Maui News Reports
“In the proposed version, a landowner without meters or meter reservations could have proffered an approved engineering study to show where and how the water would be made available. The director of water supply would be allowed (or possibly required) to comment on the interagency review that would be led by the state Department of Health.
That brought a warning from the mayor. The county does not have the staff or the staff time to do the sort of review mentioned in the draft ordinance, he said.
Furthermore, the questions the director would be expected to answer already are the kuleana of the state Commission on Water Resource Management. The commission has the data and would not be obliged to give it to the county.
Also, Arakawa said, the mandate is unclear. The director would be asked, for example, to assess effects on salinity of water wells. But how far would he have to look, Arakawa asked?
And a requirement to assess future impacts was equally troublesome, he said. A county water director cannot say what will happen 50 years in the future, even with the help of a Maui Island Plan. And even that plan would not help with assessing the planning of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, which operates on its own….
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Council Member Joe Pontanilla returned again and again to the question of, if Show Me the Water were repealed, so that the county would be expected to make water available, how much money will be needed over the next five years to begin updating the water utility infrastructure?
Wouldn’t it be better, he asked, to complete the Maui Island Plan, assess the possible resources and then propose a program to deal with it? That approach was endorsed by, among others, Irene Bowie, executive director of Maui Tomorrow.”
Read the whole article on the Everett Dowling backed attempt to circumvent “Show Me the Water”.