that didn't come come true subdivision isn't that expensive proposition and it really should we should roadside stand eliminate the end funded liabilities that are fifty percent for improvements the county can't afford those and so they don't they donate your meters and put a limit on the required fire for all and water development fees fire for all is a ridiculous logically and physically ridiculous requirement if the purpose is to prevent fire damage is not if the purpose is true halt development i see my li hoping it was hoping that the presentation would come first on the priority lists so we could answer questions to that so i figure was like the last time when mr taylor was giving his speech on the end and then we would come in and give our speech on it but i just have one thing to say right now and i'd like to thank mr taylor for coming up to cool a community association and i like to thank him for the time that he stayed with me outside with many of the people to to go over what i always said about having to water meter and yes for the rich and poor and you had made it to it and i'd like to thank you for that because you know what our people need you know our local people are people that's been on the water meter lists need these their families dot twenty thirty years especially they died on the list some of them and like to see that taking care of invest all they got to see thank you very much members in a need to clear i did that there would be water meters for families of three and that was it ok and the growth for water increased but it was according to rules so that everyone who fit and that's how the list was created ok and that's a different political structure that's one where you bid and bargain that's not about equality that's sound about equal access that's unprincipled and it came at a time when we needed a ball most at it extended and now it's extending and we have all of this nonsense going on if you look at item number w r twenty ok and that's wanting to charge people for back flows well this is not government this is a business operation this is non profit this is driving the individual into his shell it's not our community but that's part of this syndrome we're doing which is if you haven't got the power and the money you don't exist but in our culture we do because we have law and this idea of a list bandon sit and you chase around a where's the water meter it isn't there what i gotta do you've got to do x y and z why can't i get it now and do it later oh i'm sorry it's my discretion and that's the way it's going to go so me but that's a different political structure and that's where this council needs to stand up water meter lest give me up break moratorium in identify who gets the water who needs it the most families small families etc you gotta get and to avoid this equality thing you get all of this find the water rule  all of this complicated rules and add so nobody knows but the people are being paid to know and they don't know because they're writing new rules so the next generation can then make the money they're making and at the end of the day w e're gone you don't have to worry about the little guy you don't have to worry about the noise makers you don't have to worry because i love love love love love love love love law everything is beautiful everything is good and we're stuck in the mud so i've got to break this perspective and rule by law not this breeze deep perspective and that's where this water dump this water list stupid this water list how many decades do we have to see how stupid it is write a policy in which people get water by application p then let it go give them the right they had in the first rules of the water supply rules green book comes up and said everybody's entitled to water equal everybody gone now you go to the water code and you see fifty pages and you try to figure out where in those many many many pages and paragraphs and sub paragraphs to fit and you'll find out you don't exist in this you exist in administrative rule so then you have to go through thousands of administrative rules so then you go away and that's the political reality that's happening and it's all wrong and do something by creating a rule and not a discretionary act of a director thank you so much thank you mr smith members and you need to clarify the testimony saying no thank you do this well then bank  lot share a little committee members tom crawley and i'm here to talk about affordable housing and i hope the chair will understand that i am in the right committee to talk about affordable housing because this is one of the issues that that is so critical to being able to create the housing that we need on maui the director in his in his remarks this morning just reminded me why he's my favorite director he's able to take very complex issues and make them clear to the public and i really appreciate that one of the things that he made clear a couple of meetings ago showed me there's a fundamental problem the idea of fundamental idea that each and every application for a meter has to go to an individual engineer to engineer that as a solution and then present it to the person as to whether they will be able to do that or not that's not a reasonable way of going about this now i understand you're constrained by the list and by union rules and you're going to talk about some of those things today but really we have to we have to think logically here and and come up with some some practical solutions to this the idea that there's one more engineer we're working on this cut the list down from thirty three years as a calculated to sixteen years now again i know you have some other ideas but whether weather gets cut from sixteen years to eight years or whatever that's still ridiculous isn't it particularly in light of the fact that we need these meters we need to be able to get building  and and creating some fordable housing i have two thoughts for you to just consider and one is if i understood the director correctly the calculations that go into this engineering exercise for each meter have to do agricultural then they calculate that they're going to use x amount of water i would like to strongly suggest that we create a new type of water meter a completely new type of water meter that you apply for that says this is for domestic household use only and we have a punitive rate once you go over a certain amount when i say punitive like one hundred dollars a gallon you know that kind of thing so no one would go over that amount and that way that number that they calculate in there if it was for this other meter could be a much lower number and maybe people could be able to get their their water meters without having to make the improvements that are being calculated based on a much higher volume of water it also would take away the list issue because if you create this new water meter all together that's not you know part of the the water meter that people are applying for they could apply for this new water meter right now we could create a whole different class of water user so just one idea for you for you to think about you know in this discussion i don't think that what i heard  two weeks ago in this committee as to how individual applications are being processed that that makes any sense whatsoever when you when you're trying to go through two thousand or six thousand of these that's that's just that's a fundamental flaw in trying to create affordable housing on to the second issue on the on the agenda to hey and i read through the proposed ordinance and i'm i'm just still unclear as to whether the backflow thing is going to apply to all new building permits that's what it kind of sounded like if someone came in for a building permit that we're going to get tagged onto you have to put a backflow system in and while  understand the need for such for these systems i will say we have to understand sixty to eighty percent of the construction that takes place on residential homes in maui is being done without permits why because we've made the permit process so difficult people say forget it i'm not going to bother to get a permit to build a new room of the house or to build a bathroom all my out they just do it how did i get that sixty to eighty percent i spoke to building inspectors who gave me that that rough estimate ok so let's face up to what it is people are not following the rules of the county because the county have made the rules so ridiculous and if we say to someone oh in order for you to add that new room on your house you now have to put a backflow thing in and that's going to cost just six hundred eight hundred thousand dollars that's just one more reason people aren't going to bother to follow the rules asked many times to come in here and testify before you i've been bait to come in here and testify before you buy into to the pond god rest her soul many times she cried on my shoulder and she said you've asked for testimony you want testimony you want to hit a truth do you want to hear the candy coated thing i give the give the truth i give it straight up not going to give you bull i'm going to go by what is the facts out there and i started from the beginning in one thousand nine hundred two my if you followed my testimonies was basically based on infrastructure we don't have the infrastructure we need money for infrastructure so that everybody could get their water meter our zoning are not changing we're not you got change of so on and i mean you got gentlemen a state you got everything happening but cola upcountry for some reason our infrastructure is zero cannot we cannot get a meter we have to be automated it is if you're not on a me infrastructure beetroot point one million dollars i was at three point eight but they decided to cut it out cut a curve alt so now you've got three point one million get into the loan foot at your own one million is not going to happen it is not going to help me on that except the seventy five percent because it's a family subdivision to give to my family i can do one maybe one maybe because it's still restricted by if you have float bubble water flo whatever it's a restriction that might be able to get one meter we want to try to get to three lots of us who are trying to work on that and that would be a good thing i've been in here i said let's go back to the cold what it was the tree lot sort of less least allowing families to give to their children and if is if true family subdivision we should try to help them as far as the colonies musician on it we have been we've poured a lot of money into flow coming right above my house which is four thousand one hundred foot elevation is that about a four thousand three hundred foot elevation the mat it's slower but we're here so we've got gravity flow and no pumps no need  very little and we have a twenty four inch that you brought in for culture we could use some of that water treated up in gravity flowing down to our residence it would and our problem as far as water shortage  coming before you sometimes it's a plus and then it's a minus the minus for me is i've been blackballed and i'm telling the truth we can follow the name we can follow the the  evidence and it's blackballed pure and simple from the water department and i've been told they don't like me because i come in from here and i tell you like it is so so be it  gosh god bless you and take care thank you very much members they need to clear their testimony thank you i was wondering when you're going to talk about that shirt thank you jim thank you chair the final person signed up in the chamber to testify is rosemary robbins good morning good morning good morning everybody rosemary robbins concerned citizen ditto for most of what i've just heard certainly i'm hearing accusations cover up heavy duty stuff that's ready to come back at some of the decision makers that have been perpetrating to get us to the stage where yet so i do good and i just fall down from here to go through everything that was in both of those files that we're discussing today and made a list of missing extremely relative things that were in that file that are not brought up on our agenda today i did get on our agenda we're talking about kind of communication sixteen for you from the water director transmitting a proposed bill relating to cross connection and back flow control and water for fire service so the genesis of that was coming from the water director also on  august tenth that was dated february one on august tenth again from the water director to the committee chair gladys yourself and huge huge we've talked before about behavior of omission and commission these things that have been left out in the address today god forgive you didn't make them up you got them handed to you but we need to make sure that we're looking at a broader picture than just what was on the agenda for today so the gender is talking about communication six forty and i read that  council member and i was surprised to see her michelle anderson well but as we had a hug and she turned to cheer this council and said if you ever want to hear anything on history she's the one i don't have all of that but i have a whole lot more than what's being presented to you as being the whole situation no win  so i would like to make sure that we get michelle anderson's sharing with the water resources committee meeting earlier this year that's just so much stuff that's not included that should be anyway following through and that we need to understand who's in charge and how do they get the reading from the june fifteenth and twenty sixth in michelle interest and the purpose and intent of the water availability ordinances to protect public water sources from all over use in depleting the source  sustainable healt goes on to say the aquifer has been taken from the counties control by the commission on water resource management over pumping the source and threatening one resource management ordered the county to drill at least by the wells in the flank for to spread out the pumping and allow the aquifer itself to recover instead of drilling new wells the money was spent repairing the damage done from 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's no additional water available based on industry standards in here so it appears these amendments you know you need to you're asking that we deal with is to make sure that we have a water director who knows what he she is doing and who honestly has thank you don moment by office do you have anyone wishing to testify right one more check of the gallery is there anyone who has not testified that would like to testify seeing no one coming forward there being nobody in the gallery and nobody in the neighbor offices members today on the agenda is the upcountry water meter priority list discussion w r six parent this is for members you may recall we recently had a presentation from the department relating to getting an update on the upcountry water meter priority list after the presentation we received testimony and had a lengthy discussion on finding ways to help expedite the process of getting  meters two applicants on the list before you is a letter dated september ninth from the director of water supply and a member new member random dated september twelfth from the department of the corporation council in response to several questions that rose from the meeting these things were passed out to you this morning and so the chair is going to give you a brief recess here time to read it and to digest it and also to make sure that those in the gallery have copies if they want them it will be a brief recess and i'm not going to see exactly how many minutes because there will be tied to it but please keep it will try to keep it as short as soon as you're prepared if you give me a signal we'll call the meeting back to order the meeting is now in recess the meeting will please come back to order mr taylor i would like to begin with your responses if you could engineer was hired assigned to the upcountry district so he is going to be primarily working on the meter lists he's been there since september first he's currently being from your eyes with the system and procedures and he'll be focusing on that in addition moto who all of you know is the capital improvement program coordinator from the department of management is a full time temporary assigned to our department in an overall management role including management of this process once this new engineer is up to speed it's also expected that probably another member from the department imagine c a p team will also be dedicating some time to helping the meter  are the second question was is it possible to put a flyer in the monthly billing statement informing them of the new provision for fixed units and we looked into this it is possible to insert flyers with specific information we don't print those here they're printed on the mainland all the billing goes through honolulu board of water supply still we are in the process of moving over to our own system there are extra costs involved depending on what's in the mailer and how it's put together also it's not possible to target any specific demographic so we just have to be to all thirty six thousand customers and there's no way to target anyone specifically so it would have to be included in all the monthly bills in a certain time period based on experience of our staff of trying to get information out this way we are not or we don't think it's really worth the effort and funds to try to get information out this way because it doesn't seem like a lot of people read and there's no way to target specific demographics so those are two answers to the questions that were asked of us thank you very much members questions mr victory no thank you madam chair and thank you  mr taylor for your explanations i still you know on i don't number two i don't know to me it be worth the extra money this point to me should people understand what this means that's my take on it this way we could find you money to do it i see do it and do it now that's my take on the second on the first question i thank you one more engineer helps but doesn't solve the problem but it helps hopefully we'll start to expedite the list at this the fire mentioned or stated that you had address to her that there were two actually two lists two water meter lists and something to do with the rich in the locals i wouldn't quite sure and i didn't want to get into it but i'll ask you is there such a thing as a list that exists mr taylor there is only the upcountry meter issuance list that is our only list as we have water available we process through that list is explain to this committee what there is that the testifier was referring to in this specific case upcountry a private developer dolling years ago built a well and david dedicated it to the county in exchange for that that developer got a certain amount of water credits which were good for water meters so that developer is free to give them away sell them etc to anyone he chooses that was part of the deal so those credits are not part of the list what she was referring to is that people who either develop a well like he did or people that buy it from him arse are separate from the list that is true there is a nother way to get a meter if you have the money to develop a well if you want to deal with this person and buy them so that's what she was referring to as this in her words a second list but again it's not our list it's not our water credits we're not giving them away it was part of the deal of the person the company that developed a water source and they have a certain volume of water that they are giving away by their own methodology so that is not our volume that is not our water to give away that  is so if i'm correct in hearing you any developer who develops a water source and again depending on the agreement and i guess that would be where i would go with that gets a certain amount of water for his or her development or her use or his use right and then at that point in time they have the right to sell it to use it for the development or future developments that they may be looking on on to  complete that is basically correct these used to not go to the council council changed an ordinance this a decade or so ago now they're approved by council council six months ago or so approved the cahill money well agreement which was i think four hundred sixty thousand gallons something like that and that developer those are now his credits we're accepting the well and if that developer chooses to sell them i mean let's say for example there was a building mor water meter moratorium in central tomorrow night that developer would still have those and could give them away sell them whatever he chose those are his and they are not subject to any rules we have about how to give meters those are his he developed it and that is the agreement between the county and these private system developers they give us that infrastructure so each of these do these agreements are somewhat similar but it can be very different depending on  what i guess the developer of that source wants and what the county is willing to to give them is that correct agreed that they have a similar template but the details of the numbers can be very different depending on the situations  and then finally i guess we've talked about and again we'll talk maybe more about it today about this adjacency i call it where if you've got five meter five meter people with desire meters on the same area one is one one is twenty eight one is five hundred twenty that that you believe and if you want that's the fire kind of sit trot them either listen and do what is probably most expedient if they're all in the same line and they're right there can be done let's do it i think that's what one test the fire was trying to elude to that this meter lease is stupid because when you put it together none nobody took that into consideration it was first come first serve do you buy leave that there's some methodology this council or council could do to change that to make it more palatable to what we're talking about and other words being able to go right down the line and if there's five meters right on the same line or adjacent to the same main water line that and there's what i've read about that they could hook up even though this guy's five hundred twenty five and the right next door to him maybe off the main line is number five do you believe that could be possible i  not then say we're crossing lines that we should have and then we can you know do something else but good i've previously testified before this committee putting i think the last meeting on this issue that from an engineering and operational standpoint i think there would be much much better way to allocate meters based on elevation and size of line and these issues we've talked about whether or not we're legally allowed to change to a different way is a question f water that i'll leave to her if you want to change me and if you know i'm proud of satisfied with that and so but if you want to chime in i prefer not saying anything more but i just wanted to know first of all his and his response and i it's possible there is a list there are addresses it's a different system then the billing system it would be a manual you know go through address eight hundred envelopes etc etc it could be done because i think the genesis of the question was whether or not some people who are on the water meter waiting list may be able to get approval to move forward with this new this was one of the issues i was asked to talk about so i did explain to everyone there in the cooler community association what the process was how this worked and what they could do i'm hoping that the coconut wireless is a more is an efficient enough way to get this to the people who need to know you know obviously we can always communicate better whether or not direct mailing dial these people is the best way to do it you know  what what is the form of the water meter waiting list is it on an excel spreadsheet or is it how is it asked mr to come down because i'm not exactly sure whether whether the addresses are in that sort of format so i ask him to come down and answer without the manager i assume that we have a formal list and i'm i mean to me to start on a word document it's probably on an excel document and if it is it could be done through a ma yourself the list itself the people to do things i'm sorry jason the department of water supply district engineer for a country thank you thank you go ahead thank you yes of the list itself we have a large electronic versions of it that consist of the properties of the people who got on the list their names why they got onto the lists but as far as mailing information we always differ a back to the real property tax latest information for those types of things for their up to their website as far as the properties and anyone associated with those properties and who are going to be saying the letters to  so are you saying that the list does not have to pay or address on it it has a t m k but not the latest at mailing address of the people associated to that  any thank you chair any more your desires i think you i think it might be a good idea because we might want to use it to communicate with the listed some other way also you know maybe they want to know how fast they're moving there are things happening and it would be a quick communication once we have the list me so you know communication seems to help a lot i think a lot of the problems we have is that we're just not sharing information enough and so when you know in an absence of information people invent their own information and generally it's not good let me tell you a story a good friend of mine told me who i learned from he ran the civic institute he said if you were walking in the forest late at night and  couldn't see anything was very dark and you could hear noises what would you think it was you'd probably think it was a big black bear you would not expect it to be santa claus and that's the idea of lack of information you know in a lack of information we have the big black bear so i think the more we communicate with people the better and again i know mr taylor is real quick on picking up the feelings of this committee so i don't think we need to beat this to death by the any other questions on the letter mr cut thank you madam chair it's not so much on the well if it's ten gentle to the letter but you talked about the fixture units when people start getting their water meter because they can because of the extra fixture units we had a semi sort of discussion last time and can you just refresh  your thoughts on the if if that's all that they want they were on the list for and they did get their fix units people aren't dropping off the list anyway because they just want to be there just in case is there anything in your thoughts that we could do to say well wait a minute don't be don't be holding up the list if that's all you wanted it for i'm not aware of anything legally we could do but that those person could be helped right away so assuming somebody came in at any time in the past and all they want to do that's a an extra bedroom in a bathroom and they were told by the department that they didn't have enough their meter wasn't big enough and they had to get on the list for that if all they want is one bathroom that's there's probably a nuff with almost certainly enough extra fixtures now available to do another bathroom so they don't have to wait for the list so anybody on the list who's waiting not first subdivision but who wants to do more plumbing fixtures on their property and they've been told in the past by the department that they're just a little bit short and it's about a bathroom and maybe a dish you know it was a was a bathroom and a washing machine or something like that or a bathroom  a dishwasher that's about eight experience something like that if you have a three quarter inch meter you know a little bit more than that so if somebody already wants to do something there just a little bit short this might help them that's basically who this is targeted to and that's county wide anywhere not just up country correct however if the only reason they were on the list was because of that letter and then they did get their  k to to add the room when the whatever fixture units that they wanted to i know there's nothing legally now are you are you looking for something that we can possibly do to say look you guys don't hog position on the list we're not planning anything formal we don't really know of any way to do that we don't know of any way to to say you know if you take advantage of this you have to be bumped by the list as you've said i can't imagine that anyone would voluntarily remove themselves from the list i mean why would they you know what if it's two years later and they change their mind or they want to sell it or something  but when they do come up on the list if they're going to say no that's a pretty fast processing so it makes the list look better to get them off but it really just saves the staff from writing one letter and getting one response it's  not and the response would be no so there wouldn't be much work to do for it so i don't think would make that big a deal it would certainly look better that you know all those people get off the rest but from a realistic sample i don't see any way to do it anyway ok thank you  you've asked our department to answer a couple of questions the first question was the committee discussed the possibility of employing temporary hires to assist with the expediting process please provide an opinion on the legality of employing temporary hires for this purpose and with mr coo she did write a memo to you and he quoted a revised statutes section seventy six seventy seven which is the civil service and exemptions just read a portion of that the civil service to which this part applies comprises all positions in the public service of each county now existing are here after established and embraces all person services performed for each county except the following and it lists a bunch of exceptions and number eight states positions of a tempering nature needed in the public interest or the need does not exceed ninety days provided that you for any person may be employed to render temporary service the director shall certify and this is the director of personnel services that the services of a tempering nature and that recruitment through normal civil service recruitment procedures is not practical and provided for that employment of any person pursuant to this section may be extended for good cause for an additional period not to exceed ninety days upon some someone or certification by the director so there is a possibility that the department of water supply can hire temporary hires for the purpose of expediting water meter list mr coo she does  recommend a process and he basically says for the department of water supply to formally request the department of personnel services review and consideration to fill these big an engineering positions and to basically discuss with the department of or even bringing a temporary basis to do some of the work necessary to get the water immunity and cut down or even eliminated by getting the work that needs to be done now my question to you is it the last part any person pursuing this paragraph may be extended for good cause for an additional period not to exceed ninety days upon the similar sort of sort of occasion by the director knowing that this problem is quite large and ninety days is a very small window in your best estimate how many additional ninety days could we ask for for good cause i think i've got a good cause for saying that hey we got eight hundred twenty five engineers and work ninety days and that's all they did and maybe then we could accomplish that but that's my question to you your memory victor and i don't know how long it's going to take but for this particular section yes in the way of advice that it's gives you ninety days and then it doesn't on ninety days and then that's it you bring in ten people how to get to this point now you've got to be game ten more people and they've got you know it takes a little while just to get caught up to where that so now they get maybe one hundred twenty days or hundred in thirty days you know i think that's why she a figure  this but i understand it's the law i'm not i'm not questioning the law i just wanted to know that one hundred in these one hundred eighty days is the maximum allow on the law for any temporary a engineer or whatever they may be called when somebody's temporary comes on it's not like it's a consultant where we get a price from them so that temporary worker let's say in this case it's an engineer or three or clerk won or whatever it is they get that pay so you're really basically asking somebody to come do the same work our people do at the same pay are people get paid without any of the long term benefits of civil service so the recruitment is really the same i mean  ad out and saying who with these qualifications once at this job at this pay but in this case you're saying but it's only for you know one hundred eighty days so based on the recruitment we've been doing and the interview we've been doing it's not as if if these people existed we'd be hiring them so i wouldn't i find it very hard to believe that there is some group of people out there that have the right qualifications that aren't applying for full time jobs that would be interested in working for one hundred eighty days so that if those people are there then of course we exact same problem and we hired from the main man and other places to bring them in i understood the drawbacks and if you remember me by said the drawback was many would come with their families and six months a year later just just really had a hard time handling the lifestyle being away from their families even the cost of living here in ma we and they were right back from where they came from so we've been on these bonuses all moving expenses and we we make no distinction about the telephone interview we tell these people you don't have to fly out here will routinely do telephone interviews of people who are interested just to even try to help them recruit even even died albert crude of not having them have that  we know we can do something about it but it's all temporary and one hundred eighty days doesn't seem like a lot of time for anybody to really get their teeth into this challenge however what deal saying a straw is better than no str and thank you miss i want to for that discussion this leads to the next question that actually really wasn't addressed in the letter and that is  hiring consultants to do this since we can't obviously it's difficult to get anybody to come and apply and this is kind of an emergency and i mean i would think it would be an emergency situation even though it's been a couple decades but can't we hire you know hire consultants to handle this portion and when it's done it's done it's it's more like the professional services issue you know i'm not sure about that i'm not prepared to answer that question and i know it was asked before but i didn't do any research on that mr couch is asking is when we're allowed to use consultants for work that is historically been done by county employees or not and i'm not sure that question is really for me or counsel i think that question might be best for the director of personal services i think the question that i would have is you know where whether it's temporary hires which i agree with i think that's probably a road that it's going to be terribly fruitful but the question i would have is have we discussed with the union whether they would be willing to go ahead and hire consultants until we can help you find enough engineers to get the job done taylor if we've asked the question whether d p s has asked a question but you know we don't want to you know we don't want to break the law but where the law is not serving us very well thank you mr taylor i believe that question was asked to mr underwood in the last meeting we had and i don't remember when he was open or executive sessions i remember what he said so i want to repeat it in open session the the other question i would have is whether or not  you have done all we can to take the the process of working on the water meter waiting list and take whatever portions of the responsibility don't really need to be done by an engineer and move that to others that might be easier to to recruit because i understand folks like ja are not easy to find and but if we can if we can focus other people to do the portion of the job that doesn't require an engineers calculations and you know they're the management who may come help so we can look at that process get some help for the things the engineers don't need to do there might be more help within the department and then also available from outside who are in engineers who can do some of those things so that is  was there as an engineer for many years so if anybody can bring forth the process and help us streamline it i would put it on her hands for someone or anybody else in this county at this time and also just when they will do it when they have to build you up and that will not cost you i don't feel mean i'll be we don't feel me no thank you thank you mr victory you know this is definitely not her first water rodeo she knows that we are on the water department and we're delighted to have you back and i don't know where the gentleman is sitting with you but maybe you want to tell us who he is this is our new engineer in the upcountry section mr derek talk a harshly derrick was previously in the private sector was hired from my old group the wastewater division where in what i have told you about before that's happening of everyone pillaging the best and brightest from other places we took him from waste water so now waste water projects are now behind as ours are going to start catching up until they decide to hire j s or whatever happens next thank you so much and welcome derrick we are so glad to have you with the water department we need all the help we can get as you can see and it really is dependent on your engineers and again i also want to take t who gets tremendous amount of stress piled on him and then all of this and i'm good we got you some help thank you very much any further questions on the letter from mr christie saying non members i'm going to just defer this but let's take our morning break let's please try to be back here in about ten minutes but again that's not hard and firm please come back as soon as you can but no more than ten minutes so the meeting is now in recess where the meeting please come back to order and would you please take the conversation outside members our second item for today is water services are twenty the committee is in receipt of correspondence dated august ten twenty sixteen from the director of water supply transmit revised proposed bill entitled a bill for an ordinance amending title fourteen article one county code relating to cross connection and back flow control and water for fire service the purpose of the revised proposed bill is to require consumers and owners of real property to install a backflow preventer on properties connected to the department water system and to generally prohibit connections that could contaminate the department's potable water system members this is a very important but very complex bill we may have to trust the engineers on the technical aspects of this bill  has met with numerous times the board of water supply has reviewed the bill and is in full support i want to repeat that the board of water supply has reviewed the bill and is the in full support we are now we have this procedure where we take things by the board of water supply and hopefully get some response from them before we bring it to this committee i thought it was very important that we do that with that being said mr taylor do you have any opening remarks yes madam chair i think i'll take the time to try to explain what this is and how we got here in a it is much a non technical way as i can thank you when the semi autonomous board of water supply existed this was a requirement in the rules when the management changed to the county in the mayor in the council those as you all know were mostly codified into ordinances this somehow slipped through the cracks and it was never migrated so what we've been doing is we've been using sort of best engineering practices by trying to get people to do this but there's never been there used to be teeth when there was a board rules there's teeth for everything else have been migrated to council ordinances but this never got migrated so this is from one sense a little bit of housekeeping of something that we probably should have done prevent or why is it important i think as everyone knows the water system is pressurized so we pressurize it at source and you get pressurized water so what can happen when there's a line break or somebody runs over a fire hydrant all a sudden water starts spilling out and that can cause a vacuum that sucks water from homes and businesses and on the customer side of the meter into our system there's all sorts of contamination that can be brought from the private side into our system and all the neighbors can be in there or something and there's a tube in there with this vacuum that's going to be sucked out back into the public water system and all the sudden you've got a health crisis there's your there's chemicals there's all kinds of things that people have on their on their side the mechanisms our works it keeps one's water goes through it can't come back so any contamination that happens stays on that side of the plumbing code which the council has adopted requires plumbing requires similar installations there are a number of things that exist that somehow got built i don't know if the plumbing code wasn't enforced or the plumbing code didn't used to require it there's all sorts of properties that don't have these new commercial developments as a matter of course this is something that's come to us where we have existing mostly existing facilities they come in for a tenant improvement actually happened in this building before my time in the water department has all these improvements going on in this building i think it was the mayor's office improvements where the department of water supply this was under the tavares administration where the department of water supply if i recall wouldn't approve the building permit for the improvements because there was no backload preventer and so when this happens in something like a shopping mall if you think about how those contracts are you know something a kamado center something where where there's just small town improvements like sunglass and all of sudden we're telling some amato center needs these big improvements outside and you can imagine this little guy just trying to do ten improvements doesn't want to do exteriors civil engineering work so what this bill does is let us get to the owner essentially what we've been doing is we've been taking individual building permits and saying we won't process is until you fix the outside you know civil thing this ordinance will allow us to deal with that without sort of holding building permits hostage so again it's always been part of the department's methodology it was in the board rules to the best of my knowledge this is part of every water utilities in the country is standard way of doing business this is not something we made up backflow preventer is are a standard engineering function that exist probably in almost every utility so that's what this ordinance is about that's what it physically does that's why it is never this ordinance hasn't existed before it was never migrated it's why we think it's important and it's essentially letting us do what we've been doing but having legal teeth to do it because some issues of come up were that's become itself the issue so i hope that is a good overview with a nontechnical nontechnical review and one thing i want to mention the chair mentioned that the board of water supply was firmly in favor of this that includes that the vice chair of the board of water supply mr joslin who was the first to say how much he came out and supported it and he has a commercial plumbing contractor so even somebody who doesn't want to have more regulations did not put up any fight he was the first one to speak and said we should pass this right away and we should support it and i'm not sure if we included that  testimony or the summary minutes i know i've read them but he he led that charge as a commercial plumbing contractor with who's licensed saying you know this is absolutely necessary so i do want to share that because he does represent the commercial interests who would normally if anyone was going to be opposed to this we would expect he would be against it but he was one hundred percent in favor of it as was the board so that in my introduction i hope it covered the main points thank you very much director before we get into a lot of discussion i want to share with the committee i have received a lot of questions about this and the number one question and i'd like you to answer it directors that we have it is that will this apply retro actively or this going really going to be for new building permits chair this does allow us to act retroactively from a practical standpoint to back up with us when we look at this there's a couple different ways to do this you remember how wastewater dealt with grease traps that was done retroactively essentially they said here is the you know thousand or so places that need one certified letter verse and said you have two years or something to get this done otherwise or to be fined a year later it was another letter so we said everybody has to comply ok so that's how that ordinance was written we could have done the same thing here and we talked about it you know should we say you must you must you must we decided not to do that because there are probably just too many it's just impractical we talked about should we just do it going forward then you end up with all these people that are sort of existing non conforming and still have a a you know potential health problem because i'm like most parts of the building code and plumbing code they're there to protect you and sort of at your own risk if you choose not to do this this is something that affects your neighbors so we need property owner to do this not just to protect them but really to protect their that laissez faire approach wasn't reasonable so the middle ground that's reasonable is this ordinance but from a realistic standpoint we don't have the staff nor the intention to do is go door to door looking for these what we tend to do is when people come in for building permits that's when we put eyes on it and say you know is this something that should have one of these we could under this ordinance if we happen to notice something if mr couches you know property or something we notice that he's doing something that concerns us he's starting you know some sort of business where he's got all kinds of toxic chemicals and we know if there isn't one this ordinance would allow us to go i know you live in a condo and you would do that but anyway i know you would do it anyway  this ordinance would allow us even if you didn't have a building permit to go and retroactively say this is important but it is not our intention to just massively go do these just because we just don't have the resources to do so ok thank you very much  victory no thank you because you get the same e mails that i've got the now is my first question thank you you beat me to the punch madam chair thank you and i think that was very important and thank you for that explanation from this point forward and  let me start by saying that we try to codify all the rules and this was one of them that was missed and i apologize because that should have been taken care of you know we spent almost three years madam chair if you remember codifying the rules from the department of water  very very important my question to you so that the public understand and i think you said it a number of times this is not just to protect you it's to protect your neighbors and any adjacent water users on your lying this will prevent contamination from coming out from their side of the property into our system which then disseminates throughout the system itself and that's correct exactly the best i know you have enough time with the microphone so i gain so that people understand that even though this is an expense and i know people get upset about it they've got understand that this is something for the well being not only of themselves but others around them and would you like your neighbor not to do it and something goes wrong and gets back into your system which is your water coming into your property and so i hope bubbling understand that this is very crucial very very important something that you know i give the department has been has been done but now gives us a legal c t h i guess is the quote that i want to use to get this done and now people can't back off it's a way to me i don't have to do this because now you have something to you know the five hundred dollars and there are some other penalties put in here punitive action that will take so i can support this one i'm sure i know it's another one of those you know people say another piece of bureaucracy but you've got to remember when you talk you know well being and safety of all not just some but all of the users i think it's critical that something like this be put forward so i can support it the way it is madam chair i mean on this questions but i'm pretty clear on this and the back backflow preventer is the system that has been set up by the county but our department of water supply so i want to and you will know because your husband and your son but explanation what you didn't talk about is the whole installation of fire water service what what's that all about when a building such as the one we're in now has fire sprinklers the meter is usually not big enough to run the fire sprinkler system so they usually have a direct connection to the main line that doesn't go through their meter so there is a chair i'm assuming this applies to all residential structures as well that's correct so this isn't like the the  priest traps issue because grease traps were just commercial operations that's correct even though residential but it's a lot of stuff in the system as well what do you backflow preventer is currently being installed in all residential properties ok thank you it doesn't surprise me that mr joslin would be supportive of this since he's on the money making side of this equation not the pain side this is sara lee i only mention that if you if you even if he could make money he tends to be very realistic about is this a realistic important ordinance or not it's just my two cents of him he seems to be not governed solely by whether or not he can bill for it when you answered it you said irrigation systems in a pool but if they don't if the house doesn't especially the newer homes now doesn't have either of those  are you saying that they're not required or they're not being done and will this make required of all there is it will be required there are i look to the plumbing code too and talk to some plumbers i don't get beyond my expertise here because i don't really know much about what happens in plumbing on the customer side of the meter but i've been assured that the plumbing code does require some kind of back flow device of some sort it may not be as what we have as a double one that has an air gap there's some some technical features to it it may be something similar like a one wave like just a single flap or valve there is back flow prevention in the plumbing code whether or not this would require that to be beefed up a little or that would be acceptable i'm not exactly sure that but it would be required everywhere residential meters when they're installed and why do we need those and this are there may be provisions in the future where people are going to be required to install fire sprinklers for their new residential dwellings as far as part of the fire code so when that happens part of the provision on our side would be again how do we monitor this how do we monitor the flow going through how do we protect our system from these on site fire sprinkler systems so one of the provisions that we are looking at is again just like the ordinance talks about private fire lines with these the detector assemblies located on them which is a singular separate service from the domestic side of it and these would go to serve specifically on site sprinkler systems there is a that's called a deep double check detector assembly because there is a bypass meter on there that we can read and we can monitor to see if any floors are going through their purpose for other purposes besides firefighting purposes thank any further questions see thing no tears of ready to make my recommendation i will entertain a motion to recommend passage on first reading of a proposed bill and titled the bill for an ordinance amending title fourteen article one mo economic code relating to cross connection and back flow control and water for fires there vis and filing of county communication sixteen dash chair would like to thank you very very much a members yes go ahead or one is excused i'm sorry yes miss cochran is excused and let's hope that this i'm looking out the window in the weather is getting for all of central maui that runs from way louis all the way out to all the way out to a down to mckenna so anyone in those areas should not drink the water or use the water for any cooking purposes including brushing teeth unless that water is boiled for three minutes it's fine to use that water for showering and that kind of thing but not to ingest that water any ice that's been made in the last it's curry by automatic icemaker should also be thrown out this was due to a break we had in our central system above capon e y park last night during the heavy rains by the el stream washed away a section of our pipe allowing river water and mud into our system our crews are currently flushing that out taking samples system wide because these samples have to be tested in cultured from organic standpoint it takes overnight until we get the results the boil water noticeable go until at least this time tomorrow or later that's if everything's ok if it turns out that there hits for something that's not supposed to be on there it may go further so please check the county website for updates will issue press releases as things change everyone has service right now except the people in the valley from keep on the way park to the fork in the road that water service should be brought on line shortly in those people also will still have boil water notices that is the status of where we are right now medicare yes he he didn't mention before but there are a lot of people with reverse osmosis systems should they boil their water coming out of that or should they flush those systems when your system goes comes back to because i am not familiar with any of these individual systems that people have my view is i just pretend they're not there i don't know how they work i don't know if they've been made maintained i would say even if you have one of those little water for three minutes before you in of the state because of this conviction that we were hot here is being drawn out from the salt and causing these heavy downpours sporadically all over the place so they're saying still keep an eye on the weather try to do as little traveling you if you don't have to go somewhere don't go and stay off the roads and hopefully with a good logical no more major damage will occur so that's the latest that i have on my posting here from the national weather service asked to take measures immediately because the law high no water treatment plant is not upbraiding due to heavy rain so there is a lot to look at please as you read the paper this into the news what you're alerts and please stay off the road unless you have to go somewhere the police and everybody the emergency people have more than enough to do so let's not give them any more excitement i'd like to thank everyone who came today thank you for coming out in this mr taylor and his department for being here today thank the engineers that are working so hard on this water meter list and i'd like to thank my staff and without further business to handle today this meeting is a