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Posted at 11:39 a.m., Friday, December 7, 2007

Testimony continues on stream management on Maui

By HARRY EAGAR
The Maui News

WAILUKU — In the third day of testimony on Na Wai Eha, EarthJustice put on testimony designed to encourage the State Commission on Water Resource Management to order controlled releases of water into the streams to help determine what permanent in-stream flow standards should be, The Maui News reported.

The expert witness, hydrologist Delwyn Oki of the U.S. Geological Survey, had to tread a fine line. As a federal employee he is not allowed to make recommendations or even offer opinions about the dispute over diversion of water from streams.

Hearings officer Lawrence Miike told him that by qualifying as an expert, he was necessarily giving opinions. Oki made a distinction between that and offering opinions about the substance of the contested case.

The function of the survey, he said, was to make available the information it has.

EarthJustice attorney Kapua Sproat quizzed him about how much information there is about Na Wai Eha — the Iao, Waihee, Waikapu and Waiehu streams.

Not enough to answer important questions, said Oki. For example, he said he could not say unequivocally that Waiehu Stream would be a perennial river from its mauka sources to the mouth at the ocean if water were not diverted from it.

The hearings, which missed a day Wednesday because of weather, are continuing today at 9 a.m. The meetings are being held at the Cameron Center, although the meeting room changes from day to day.

The Geological Survey has a study on Na Wai Eha — Oki is the project director — to try to answer four questions about the consequences of the diversions made by Wailuku Water Co. and Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co.:

  • To identify the characteristics.

  • To identify the temperature characteristics of the water.

  • To determine the recharge amount the streams contribute to groundwater.

  • To characterize the physical habitat for native species.

    Historical information is spotty, Oki said. There have been gauging stations for about 90 years, but not always in the same places and not continuously in any one place.

    The survey asked the ditch operators to cooperate in making controlled releases of specified amounts of water in order to study what happened downstream.

    At a meeting in October 2006, Oki said, the companies declined. Recently, he said, Wailuku Water notified him that it intended to make a release of water into Waihee Stream in connection with maintenance work, and Oki said he would have jumped at the chance to take advantage of that.

    However, he said, what his team really wants is a number of controlled releases, of different sizes and at selected times, in order to get a range of data.

    With Oki testifying that funding for the study of Na Wai Eha ends in October 2008, Sproat asked the commission to order Wailuku Water to cooperate.

    She said the commission does not have to wait for the conclusion of the contested case.

    "It can issue interim orders," Sproat said.

    Deputy Corporation Counsel Jane Lovell got Oki to testify that the county had been cooperative with the survey's requests.

    Paul Mancini, representing Wailuku Water, concentrated on some of the unknowns.

    For example, he got Oki to agree that withdrawals from a well could affect the amount of water in a stream.

    If you take out a million gallons, Oki said, eventually that shows up somewhere.

    It could be in the stream, or in the amount that runs into the ocean as freshwater plumes; or it could result in springs drying up. It would depend upon where the well was sited in relation to the underground recharge channels.

    For more Maui news, visit The Maui News.