Posted on: Thursday, November 15, 2001

Control of aquifer contested on Maui

By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Maui County Bureau

WAILUKU, Maui — A state water panel voted yesterday to keep alive the issue of whether to assert its authority over an aquifer system that supplies drinking water to Central and South Maui.

Meeting in Wailuku, the Commission on Water Resource Management voted unanimously to consider the issue for at least 90 days more, a victory for supporters of a petition to have the '?ao and North Waihe'e aquifer systems designated groundwater management areas.

The Maui Meadows Homeowners Association in Kihei had asked for state intervention, saying its members feared damage to its main source of drinking water from new development and overpumping. The petition asks the state to take control of the aquifers to ensure that water quality is not compromised.

Designating the systems as groundwater management areas would allow the state to better monitor the amount of water taken from the aquifers and ensure their sustainable yields are not exceeded.

County officials have fended off attempts to designate the '?ao Aquifer, saying the county can take care of its own problems.

David Craddick, director of the county Department of Water Supply, told the commission yesterday his agency is capable of doing what's necessary to protect the aquifer from any deterioration in water quality. He said the Board of Water Supply would be convening a special review of alternative sources.

But officials with the U.S. Geological Survey said a recent study of the '?ao and North Waihe'e aquifers found water levels had declined under severe drought, and that chloride (salt) concentrations were on the rise. They also questioned whether '?ao's sustainable yield is really 20 million gallons a day, as officials believe.

The Department of Water Supply pumps an average of 18 million gallons a day from the aquifer.