Water problem 'dire' on Maui
By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Maui County Bureau
WAILUKU, Maui —Mayor Alan Arakawa pledged yesterday to ensure a future water supply for Central and South Maui and to relieve the island's shortage of affordable housing.
"The state of Maui County is pretty darn good," Arakawa said in his state-of-the-county speech delivered in the County Council chamber, " ... but not without some significant growing pains."
Among them is water. Arakawa, who has been in office a little more than a year, said that for years the county has performed a "a delicate dance around the truth: that the '?ao Aquifer — Central and South Maui's main domestic water source — was being tapped out."
In July, the state Commission on Water Resource Management moved to take over control of the '?ao Aquifer after pumping kept increasing. Arakawa said there's a dire need to find an alternative water source to meet inevitable growth.
The mayor said he believes he has found that source. He said that after investigating the possibility of building a desalinization plant, he decided the best course was to gain access to surface water from the West Maui Mountains formerly dedicated to plantation agriculture.
He pledged to continue negotiations with the companies that control the water to tap into at least half of the 50 million gallons of surface water that flow daily from the West Maui Mountains
"Ultimately, one way or another, Maui County will soon have this major water source under public control," the mayor declared.
On affordable housing, Arakawa said his goal is to create partnerships to meet increasing demand. He outlined a handful of projects in the works and promised that more are on the way.
"Right now we estimate that our community needs an additional 4,000 affordable homes, and we're bending over backward to meet developers halfway in answering this need," the mayor said.
Arakawa also announced that Deputy Housing Director Herman Andaya has been appointed affordable housing coordinator.
After the speech, Councilman Danny Mateo of Moloka'i said he was impressed by the mayor's commitment to solve some key problems that have dogged the county for years. It's an ambitious agenda, he said, but Arakawa, working with the council, appears to be up to the task.
"I look forward to the next state-of-the-county (speech) to learn that we don't have a water problem and that we don't have a housing problem," Mateosaid.
Arakawa also said he would try to improve working conditions for county employees. He noted that employees are working in crowded conditions, with outdated and "nonfunctional" equipment and in a 30-year-old building, Kalana O Maui, which is falling apart.
Reach Timothy Hurley at thurley@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 244-4880.
