16 Water Resources Committee - Regular Meeting

Time is now 09:07AM. Members, in accordance with the Sunshine Law, if you're not in the council chamber, please identify by name who, if anyone is in the room, vehicle, or workspace with you today. Minors do not need to be identified. Also, please see the last page of the agenda for information on meeting connectivity and remember to silence all Good cell morning, everyone. I look forward to chairing a productive opportunity sure team. To the

we're

And

And at my home office. I'm here by myself. To And there's no testifiers in honor, chair.

Thank you for that. Let's move on to council chair Alice Lee. Aloha councilmember, good morning.

Good morning, chair Johnson. Aloha, Kako. Looking forward to your meeting and there's no one here at my home office besides my little kitty. Thank you.

Okay. Thanks for that info. And next we have in the chambers, Councilmember Tom Cook. Aloha, Councilmember.

Good morning. And currently, there's no testifiers, and the Internet is working at the South Maui office.

Wow. We're two and o today. Alright. Now we got move on to councilmember Paulton. Aloha, councilmember. I love the Christmas vibe you got back there.

Aloha, kakaya, kako, streaming live and direct from my kitchen table. There's nobody else in the house. The canine is downstairs.

Okay. Councilmember Yukile Sugimura is excused today, and of course, we have with us virtually committee member Noilane U'uhajins. Aloha, councilmember.

Good morning, chair. Good morning, everyone. I am also at my private residence. I have one adult, male with me, Makoa'u'u Hajins, and then I have my minor daughter as well. But I am here and I'm excited for your meeting. Thank you.

Okay. Welcome, welcome, and good morning. Of course, our nonvoting committee members, Councilmember Rollins Fernandez, is always welcome. And we are now from the administration, we have plenty of folks today. As you can see, we've got the Department of Environmental Management, Deputy Director Michael Peterson, Environmental Protection and Sustainable Division Manager Cecil Powell along with William Jay.

Do with We right opportunity have have do Deputy Corporation Counsel. On our committee to staff, have we have the Ellen McKinley, legislative analyst Casey Apo Takayama, senior legislative analyst from Megan Moniz, legislative attorney and Griselda Peronade, our committee secretary and Ms. Leidenin, our assistant clerk. Today on our agenda members, we have two items, very important items. I'm really excited to learn more about them.

We have ADEPT1 reviving the Nauulu Cloud Bridge) and ADEPT1 (twelve) 20 We members and administration for being here today. Thank you for our presenters. Let's begin with public testimony on all items on the agenda, although public testimony is also welcome after the presentations of each item as well. Staff do we have any testifiers?

We're

able able make brief meeting. Be the provide of to overview provide pleased we we We forward slash agendas. Made Oral We testimony is are limited to three minutes per item. If you're still testifying beyond that time, you will hear a second timer go off after thirty seconds, and I'll kindly ask you to complete your testimony. We ask that you state your full name and organization, but if you prefer to testify people We not the the who of of of The being meeting.

The is recorded. Heckling, shouting, use of profanity, threatening or slanderous remarks made to any member of the council staff or general public. Committee members, I'll now proceed with oral testimony. Staff have been monitoring individuals joining today's meeting by phone and by video, and we'll do our best to take each person in an orderly fashion. So, staff, will you please call the first testifier?

Yes, chair. The first testifier is the Royal House of Hawaii to be followed by Hina Nubul.

Okay. Royal House.

Aloha. Aloha. Royal house of Hawaii, and I'm speak I'm speaking to you guy to you guys as a L'Oreal land tenant descendant, and holder under Hefa Hefa Nui. And so there's, six items. Right? Am I correct?

Oh, there's only two items. Oh, there's two items. Okay.

Sorry. Was still reading the, agenda two at the same time because, like, it's it's, like, confusing a little bit with the numbering. But the first one the first one is for because I'm looking at the agenda. It's, like, giving me, like, six, like, different links to provide testimony on. So

Uh-oh. Did we lose you? Oh, no.

View an approval for proposed, reconstruction plans. Oh, no. That's number two. Yeah. Oh, no. Number one.

That might be, the Cultural Resource Commissioner, a different meeting. Does it say, Maui County Agriculture Agriculture Agriculture commission. Oh, yeah. That's a different meeting.

Oh, no way.

Sorry. Link. Yeah.

We we got a little bit of Internet anyway.

To speak, though.

Issue, but go ahead.

To, as a, yeah, a land a loyal land tenant holder and descendant, and, I saw, this is about so you guys just said this is about the rejuvenation of the clouds or something. Right?

Yeah. The Naulu Cloud Bridge.

Okay. So I'm wondering if any of the land descendants were contacted because it's all titled and royal patented. And there's Hawaii revised statute one seventy two Dash 11. The lands are supposed to be returned to the descendants. If it was even sold or if it's the title is trying to be changed or whatever it may be.

And yeah. I know because I know many descendants, many of the, royal patins over there on that side in the Ahupua'a area. That's where a majority of the Kanaka people

Oh, did we lose you again?

How long you don't wanna And we haven't been contacted at all. And, yeah, I'm just wondering if the the descendants were called anyway. Okay. And, yeah, I'll speak later. I'm just gonna do this testimony for now, but I'm gonna do my testimony after again.

Let me see if, we have any clarifying questions. I don't see any hands for clarifying questions, so thank you for your testimony. Staff, will you, ask for the next testifier?

Sure. The next testifier is Hina Newbel.

Okay. Hina Nubo, if you're ready to testify, you can Aloha. Oh, there we go. Aloha.

I was born and raised here on Maui. I come from Waipoli on the slopes of Haleakala, and I've spent most of my life on this mountain. I just came today in strong support of this project. Thank you guys so much for putting this on the docket and hearing this and being willing to consider this kind of a project. It means a lot to me that we've come to this place today.

There's been so much damage that's done to the 'aina all the way from the very top of the mountain all the way out to Kaho'olawi itself. So, any work that we do that restores that system that is the Naulu Cloud is so and so necessary for the generations coming after us. We are living on a planet where desertification is spreading rapidly in many places. And I think that we think we're immune from that here in Hawaii, but we're not. We can see it happening.

It's happening on Molokai. It's happened on It's happening in Kihei and Lahaina. And fighting against that by doing restoration work is one of the smartest and most culturally aligned things that we can possibly do to look after our 'aina and the generations coming after us. I have been an intern twice at the Auahi Restoration Project. I have family from Kaupo, and I have seen firsthand how if you exclude the weeds and you plant the native plants and you give them the conditions to grow, they will thrive and they will grow.

And these kind of projects truly can be a success. It just requires us to get behind them and give them what they need. So, although I came sort of last minute today without knowing all the details of the project, I know that anything that helps the Nalulu cloud to be restored restores not only the 'aina and the vai, the ua, but it restores parts of us as Kanaka, and it allows us to maintain that connection. A green belt stretching from Leeward Haleakala all the way out to Kaho'olawe is something filled with native plants is something that only serves to strengthen all of our cultural connections. All of those plants are incredibly important for cultural uses as much as they are for being on the to draw the clouds and to help the rain to come again.

I deeply believe that this is possible, and I really appreciate the vision of the people behind it. And thank you so much for your support today.

Okay. Thank you so much for your testimony, Hina. Let's see if we have any clarifying questions. We do have one from councilmember Paulton.

Thank

you, chair. Thank you, Ms. Nubo. I was wondering if you could clarify, what you said about the desertification. This is not, something that you think desal would solve.

I think I don't know a lot about desalination. You're talking about desalination of water, correct? Correct. Don't know where we are at with having that kind of technology available to us here in Hawaii. I know that either way, we have to put aside the aina.

We have to plant the plants. And maybe we get those going with water that is desalinated or our one water or some kind of water that allows us to help that. Probably not a lot of it is going to get watered because that's not how large scale restoration works. But I really don't think that we can desalinate our way out of increasing certification. That is not going to solve our problems, don't believe.

I think that we need to do large scale restoration, and I think that that's what's really going to draw the moisture and hold it, and we have to physically reconstruct that green corridor and that bridge that is the Naulu Cloud that is celebrated in song and story by our ancestors. It's a phenomena that they have observed for hundreds and hundreds of years, and they know how it works. So, yeah, we have to rebuild that. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank Let's see if any other clarifying questions for our testifier. Thank you so much, miss Newball, for your testimony. Appreciate it. Staff, will you call the next testifier, please?

Yes, chair. The next testifier and currently the last signed up is the individual calling in with the last four digits, 6659. And you may need to press 6 to unmute.

6 to unmute.

Aloha, this is Robin. Can you hear me?

Loud and clear, Ms. Knox.

Oh, great. Thank you so much. Aloha, my committee chair and members. Mahalo for allowing these important presentations for consideration. I commend you for looking for ways to malama our water resources.

It's especially heartening to see all the relevant departments there, including DEM, today. With regard to the aquifer mapping, modeling, and monitoring, it is essential. Often you may hear people say they don't like studies, they want actions, but actions can be ill advised if not grounded in reality, like knowledge of rainfall, aquifer location and bounds, water levels and water quality. Some of the information you'll see presented today demonstrates the folly of making decisions about sustainable yield without this understanding. Already we are over pumping wells and causing salination of freshwater resources.

I support expanding the scope of the study island wide. South Maui in particular already has a large number of wells and more planned for the Wailea 6 70 project and Kamaole Aquifer, which has a very limited sustainable yield and many aquifer dependent ecosystems along the coastline. A lot of people may not be familiar with the concepts of monitoring, modeling and adaptive management, but these modeling systems help us define understand how the system functions and it gives us a management tool that only gets better over time because every time we do the model, improves. Current system of water resources management is reactive. We implement management measures only after negative impacts have occurred.

Having the mapping, modeling and monitoring system will allow decisions to be proactive by predicting what the impacts of withdrawals would be before making a decision. So I encourage this also to be expanded to our surface water systems as well. There's only one water and our surface water management affects groundwater and vice versa. Lastly, water resource discussions often have a tendency to focus on human usage. We must also protect our ecosystems by maintaining adequate groundwater flows to wetlands, springs and localia.

The groundwater protects the aquifers from salt intrusion at water is a of project. Part landscape scale restoration and reforestation. That is actually the only method that brings more fresh water into our hydrologic systems. I'll repeat that. That is the only method that actually brings more fresh water into our systems.

To take care of all of our water needs, landscape, scale, nature based solutions are best. We have to take care of not only the needs of humans, but also the needs of nature. Mahalo nui.

Thank you, miss Knox, for your testimony. Let's see if we have any clarifying questions. We don't have any, so thank you once again for your testimony. Staff, will you call the next testifier, please?

Chair, we see that the Royal House of Hawaii is raising their hand, but we're still in the first, on that opening. Right. So if they would like to testify on the second item, they can. And then I also see an individual who's approached the podium.

Okay. Let's see if Royal House was your first, if you don't mind, JC Law. Go ahead. Royal House, if you don't mind just sticking to the other item instead of the first item. Is that okay? Can you speak on that? Three minutes.

Oh, I was gonna say, where can you find the agendas?

If that's possible because it's not Okay. I can help you with that. But did you wanna testify on anything? Otherwise, I'll just give you that information. It's mauicounty.us forward / agenda is where you'll find that at.

Yeah. I'm on there, but it's not, showing. It I'm looking at the calendar meetings for today. It's not popping up.

Okay. Well, you I'm sorry. It's it's the Internet has been funky, but that that's where it is. Mauicounty.us/agendas. Look on the adept committee of twelvefourtwenty twenty five and that's where you should be able to find it. Did you want to speak on I'll sign off for it,

do the next one though.

Okay, okay. Thank you so much. We're going to move on to JC Law then.

Good morning. Unoho'omolu Johnson. I was kind of interested in what this Na'aulu Cloud Bridge, the Ikapio o poo o naulu. It's adept one eleven. That sounds like something that one of those fantasy movies and stuff.

But I I really appreciate whoever did the and welcome everybody to the council chambers. It's very exciting that you guys are here. I stay in Waokoa, Kulaoka, and I'm right on the edge of this. I looked into the the press packet there. To the royal house of Hawaii, I really appreciate you guys coming in here and testifying and grounding everybody. I hope you stay tuned because I think even you will learn something from this. Okay. I've been here twelve years and I've been looking for you guys. Like I said, I'm up in Kula. And I go to the community Kula Community Association meetings.

I don't know if you guys are familiar with that, but I haven't had much traction with them. They put me on the recycling committee, but I haven't had much traction with that either. I appreciate mister Cook being here because my represent he's a close associate of my representative, Yuki Lei Sugimura. I hope she's watching. She's probably doing something very important.

Okay. I looked at the packet outside and I really appreciate it and I encourage everybody to stay tuned because the presentation is going to be really extraordinary. I appreciate, I kind of know a little bit of the territory up there, Mr. Johnson, and I know your Lee Mahana has a lot to do with what's going on here. Since I feel comfortable with you, and you could cut me off if you want to, but I've been trying to get some community stuff going on up there.

All right. Well, let's stick with this very important genesis. The only

thing guys I know is the churches and they're not helping much at all.

Okay. Thanks for that. Any clarifying questions from our testifier? Seeing none, thank you so much. Right. Staff, we have one more testifier. Think it's James Lanford. Mr. Lanford, you're going to testify today?

Yes. Thank you so much what a fascinating meeting that you guys are doing chair and and everyone and console keeps. So there is a way to produce water without having to do a huge desalination. On the smaller scale. For about the cost of a water meter connection that will produce a 30 gallons a day.

In our 60% humidity average coming in around point zero zero two. Gallon costs so I posted that on the facebook. In today's meeting. And the link for the real House of Hawaii as well so of that can help your math. And those grants are easier to achieve.

With the USDA and the CDBG etcetera. On those scales because you're not. Going up against- well you know how the process works with the smaller multiples with matching funds seems to to unlock. Water in a way- That can honor the existing. These for the Hawaiians and.

Everything on the you know that comes after that so. So that that informational. It will give you cards to that you can see the apples and apples comparison of. How water how the military would generate water in the desert in a 12%. Environment what we're blessed to have 62.

And. It would also help building a closet the same its technology that I believe are we would use. Through like I'm sorry the concept of the up or let lightning to protect the air and the resources. From destruction so that would be a cultural tie in for for you folks to so okay. Hope that math works out for you. Okay. And I'm available. Yes, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Langford for your testimony members any clarifying questions for Mr. Langford seeing on thank you once again for your testimony. Staff, do we have any other testifiers?

Staff has not received any further requests for testimony this time. Anyone like to testify, please raise your hand or click on the by clicking the raise your hand button or pressing star five via phone. Would you me to do a last call?

Okay.

Last call for testimony. 321. Chair seeing no individuals wishing to testify.

Okay. Members seeing there's no more individuals wishing to testify. Now proceed with the agenda. And that is ADEPT reviving the Nauulu Cloud Bridge. Members, the rain follows the forest.

As we know from historical deforestation and the resulting historic droughts and water shortages, no trees equals no rain. The Naulu Cloud Bridge, which we will hear about today is one example. This is important cloud bridge once stretched like a constant banner connecting the mountains of Kahoolawe and Haleakala after the damage to Kahoolawe by military bombings and the clearing of forests from Haleakala's slopes, the Na'ulu Cloud Bridge has disappeared. And as the cloud cover left, so do the rains. But as the rain, koa or shrines linked from Ula Palakua to Ka'olawe by ceremony show, there is hope for healing if we look at this holistically and recognize the indigenous knowledge of our natural systems and our human place within them.

If we consciously steward the land and restore our trees and forests, there is hope that the cloud cover will grow as well and bring life giving rains that are so needed. This is a generational historical undertaking. To help us learn more, I have invited Andrea Buckman, Executive Director of Uhiwai O Haleakala, an organization working with landowners on Leeward Haleakala to assess landscapes and implement site the are boots on the ground and help provide public and private resources to reverse deforestation. Her presentation team includes CJ Elozerez, a cultural practitioner with Protect Kaholawe Ohana Doctor. Jonathan Price, a professor of geography at the University of Hawaii at Hilo and for the Waikoloa Dry Land Forest Initiative Paul Higashino, Restoration Manager for the restoration program of the Kaho'olawe Island Reserve Commission and Akua Po, owner of Po Brothers Incorporated, a longtime resident of Kahikunui Homestead and a Board member of Uihivai O Haleakala and Ilama Farm, President of Ka Ohana O Kahikunui.

I've also invited Lance DeSilver from the Department of Land and Natural Resources to provide comments for as our state DLNR Maui Branch Forest Program Manager. Members, if there's no objections, I would like to designate as resource persons under council rule 18A given their expertise in reforestation and efforts to revive the Naulu Cloud Bridge to folks that I just mentioned. Thank you so much. All right, Ms. Buckman, thank you for being here. Please introduce your team and commence with your presentation. The floor is yours.

Mahalo. Aloha maikakou. Name is Andrea Buckman. I'm the executive director for. I'm really grateful for the opportunity to be here. I'm really grateful for the initiative that the council has put forth. I'm really proud of our our county leadership at this point, and, excited to share with you some of the work we're doing on the forest, in the forest. And, we can help provide a solution, that Maui really needs. Have some really key, partners here, and this this initiative is huge. It's gonna take so many more than us. But, with the time we had today, I've brought

some Ms. Buckman, can you take the mic and bring it a

little bit closer? Sure. If you can share your voice with us. Thank you. Sure. Is that better? Yeah. Okay. So, I have CJ Alizarez. I've I've known CJ for many years, starting I think I met him at the rain ceremony at U'umahoy many years ago.

I've known him from voyaging and most recently doing restoration and collaboration with the team at McKenna. My board member here, Kuopo, is a leader in our community, small business owner, and he's been kind of by my side as a resident of Kiki Nui trying to, you know, resettle a remote homestead. He's seen a lot of the struggles we've had as a conservation entity and been a longtime partner, and I'm grateful for his leadership on the board. I have a llama farm. He's now the president of Kaohana Okehikenui.

So they're a strong community partner. They're the the board that represents the residents that live out in Kahikinui. And I think you'll see later that's a key project site that I believe will be central to this initiative. And then, of course, Paul Higashino, he is one of my kumu and people I've learned from in over fifteen, twenty years on Maui doing this this restoration work. So I'm really honored to be at the table with him and have his, expertise and be able to really collaborate with him in a meaningful way.

So, we each have a a portion in this, and, I look forward to sharing with you. CJ's gonna start us off with setting the the context.

Picture on the left. Oh, Everybody. If you look on the picture on the left and you can see that was taken from from an airplane on one of our flights back, And it shows Koawai in the foreground and Maui in the background. I really love this picture, which made me really look out the window that day because it really shows all of the pieces that create this Nuulu cloud. It also recognizes the other cloud banks and, cloud bridges that are coming off of Maui.

For this picture, can see the Alunui Channel on the right, the side where the words are. The wind comes off of that channel. Everybody knows the Nulu wind that comes off of that channel. But in the back there, it comes off and comes up And the story. Story. Very

important part

and it starts to congregate the water starts to congregate as a as a cloud. And then it comes over to the Honua'ula where it meets at Puumakua at about 6,000 feet elevation, and that's the right side of the cloud. The left side of this picture, you can see the kualono coming from Pi'iolo. You can see how it comes from OQQ, another cloud bridge that comes across the Isthmus Of Maui. You can see a shorter cloud, if you can recognize where Kihei, Kulakai is in there, and that's Kulani Hokoei, another cloud bridge.

Anyway, those clouds and those water vapors being pushed by the Moai winds through the Central Valley comes up against the Kualo'ono across Kula and meets again at Puumakua. We have ceremonies at Puumahoe on Koholave and in many other areas in Hono Hono Oula to recognize Kane, which is simply all of these winds, clouds, rains, the plants, and most importantly for this is heat. At Pu'umahoe, we call the cloud down. So and recognize all of its powers, make it heavier, offer it, and call it down so it doesn't fly over is at 2,222 feet. Real easy to remember.

Is about 1,600 feet in elevation. So if the cloud stays high, which it has been doing because there's nothing to grab onto. Well, there is no. I think we'll get into that later. It'll miss Kahoolawe as a whole.

Now, Na'ulu, what we're talking about today is just a small part. It is, Kalei Na'ulu is the larger name of this cloud bridge, which goes past Kahoolawe. It goes over to Lanai, goes over to Molokai, and then returns back to Maui. But we're talking about this restoration effort here in Maui because that is the beginnings of this cloud, taking care of what we know is Kapo Gap. Kapo, Kaiiki Nui, Honua'ula as a whole, the channels that surround it and then even into the central value of Maui.

All of those things contribute to this. The cultural end is not very different. It's not different from the scientific end. These are all the same things. We're just we're talking about all the same things. The sanctification of this cloud, the sacredness of this cloud comes because we recognize this as life. If we keep on saying water is life, then we need to recognize these things as such. And the we're gonna show some of the work that we're doing, to that honors this cloud. Next slide. Alright.

Now these pictures are from Ko'olawe, Waikai is a is a reflection. It's a reflection of this cloud and who we are as people. We have all of these or standing up the so

to

able And And do

on Koalaway from the previous, slide we had, the at and that we encourage the exchange. And I'm running out of I went over the the time that I told Andrea I would take. But, what we just wanted to highlight is that everybody at this table here and many other people in the in the community are these. We are these that are doing our work, and we're all trying to to do what we can in our spaces. I, for instance, work in the lower dry land forest of Honolulu, whereas I don't know what Andrea guys do up in the up in the mountain above the clouds.

But we're trying to just like this bridge, figure that. We're to

that.

But through our networking and collaboration as partners on land, as people, and as conservationists, I guess, if you wanna be that. K. That's all I get.

Mahalo. You know, I love learning. It's never gonna stop, and I was taking notes as he's speaking. You know? So I'm I just am so grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with all these people and, hopefully, with many more.

Thank you so much. So, I first started, back in 2004. I was working as a researcher, at a college, a city of tropical ecology and conservation, working for Pacific Whale Foundation. I was volunteering up in the mountain. Thank goodness I met doctor Art Maderas and started volunteering and then works doing well research for a couple years, and then was able to get to get hired full time, I think, in 2007.

So, this is all I know. This is what I know and what I do, and I still know nothing. I'm just enamored with this work. It's always a challenge, and it's always inspiring. And, I'm I'm dedicated to it. But at the beginning, some of these things that really inspired me, learning about what sacred places are, what that what that truly means. One becomes many. The concept of adaptive radiation, how how unique and special so many species here are. They're only found here on the entire planet. And the the ways that they colonized and arrived here and then became these unique and diverse, assemblages is is fascinating.

Where rigor overlaps with relevance, that's kind of where we look at that role between science and understanding and community. How much do we study, versus how much do we do? Learning that Lihir Haleakala is the epicenter of extinction in the Pacific. We have lost more than any other region in the Hawaiian Islands, in terms of biodiversity. So that's pretty sobering and humbling and hopefully inspiring. Uncle Rene Silva, why better we try something? We already know what happens when we try nothing. I will always be inspired by that. When you think you know, you have no idea. The more we learn, the more we hone our skills.

Things are changing so fast. We have to stay present with the land and keep, stay humble so we can continue. Keiki Nui, this is just an image of basically what Oahu started as. I designed it as a square so you could see it. Started as 10 acres and 23.

You can really see, that you can convert degraded pasture land and really decimated native forest back to a native dominated ecosystem. You can do it. It takes a lot of work, a lot of volunteers, a lot of community, a lot of diligence. Starting small is important, but it's possible. This set the stage for many larger scale restoration projects on Maui and also has been inspiring for projects across the Paiaina and across the world.

It's a globally acknowledged site. I was fortunate enough to be able to learn from. So right now on Lihir Haleakala, about 5% of our native forest is all that's left. We know that if we don't have water, we don't have flowers, we don't have happiness, we don't have health, we don't have abundance. So we're looking at 5%.

Some of the threats, and challenges that we face are erosion with that loss of forest cover. The sediment is sheeting off into the near shore waters and disrupting reefs, disrupting economic systems, disrupting roadways. Introduced unmanaged animals like access deer, pigs. On the picture on the left, you can see a couple of pigs got into one of our fences and just did a huge amount of destruction. We turned that into a positive and started planting into that area because they dug up the soil for us.

But, ultimately, you're constantly looking at threats. Those those animals are too much for our native ecosystems. They didn't the plants didn't evolve to defend against these types of threats and this type of of pressure. So unmanaged animals is a is a huge problem. Fire, drought, invasive grasses, you're probably very familiar with that it's a cycle. Right? So the more fire that we have, the more invasive species come in, especially fire and drought adapted grasses. Most of those were introduced from Africa to be fodder for cattle. So that was because they thrive in full sun and dry areas. So they happen to be fire adapted too.

And then the more fires we have, the further those things are spreading up into the native forest. And then you get a picture on the right. You get a storm right after a fire, and you see you know, that's probably tons of sediment. If you can see the tiny truck in the top left, that's tons of sediment flowing right into the ocean in Kahikinui. So, you know, we can have meetings. We bring people together. This is an example of that, I think, after the fire in 2016, and it keeps happening over and over and over again. We're not doing enough fast enough. So, etcetera. Storms, winds, suppression of seed bank pathogens.

We have rapid Ojia death. We've seen it decimate over 80% of Hawaii Island's Ojia forest. It has been detected on Maui a couple times. It's something we have to stay vigilant for. The storms, the picture on the right to me is heartbreaking. A Kumukoa tree just twisted and and broken down by the wind. The the more our forests are are lost, the more the lack of understory is there, the more winds come in. Those winds are bringing the pathogens like rapid ohiadas. So the less stability there is in the forest, it's just more and more exposed and less resilient. But there are some good things.

So that that forest that's left, that's what we started being tasked with, protecting. So there's still a lot of things, and and we need to hold on to what we can. So we started building fences, from Oahu, the 10 acres, 20 acres, 50 acres, to Kiki Nui. This is a 4,000 acre project site. We have to fly in, fly in these materials.

It's hours of time. It's very dangerous. We get to see some beautiful places, but building the fences is very expensive, very hard, and they have to be maintained. But that's what has to come first. You have to exclude the animals and create a create a a draw a line in the sand, you know, where you're gonna start protecting something and hold space for that. We have to build work sites, camp sites to make it safe, as comfortable as we can. That takes a lot of work. We have four of these in the mountain. We develop restoration techniques. You know, we're planting in erosion scars, trying to figure out what's gonna survive.

We're planting in some areas. We have deeper soils. Deeper soils also means more weeds. So every site is different. As much as I learned at Oahu, it does not apply to anywhere else. Everything is very site specific. I mean, I use every everything I learned there, but, every site has its own threats, its own amounts of remnant forest, its own weeds. So, it's like a there's no playbook. Over time, Oahu was 2,000 in in 2004, 10 acres. By 2019, we had over 12,700 acres fenced.

And this isn't just us, of course. This is partners across, including the national park, the state of Hawaii, and private landowners doing their own work. The partnership landscape was set at 3,500 feet and above because that's the headwaters of the watersheds. That's where, these landowners dedicated space, to hold for future water and cultural economic resources. We're also part of a bigger system.

On Maui, we have three watershed partnerships. Also, there's Puukukui Watershed. There's South Maui Watershed Partnership Group. There are a lot more, and it's it's growing. And even across the the state now, over 2,200,000 acres are held in dedicate dedication to watershed restoration through the watershed partnerships program.

So it's a really innovative and collaborative effort that is a voluntary alliance between all these different types of landowners. It enables people to work across TMKs and address issues like fire and weeds and things that don't stop at your fence line or your boundary. Really allows us to look at things on an ecological level. So what is Uhivai? Like CJ mentioned, the slide on the left is something I was playing with after I did a workshop with Papakumakovallu and just trying to overlay the cultural understanding of the water cycle with a scientific framework, and it's it's more than aligned.

And the the Hawaiian perspectives are even more in-depth and more comprehensive and intricate and intimate. It's it was really fascinating. So it took me a couple years to figure out the name for the nonprofit, and Oui Bais, the dark descending mist. It's the mist that comes in, pretty much every day. You folks get to look at Hal Haleakala from over here. It's really nice to get to see it from a different angle. And you you notice that cloud almost every day. So that's the descending miss, and, there's a beautiful song by Nathan Aveyau that compares this to the hug of a loved one, this this miss that envelops. And it it's there. It's consistent.

It's nurturing. Uhiva is also our team. We had to exit our former situation under University of Hawaii. You know, having fiscal sponsors over all these different years, working under government agencies, working, independently became to be what seemed to me like the best solution, to have more freedom to work with our community, to have more freedom to access funds that you you can't get by working under fiscal sponsorship. So has a lot of challenges, and I've learned a lot more than I even want to about it.

But I'm really grateful that we're here now, and we have a lot a lot still to learn. But UHIVA is also our people, our board, our volunteers, all the partners that make it work. We can run through some of this stuff quicker, but we've been able to secure more money, bigger grants, purchase vehicles in a timely manner, hold leases, hold rights of entry that enable us to access, funding to help incentivize work on a lot of the private lands. Now looking at this map, these are kind of all the resources in the areas that we work in. So it's very spread out.

It's a lot of space. It's a huge task, and we're we're honored to be a part of it. So I'm just gonna go through each, sorry, each of these sites quickly as they relate to as CJ said, the Oulu cloud, it comes together over the tip of right where Pu'umahoe is. This is exactly where this landscape sits. Starting at Pu'u Kali, this is on Department of Fine Homelands, two thirty six acres.

This is some of the last and best willy willy forest left on Maui. Populations of endangered species, there are archaeological sites in there, and, I think it's central to kind of, as Hina mentioned, making restoration not only stays at that former watershed level of 3,500 feet and up, but that we really consider and work towards connecting areas that we have access to, and that are protected down all the way to the coastline across to Ko'olawe. Kono'ulu Ranch is another partner. They've done a ton of work to remove waddle and fence off areas. You can see, you know, a lot of you are familiar with the catastrophic flooding that happens sometimes and the erosion and sediment sediment that comes downslope.

So they're tasked with an immense amount of waddle, which is an invasive acacia. Sadly, it's a relative of koa. So, we look at replacing that acacia replacement, you know, getting rid of one and putting in another, but that's gonna be a huge amount of work. And with a single species dominating an area, there's there's not a lot of understory, so all that rainwater just sheets off, pulls the soil with it, doesn't recharge aquifers, it is detrimental. Wauhule, this is a pretty new project.

Private landowner we're excited to work with. We've got a lot of planting we're gonna start here. Ulupalakur Ranch, they're a founder of the partnership as well. They've been a leader from the very beginning, establishing a Wahi, allowing art and all the different partners to come and and do a trial plot there. But they wanna do more. They really wanna do more. Actually, I found this picture this morning. This was in 2014. I was actually flying in the helicopter to work and took that picture, so I needed one. '14.

So, I was grateful for that, and it was a good reminder of the things that we still want to do. There's a lot of projects that still need to be completed or started. DT Fleming Arboretum at Pu'u Mahoy. Uncle David's here today. He's just a precious resource and fearless leader, managing this critically important area.

It's a refuge for many unique unique endemic native species, and he allows so much education and engagement. It's really a beautiful place that I'm just beginning to to work with again and understand, And so I'm really grateful for that. We had a group of KS students come up, a group from the Kealani. It's just a really it's nice to have an accessible location, with such special ecological treasures that we can share. Kanao Natural Area Reserve, we work with the state here, mostly controlling Baconia right now.

It's one of the worst weeds on that slope. So we've killed, Baconia across over a 119 acres so far in that Natural Area Reserve. HIKI No'u is an area that we have a right of entry to, but we don't work down there yet. But I think it's something that should this initiative really be taken on, we'd like to do more work there and support the state's efforts and leadership in that area. It's, again, just visually, you can see that it's central to this whole initiative.

Did you talk to Kikinui? You're gonna hear about that a little bit more, but this is the heart of what's left of Liward Haleakala. This is where the best remaining intact forest is. It's on Hawaiian homelands. They have an entire moku that's that's within Department of Hawaiian Homelands ownership, so it's a huge opportunity. 4,500 acres fenced. We're working in smaller units right now. You'll hear more about that later. Nakula Natural Area Reserve is next over. That's that's an area that, has been central to developing restoration technique techniques.

We built this small, one acre fenced area, the square here, to develop different planting spacing for Koana Ali'i. I think we did that in, like, 2007. And then after that, the Gnar was built. And so you can see just behind that, the forest starting to fill in. Now it's even filled in more. You can really tell the difference between inside and outside the fences. It's inspiring. Peaky Newry Forest Reserve is next to the east. This is in that area. It's it's even more degraded, and you can clearly see how much actual just natural regeneration comes in.

There's a lot of planting that goes on here too, and we have to keep adding biodiversity in places that are so eroded like this. But it really does make a difference even within five years. This type of revegetation can be accomplished. Nu'umauka, Andy Graham is also a board member. He's one of the the strongest leaders in in conservation on Maui, I believe.

He he took on building a huge fence in probably the most rugged, difficult terrain I've ever seen and hiked in and worked in. He's really inspiring and supportive, and he's also given us a nursery, a greenhouse, allowed us to develop a seed farm here. Despite all the challenges, he maintains positivity and belief that it's important that we do this work, and, everybody plays a role. We're really involved in outreach. That's something I'm proud of with Ujibai.

We really stay tight with our community, and we've been able to to do more and more with with the amazing team that I have. Some of them are in the audience right now. I'm really grateful to work with each and every one of them, and it's been fun to see the things that we do now. I mean, a golf tournament, I'm terrible at golf. I never thought that'd be something we participate in, but it's been really fun to be a part of that. We've we've done some dinners with McKenna, art projects. We have MEOU services come up. This top picture was a group of college students from Alteroa that came to learn from us. So we're just really grateful to have the the freedom to engage with our community. Education's essential for us.

I just had a baby. She flew in my belly until six months pregnant when I could barely zip up my flight suit. So she's gonna be another, warrior for the mountain, but my family are all educators and public servants, and it's this is very strongly important to me, and it's really important to our team too. And, we're really proud to work with with our students. I think that's the most important thing one of the most important things we can do.

We've also been able to work with some private businesses, Kia Hawaii. They developed some of the best top notch technology to assess ungulate populations using, heat sensing cameras. They can really detect each, you know, each number of individual types of species, and they were able to get that meat able to be fit for public consumption. They're, I think, the only company still in Maui that's able to do that, to take wild meat and have it approved by Department of Health and made available to the community. So they're turning an invasive species into a resource.

And even more so after the Lahaina fires, they started the whole lo I program that we're blessed to be able to support. Provide, I think by the 2024, it was over 16,000 pounds of deer. That's all from harvested mostly from Leeward Haleakala and removing a threat from our ranchers and our agricultural producers and our forests and turning that into free food for the community.

Ms. Buckman, we we have, three more speakers, so are you close to wrapping up? Okay.

Yes. Thank you. Details matter. We've got over 80,000 plants we're gonna plant, and this is our our slide about some of our costs. This work is expensive.

It's remote, helicopter time, seedlings. We're looking at one one camping trip to go camp in the mountain is $30,000 with a crew of six, helicopter time, and seedlings. So prices keep going up, and I just wanna be straightforward about, you know, as much as a nonprofit can do to cut corners and, be economically responsible. It's just very expensive work if you want it done right, and the long term maintenance and everything that's also involved. So, hopefully, we can talk more about that. But I'm gonna pass it on to Akua. He is on our board, and he has just a few other things to share.

And

good

their

progression point. Of the reforestation efforts. But before I go into this, I just wanna give a quick emphasis as to how important it is that we do this. Some of the photos that you saw show the barren grassland with a small fenced enclosure next to it that's thick and lush with native plant life. The Ujivai that Andrew mentioned, that cloud that collects on the mountain, it doesn't necessarily rain in the open areas.

But when you stand underneath these trees, the old koas that are still there and the new ones that are planted ground, pouring water, going able we're to the more waterfalls, the better for the land. It's as simple as that. But my portion of this is really to emphasize as a small business owner and someone that lives in that elevation where the clouds come, To make this happen, we need immediate resources to work. You know, for for us to produce a viable amount of native plants to propagate and put in the mountain, We need water at the base yard. You know, we need electricity.

We need a large functioning green and shade house. And all of these things require, stable funding and long term leases to know that we can continue this work we're able do do that. And be able by taking it one small step at a time, you know, through all of these different groups, all of our collaborated effort, we can achieve it. So we appreciate anyone's support. We appreciate the council having us here today.

And I just wanna say that it can be done, you know? You can literally see the water falling in the areas where we plant the trees. So that's my portion to you guys. Mahalo, everybody.

Thank you, mister Polk.

We've made. And And going make to and to give you perspective on our mindset as independent homesteaders. We are descendants of Hawaiian homeland pioneers dedicated to protecting and restoring our moku.

Is

thing And

And we

can to benefit do from. So always think mahalo to the pioneers. To give you perspective, we have a very independent mindset And that's think

To give you an example of what we do, we have such a

strong very important point. Volunteer base. With $25,000 we're able to enclose this community center. Next. Here's a small picture of volunteers. The $25,000 was 100% just for materials. And then all the labor is free. This is pretty much how we approach all our projects. I'm going to highlight what we're going after as an independent water source. This is a project that's been many years in the making.

But right now it's at our doorstep. We have all the money to facilitate construction and implementation. We bought 90% of the materials. This structure here is a 24 by 24 receptacle where water tanks are in this structure. And this will receive the fall drip once it's installed.

And this was through a DHHL grant and a county grant. So this phase, phase one is completed. We're currently working on phase two. We recently received we're part of a Maui Hikina cohort, Hola Nihana, and we received $150,000 from them. So we're earmarked and geared up to do construction.

We're just waiting for a few administrative things from DHHL. Here's a schematic of an overland. It's kind of hard to see, but on the bottom left is the fog drip catchment area. And there's a thousand foot elevation between the structure the water tank structure and the catchment area. It would have an overland pipeline of a few thousand feet of pipe that'll go towards the water tank structure.

Data shows we have a weather station there, and on an optimum day we can collect 2,000 gallons of water per day. We're also working on a DLNR fire mitigation corridor in collaboration with them. The proposal is to build a fire corridor from our main gate out towards Kaupo, a 300 foot wide buffer to and then we're going to put grazing animals in the corridor to address fire mitigation. This all leads us to supporting an Ujibwe reforestation project. We're looking at our Kahikinui moku, and the area on the top left in purple is 4,500 acres.

So we have a tremendous opportunity to restore a huge portion of our mountain. And we're approaching this through a western lens and a cultural lens as we view our moku in a way like as a konohiki would. And it's our responsibility to restore our moku and restore our watershed. And this all will affect us directly by having us have a sustainable pure water source. Also, like in the recent fire in August this past year, that area circled in red highlights the density.

This is a cultural site map of different cultural archaeological studies that's been done in Kainui. So the area in red, you can see how dense the cultural sites are in that area. This next slide is a little hard to see, but this is like a photogrammetry aerial view of Kahiki Nui in where the fire was. The areas in blue are bulldozed paths. And if you blow up the photo, you would be able to see all the historic structures in this area and near misses and unfortunately sites that were destroyed.

So as a community, we're taking a stance to protect our community through buffer zones and fire breaks, but also not allowing any future bull dozers to come into this area because we need to protect it. Sorry. Lastly, just to break up the ice a little bit. This guy might look a little familiar, but as you know, episode one for chief of war was filled in. Mahalo. Wow. That's fascinating. Well, okay. That was great. Is there any more?

We have about five more minutes, so if we can move this along.

So, I'm sure you can look at the slides really fast. Again, I'm Paul Higashino, Coal Island Reserve Commission. I've been working out there since first time 1978. Worked for a contractor for the military and the amount of change I've seen in Kolov has been tremendous. Everyone contributes the destruction of the island to the military.

The island was gone before that. The cattle, the goats, the sheep. Again, sheep, cattle, goats were introduced in 1793. The last one was removed in 1993, so two hundred years. If we can't get to my slides, want what to focus and emphasize on is that what happened to Kolave is happening to all the other islands.

And it will. I look at Kikinui, I look at from the deer on Maui from '9 in 1959, Puokali. Now we're at a hundred hundred fifty thousand. And when I first went to Kolave in 1978, high water mark after heavy rains on the beaches was goat pellets. And, you know, I'm sure that will be happening soon in many of our beaches where the tourists or, you know, where we like to, go to and have, you know, take our families and you know yeah, I can't overstress the importance of the animals on our islands.

Again, once we lose our watersheds, we lose everything. As far as Ko Olave was a bombing range for fifty years by the US military, every type of ordinance has been dropped on it. So some of the activities we do out there are very limited. We do support the cultural practices of protect Koala Ohana and other groups that come out. We support the opening and closing of Makahiki and as CJ talked about earlier, the Ipuakane, the rain ceremonies that we've been conducting on island since 1997.

We have three rain koas out there, Ipuakane, Lihau'ula and Leipua. So our ceremonies are typically done are done in every October. A lot of the all of the plants that we use on coal are native based or native plants or Polynesian based canoe plants. One of the biggest challenges for us is the hard pan of the island of 28,000 acres plus, about 13,000 is just like asphalt. And with this potential funding that we may be getting to reestablish the Naulu Cloud Bridge, most of our area will be in areas where we cannot dig holes at all.

So it's actually pretty easy planting without digging. Again, these areas the level of ordinance clearance was just surface, so there's still a lot of potential ordinance underground. So that's some of our limitation. Just go through the slides really fast. The Yorksville Bombing Range. Good next one, Andrea.

I think staff is working

The cultural importance of the island, artifacts, the Ats Quarry, we support a lot of cultural activities, the Hokulea, Polynesian Boys Society, military use of the island. You know, I think what helped us, we came up with different plans, a use plan for the island. What areas are we going to focus on for clearance? What areas are we going to use? Okay, next.

As a level of clearance, yellow is surface cleared, red are uncleared. Green are the only areas that we can dig in. Risk management plan. You know how to minimize risk on the island. Because besides the bombs on the island Next. It's getting people there. That's how we get people to the island. Landing craft. We take the volunteers out to coal lobby and staff and with that, next. We have a base camp, we provide all our own energy, supply our own energy out there, photovoltaics, produce our own water.

We are able to keep volunteers safe and house out there. The different plans that we do have on the island, the ocean plan, restoration, cultural plan. Cultural plan, again supporting native Hawaiian practices, Makahiki, the Ipuakane rain ceremonies. Ocean program monitoring and protecting our ocean resources. And some of the erosion that we have to deal with, mass amounts of runoff after heavy rains, wind erosion.

And that's a lot of the area that the potential funding we're looking for would be trying to bring back or plant those type of areas. We have our facilities on the we have a water catchment right now we are working with the county on developing a water, a development plan for the island. In Native plants, there's a lot more plants that we do use besides that handful. And again, just creating the Cloud Bridge, Haleakala off in the distance. And this, you know, some of the results of our planting where this area we could not dig at all, but fairly successful.

Again, using the resources that we have out there, what did the Polynesians use, what did people from centuries ago done to establish plants in difficult areas? A pile of rocks. And again, just some of the other areas that we worked in by throwing out rocks, throwing out seed and occasional water, watering, walking away. In some of the monitoring we do to measure our results, soil erosion, water infiltration rates into restored or planted and unplanted areas. Measuring sediment and turbidity around the island after our work areas.

Biggest thing is a fire on the island right now, the twenty twenty fires. But burnt the island about 10,000 acres. Again, we're working with DOFA, they're helping us put in a fire aprons, how to protect our infrastructure on the island, rock aprons around our key infrastructure. Okay. So, so far, about 25,000 volunteers over the last thirty years roughly, about half a million plants. We're going to hit a few bombs, none have gone off fortunately yet. The future.

You. Mahalo. Thank you so much Mr. Higashino. Well, that's the end of the presenters for now, yes? I

had one more presenter that couldn't be here. Have just a couple of slides from Doctor. John Price some of the science based direction of the restoration. I have a few minutes?

Okay. I'll try to make it a little quicker so we can get through our agenda.

Basically, doctor John Price works for Hilo. He's been a longtime colleague and collaborator. He, will be available as a resource to the council, and is gonna be a partner for us in all this restoration work for for years to come. Thank you. So okay. Perfect. So these slides are are some of the things he's he's prepared. He looks at climate change, restoration on Hawaii Island. He is, like I said, a professor at Hilo. So this looks at rainfall right now.

And if you see the area we're looking at, it's all in the orange for the most part. So this is extremely dry. These are mill millimeters of water. So extremely, extremely dry. Very difficult to restore even in you know, even when you do have access to water, it's very difficult.

This is the cloud cover, though. So what we were trying to what we would like to continue developing in partnership with him is to really look at the cloud cover. And if you look at this in that same area, it's very high level precipitation. So we have a lot of access to water, like, through fog drip interception, which is how Koa evolved, is how most of our leeward, rainfall ecosystems get their rain and their water. So we were just going to continue to look at these maps and try to hone our restoration in order to best utilize the cloud cover and help focus areas of restoration so benefit the cloud system the most. Okay.

Thank you. Let's see if Mr. DeSilva is on the call from DLNR. Mr. DeSilva, are

you here? We haven't seen him.

Okay. Well, of course, they're always welcome to join us. But right now, I just want to, before we move forward, I want to talk about, my office initiated this committee meeting, of course, and reached out to Andrea to find out how we can recreate the Nauulu Cloud Bridge and are very appreciative of the team that she's pulled together. I look forward to working with her. And I think this is where we need to be investing and I'm planning to plant the seed for next year's budget.

So members in case you're wondering, we And move on to the administration. We have a lot of folks here from the administration. So we're just going to start with Deputy Director Peterson. Any comments on the slide on the Nauulu Cloudbridge or anything on this topic?

Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Ms. Buckman, some amazing work.

It's a daunting task when you look at some of these maps, and, amazing work has been done, but so much more to do. So, congratulations to what has been done, and your team has done some excellent work there definitely. Something that resonated with me, Mr. Alazari said is talking about bridges, not only the CloudBridge, but bridging people and organizations, that was something that really hit home for me. And, you know, talking about the magnitude of this project, Not one person or not one organization, not even just the county can get something like this done.

So, you know, looking forward, DEM is looking forward to supporting and doing what we can to support your organization and many of the organizations here. I'll turn it over to Cecile and William, if you have anything else you want

to add. Sure. Cecile William from Department of Environmental Management and Sustainability Division. Do you guys have any opening remarks?

Thank you, Deputy. Thank you, Chair. Yes, we are very excited to partner with and we have partnered with some folks already to reestablish this coverage. It's interesting how so many different organizations and grantees are that.

To

And And we're

we're to and green grants coincide with our business. Climate action resiliency plan that is going to be updated here soon to include these types of projects with water resources and natural protection of this project and other ones like it. Okay. Thanks. Thank you so much.

Okay.

Hello, everybody. I don't have too much to add to what Cecile already provided. It's been a pleasure to meet a lot of you to date so far. I will say that in and thank you, Andrea, for providing your presentation. As many of you might all know, the Climate Action Resiliency Plan was adopted, put into county code back in 2022.

It looks like we're updating it about every five years. And part of what was placed in the ordinance through the county was including native Hawaiian knowledge and practices, which is something that needs to be integrated and at the forefront, as well as rooting things in the best available science. So I appreciate your presentation where it combines those two together. And so hopefully the people are updating this climate action resiliency plan in the coming year will talk to people like you, watershed partnerships and so forth. I'm very curious to read the science behind what you've developed to date. That's all I really have to add though.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Jay. Appreciate that. Let's move on to Mr. Hart. Any comments from the Department of Management or Office of Recovery? And just to let everybody know in advance I'm going to call on Director Molytau after you and then Director Stuffelbien so we can just give him heads

Chair and members, thank you very much. Thank you very much to all the presenters. It was a lot of great information. The Office of Recovery does have two projects in the Lahaina long term recovery plan relate to this. They're not directly in the Honua'ula area, but they're abutting in the Kulamoku and also in Lahaina. There's a revegetating and reforestation of Lahaina and Kula and there's a Hawaiian watershed planning within the Lahaina and Kula Mokus. And so we are preparing to pursue those and I look forward to collaborating and working with all of you as we pursue those.

And I'll also add that my office and myself, I like collaborating with the departments and

to make

able we're

On behalf of the Department of OEV Resources, thank you very much for the presentation. I will say this, this presentation and this conversation reminds me of a conversation of my time with Kaho'olawe Island Reserve Commission, alongside with Paul Ekoshino, of the amount of years that this conversation has been happening and the amount of work that is entailed. You if you know Paul, he is one that that is is an amazing land steward and and a person that is fundamental in in the reforestation and planting of an aina. And so when we talk about this particular conversation of bringing back Naulu Cloudbank and that particular manifestation from one cultural perspective, would highly, highly suggest this OEV lens that we look at OLE and we look at traditional chants and oratory of history as a roadmap that can continue to help bring this cloud bank down with the needed spaces of forest that needs to not only be brought down from the Mauna, but also brought brought up from Mackay. And so when we're thinking about bringing bringing this particular outreach back in in a long, lengthy conversation, I think both go hand in hand.

So looking at Honua'ula, both from a Mauna perspective down as well as a Makai perspective up is is something that I would like to include in the conversation.

Well said, Malitao. Really appreciate your comments. Okay. Let's move on to, director Stuffelbine. He just turned his camera on. Any comments from the Department of Water Supply director? Good to see you.

Good morning. Good to see you. Yes, this is very, very interesting. I did like to comment about taking advantage of the wisdom from both the cultural perspective and the Western perspective and blending those together and making the best solutions. So that was great. This is a really good compliment. As you know, we do about four percent of our budget goes to watershed restoration and watershed protection. And you know, we can't do it in this area because there's no access to any of our current water supplies. So this is a great comp.

Uh-oh. That are connected to One moment, director. I got a little Internet issue. It seems Okay. I think can everybody hear us? Everybody else online? You guys can okay. I I think we're good to go. Please continue, beg your pardon, Director. I don't

worry, I was almost done. I just say that again, I think it's a great compliment to the work that we're doing in the watersheds that are connected to our water system. So we're supportive and look forward to seeing some positive do think that the watershed protection work and restoration work that we're doing is probably the most important thing that we are doing. It's just longer term than the other stuff.

So thank you. That's right. Well said, Dorek, exactly. Okay. So we also have from OED Chantal Roland, if she's on the call. We were curious about her comments from OED and how we can develop our Kamayana economy to include green jobs that will support the reviving of the Nauulu Cloud Bridge. Ms. Roland, are you on the call?

Sure, don't see her right now.

Okay. All right. Well, all right. Well, let's move on. I think that's everybody. I didn't miss any departments or anybody. I don't see that I missed anyone. We're going to move on to public testimony just for adept parenthesis one. At this time, if there's anyone wishing to testify on this item, please use your raise your hand function and you will be called upon to testify. Staff, is there anyone wishing to testify?

Chair, the only individual currently signed to testify is Richard Kikivi.

Mr. Kikibi, are you ready to testify?

Aloha. My name is Richard Kikivi. I'm a lineal descendant of the backside. I'm just here as a community member. I say lineal descendant of backside because my grandpa my great grandpa is from Kalpo. My great grandma is from Mckenna, so all. I was raised on the ranches, Kana'ulu, but I'm just here to speak for myself. And I didn't graduate college. So this is experience, not expertise. But in 2009, I graduated. There was seven natural reserves at the time. We added Nakula in there, and then I was there. I got the opportunity to be there in the very beginning and see all of that. When we first started, we started with the four twenty, we called it. It was 428 acres.

That's the historic forest. We fenced that off first, eradicated the animals, started out planting from there, and then we just expanded. I don't know how many 100,000 plants were put up there, but hundreds of thousands of plants were put up there. Recently, I had the opportunity to go back to that area and walk the fences, and it was just so beautiful, like, seeing these triple overhead koas that we planted. And it was all grassland I first went there. Hundreds of thousands of goats and just you could smell the nitrogen coming out of the soil. And it's like, to know that we did it, we, like, made a difference. You know? I I teared up. I cried.

So I just wanna I support Creek Inouye re restoration reforestation. And with this initiative, you guys have the opportunity to do more than I could in sixteen years. So thank you, guys. Thank you, Gabe, for starting this, and I believe that Kikinui is that missing link. There's Hana Vee, has all this moisture. We bring that moisture around the mountain. It will shoot across to Ko'olawe. From Ko'olawe, it'll go to Lanai. It'll go to Molokai. It'll reach Puukui. It's all one, you know? And thank you guys for this consideration. That's all I gotta say.

Let me see if we have any clarifying questions from our members, but I don't. But I really appreciate, your testimony. Thank you so much.

Thank you, guys. I'll write something

And sense

And do

I updated the. Some grants for the projects being presented today on the Facebook page and they should help actual lies another $25,000,000 for these projects, if possible.

Great. The yeah, dissert. Thank you for that. Any clarifying questions, members? I see none. Thank you for your testimony, Minister Langford. Staff, do we have any more testifiers?

Chair, staff has not received any further request for testimony. Would you like us to do a last call?

Last call for any testifiers? Seeing none. Members, any objections to I will now close public testimony for this item. Any objections, members? Okay, let's proceed with this agenda. We're going to jump into discussion here. I propose three minutes per council member for each round of discussion. How about we do one round and then we'll take a quick recess for morning break. So Vice Chair Sanenci, first round of questions, three minutes.

Mahalo Chair and Mahalo for all of the presentations and the presenters today. I did miss a little bit while I had some Internet issues, but great work. Just to for the update, just to see the progress throughout the year. So for all you you guys perseverance and and continuation in your conservation work. And I think sometimes when, you know, what is when we think about our identity.

As you know Maui Nui, I mean conservation work is a big part of it. Again, for for keeping up the fight. As as legislators, we do attend a lot of cons conferences outside of the state. And so one of the people that we do meet is the rep the program. And I was wondering if any of the work with, I believe Repi is with military.

Is that anyone works with them? Anyone here on the panel has ever worked with the rep in the military folks? I don't see oh, they're they're shaking me hard. No. So. Okay.

Then. I think with the military, I've worked with some of them on

the

Scofield, Kupua Kovello that manages the Army Environmental Program, Schofield, West Makua and other military lands. I've had quite a bit of work experience on all military lands in Hawaii many years ago, Wakaloa, West Range, Kauai Law, Scoffield Barracks. So familiar with many of their lands. A lot has changed in forty nine, fifty years. Again, I do have contact with you know, the that manages army environmental areas on a typically on a monthly basis on different topics.

Projects is working with one of the nonprofits along Haleakala Slope. Okay. But for mister Paul, as far as and the Kirk, do do we still receive funding for the cleanup of Kaholawi?

There's no funding for the coal life of Yorkshire cleanup this time. We're still on the books. Any Yorkshire that's found by us is the responsibility of the military to take care of. But at this time, there's no active clearance of the area. All of our staff are trained access guides, not EOD status, is

Sachs. I

first

Thank you, council John member. Let's move on to committee member, committee member, Koch Hajins, from followed by council member Cook.

Thank you, chair. I'm not too sure if I have any questions only because that was a lot of information. All of it was so good and so interesting. I guess my question is for you. I'm assuming you're having this on the agenda because you're gonna have them as one of your budget priorities, in a few months, which I'm super I'm assuming. We can't really discuss it, but I'm just gonna assume. I'm super stoked about it. I think this is great. I'm actually looking since I'm sitting next to, my bookshelf at, which is the sites of archaeology since it was discussed there. My husband was a contributing author in here.

So he's gonna be super stoked that I'm reading this right now. But other than that, I really don't have any questions, and thank you for having this on your agenda.

Of course. Thank you, council member. Okay. Let's move on to councilmember Tom Cook followed by Charlie.

Thank you, chair. My battery died, so I'm not online, but I'm here. And, looking forward to the break so I can plug it in. I'm a I just wanna thank everybody. I wanna thank you, chair. I wanna thank everybody here. This is without a doubt the most pleasant, positive, cool, wonderful council meeting that I've experienced in a long time. And the fact that the collaboration and cooperation of everybody mean, I get chickens. Planting trees is a big thing for me. I planted a lot of trees in my life, and that old Chinese proverb, know, is the best time to plant a tree twenty years ago.

What's the next best time today? I I would hope and encourage more before and after photos like a picture's worth a thousand words and to capture people's imagination and to get them emotionally involved When you show pictures of this is what it looked like in fifteen years ago, and then you get testimonies from our young blood, from the brothers who had actually grown up and experienced it. So for me, for the South Maui representative, the opportunity I've been working with Michael Reyes from Malama Haleakala, the fact that the three ranches are collaborating nonprofit to be very willing land stewards who recognize their kuleana to work with and enrich the land. All the grazing, a lot of things the opportunity to fix it. Tova calendar from the ridge to reef project, they're doing really good work.

I'm a retired contractor, carpenter by trade. My My passion is to basically be able to do flood mitigation in North And South Maui, especially in North Kihei, capture the flood water, major retention terrace, detention terraces, tentative commitment, 500,000 gallons a day would be available for a 3,000,000 gallon reservoir that Halakala Ranch guys had a thousand foot elevation. And appropriate use of bulldozers team. Going going to to And that. We owe it to our kids.

I'll just And my boy Kamalae has the property on Avalon that I had the good fortune to buy when I was young. And the trees we planted for soil conservation are like this. I planted them two years before he was born. He's 49. Him and his my grandson. So it's not just talk. My heart's in it. Yeah. And every single one of you, the sharing and the diversity is awesome.

So I

don't really have any questions because you did a really good presentation. I mean, it's epic. And I did get a chance to go up a Halakla Ranch tour and see the koas planting and the description of the, I guess mono carpet mono crop style they tried that didn't really work out. Now doing independent with the core trees and a lot of good things happening. I think we just have to be patient, keep our hearts open and pray.

Yeah. Well, it's gonna take a big investment to do some of the things and they're not gonna happen tomorrow. That's the whole point. We're helping our kids, kids, kids, kids.

Those are us who are blessed with children can see the future through their eyes. Amen to that.

Okay. Let's move on to Chair Lee, followed by Councilmember Paulton.

Thank you, Chair Johnson. I, too, am very grateful and appreciative of this effort, this wide range of resources coming together in partnership and cooperation. It's enlightening and encouraging to see, considering we don't always see this type of cooperation in other areas. But this is great, everybody trying to work together for the community's benefit. Unfortunately, I'm not gonna be able to see the second presentation. I didn't realize the meeting would run this long. I have an appointment at eleven but I'm sure I can catch up with your notes later on. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Chair Lee. Let's move on to Councilmember Paul.

Thank you, chair. I think my questions might be for Mr. Farm is that the about the fog drip, clarification. Was it $100,000 to make 1,000 gallons a day? And can that be recreated in any ecosystem? Mr. Farm?

To we address installation of our fog drip system.

And like could that be done Waikiki

Nui? First

twenty

want to say 2018 was when Doctor. James I'll Rubik from first came over to reintroduce a grant that was actually originally written in 'ninety nine. But to answer your question, we're able do do that.

That.

As well as somewhere that has prevailing trade winds because the system works through the Uiwei cloud being blown through the fog nets where the water will collect and drip into gutters And we're able to to done.

Do you, have the schematics and, of how how how it's built?

Mr. Pope?

I I do not have it with me, but we do have that information available.

Okay. Thank you. And then, the other question I had was, shoot, I forgot what the meat process was called that allows, the deer meat to be, certified? Was it by sight or camera?

Miss Buckman? Or I'm sorry. I'm I'm not sure. I thought it was miss Buckman, but anybody can respond to that.

I I believe they went through a a process with the state veterinarian and department of health to be certified. Their whole team had to be trained and certified. I'm not entirely sure exactly how it works, but, I know it was a very lengthy lengthy process to go through a department of health and, took a lot of training. And you have to have the timing. The animals have to be, killed and processed within a very quick amount of time.

So there's some limitations to it, but, I could connect to where Kia Hawaii would be the best Mai Nui Venison could answer those questions in more detail. Okay. And then, my other question,

I think, is for Mr. Higashino. Is Kovelo your son? I think I had him for a junior life barge.

Yes, he's my son. And also one of the main grasses we plant on Kahoolawi.

Nice. Nice. That wasn't my question, but I just was curious. Is there like a constant I never went to Kahoolawi. Is there like a constant presence there? Like, somebody lives there at all times and is continuing the work, like rotating or whether that's somebody's address?

You know, right now, our Honokanaya base camp, because of limited funding, it's not fully staffed all the time. So, with additional funding, we could increase the presence of people on island. Typically, before in a good year, we could take about 800 to a thousand volunteers out to island, but because of our cutbacks and reduction in staff and monies, we're down to about 400 or 500 volunteers a year. We still, again, take out the public whoever waits on our waitlist and follows through with other paperwork.

Thank you. I heard the bell. I had one more question, but I can wait till the next round.

Okay. I'll go next and then we'll go for a second round by hand raise. Members and everybody here, this type of project, this type of work is not cheap. But if we don't do it, the cost is even more expensive. So I guess I'm trying to prep the council and the administrators that when we when I put in a priority for this type of work, it's not gonna be a small ask.

It's gonna be in the millions. Understand what we're trying to do here. Because you're trying to change, untie the knots of this mismanagement for years and years and the compounding of just not taking care of the If we would have done it in the beginning, it would have been a whole lot cheaper, but here we are in 2025 trying to untie the knots of the past, and it's gonna cost some money. Understand that. But if we don't do anything, it's gonna cost so much more. So I saw that Jade had jumped jumped on the call. Ms. Rojas, are you still here? Did I see you on the call? Okay.

There she is, aloha, Director. I wanted to ask you in regards to the office OED, some of the jobs that you guys are focused on for economic diversity are very important healthcare jobs and everything. But how about the green jobs, these folks in conservation, the green collar jobs that I used to do when I was worked in wildlife technician with Paloma Lanai. How is the OED addressing those type of that type of industry, the green collar jobs?

Thank you for the question, Chair and Allah Council members. So this actually falls perfectly within our workforce innovation and opportunity act. So the wheel program that we have. It's actually a federal mandate that's passed through the state, which we administer through the county. And so these green jobs specifically would fall into that.

They are considered emerging and in demand, jobs under the federal definitions of the program. So when we talk about, multiple different types of jobs, right, like the conservation land management technicians, native ecosystems, restoration workers, GIS and environmental monitoring specialists, sustainable construction and green infrastructure jobs along and as well the cultural resource management positions. So I'll view what supports the training in these high growth sectors absolutely. And then we're also working with the federal rep grant too. I think that this project would fall into those programs that they could qualify for them.

Thank you, Director Rojas Letizi. That's a good point you made about the REP because Councilmember Senensi was asking that question as well. So thank you so much for your response. Members, going to go to the second round and I know Councilmember Paulson had a second round, but just by raising hands, but go ahead, councilmember Paulton.

Thank you, chair. For mister Higashino as well, is it true that the aquifer, the water table on Kaho'olawi is cracked?

The fact that just the groundwater on Ko' lobbying, you know, I assure that the lack of it or being able to find it is just the devastation that's sent to the island by the feral animals re removing the vegetation, not allowing infiltration or percolation of the water after a heavy rain. I know there's been talk about certain act military activities to crack the cap rock, but I'm I'm not too sure. I'm not don't have any evidence on that. But again, it's it's just being able to you know, what I understand of water systems, you know, the recharge. If you're not getting anything percolating down and, you know, running off, you know, the possibility are not eliminated, but they're reduced.

It's less. Some of our work with Department of Health Clean Water Branch, we're looking at recharge of certain areas, mainly places that we do plant. How fast does the water go down compared to areas that we don't plant, the hard pan. Trying to get samples like that or data like that to show that long term restoration efforts, long term of protecting, covering the soil, will or may in time recharge or add more water to the ground table.

And are you able to do like any composting over there to make the ground less hard. And I guess, you know, the areas where you weren't able to clear below the surface and you can't dig to plant a tree, if the tree roots go down that way, is that a danger for the

You know

burning to explode?

Mister Higashino? The you know, we do do composting limited basis. So a lot of it's sometimes the time and material, I mean, the time and effort on island. Do you put it making something, staying in base camp doing it or do you get the people out educating, showing them to people and planting? A lot of the techniques that we do use on coal lobby, I tell people we didn't develop it.

It's things that people have been doing for centuries to slow down the Gobi Desert, to slow down the Sahara Desert. You know, many examples in Hawaii, the Kohalas, Kahikinui, Manuka on the Big Island, planting in mounds, how how Hawaiian survived in harsh, dry rock rocky systems. So it's, you know, how do you balance? Make all your stuff so you have to buy it or buy the material, ship it to island and then get the people out there. Hands, you know, boots on the ground, hands, you know, doing, you know, doing the work.

Okay. Think with that too, you know, invite the the council to come out to, you know, to see the island and, you know, experiences of, you know, the responsibility that all of us have to try to restore it and to bring it back for the people of Hawaii. Well, you

don't have to invite us twice. We'll be on that boat. Councilman Paul, are

you good?

Is it possible the roots could go down and trigger the unexploded ordinances?

Hopefully not. I mean, anything. The fact that a UXO didn't go out, people say this is dud. You know, something didn't sugar it, something didn't turn, something didn't connect. Know, again, I'm not military UOD. I don't know the ins and outs of all of them, but I'm not gonna take the chance. You know, I wanna be able to do a regular shocker with both hands and not right. Well,

yes. Members, I appreciate this. We got another item on the agenda. This is really good discussion. You saw everybody here who gave question. I I I think great And members want to, I'm sure they'll reach out to you and continue this discussion. But at this time members, if there's no objection, I will defer this item. Okay. I suggest we take about a ten minute recess. Members, are you okay with ten minutes?

All right. So the time is now 11:02 at 11:12. The adept committee will come back from its recess with a different item agenda. Mahalo. And Members, water is life.

Unfortunately, the amount we know about this life giving resource does not reflect its importance. Where do our aquifers stretch exactly? How much water can be sustainably yielded? At what levels are brackish or salty or fresh? These are questions which we do not have a comprehensive, accurate and up to date information on. Having this data is needed to properly plan and prioritize our water use for agriculture and development now for generations to come. Doctor. John Helly proposes an innovative solution to our problem of missing data. Using airborne magnetic imagery, he can do an MRI of sorts that will show us what is happening underground in our aquifers. I have invited him today to tell us more about his proposal.

Doctor. Helly is affiliated with San Diego Supercomputer Center and Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, a special consultant in the State of California Department of Water Resources, and a member of the County of Maui Board Water Supply. If there's no objection, I'd like to designate Doctor. Haley as a resource person under council rules 18A given his expertise in aquifer mapping and monitoring of water resource. Any objections, members? Thank you, members. Doctor. Haley, thank you for being here and please proceed with your presentation.

Thank you Chair Johnson. Thank you members for your attention. I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you about water resources and water in general. Are we good? This is an AEM project.

That's a convenient acronym for airborne electromagnetic imaging. And we're focusing on West Maui, although what I'm going to talk about is applicable really anywhere in the world that there's groundwater issues. And the project itself, the large purpose of the project is to develop a new water resource modeling and management framework based on characterization of our groundwater aquifers and to expand the existing modeling capabilities that are currently and historically in use involving the USGS, the county, Department of Water Supply, the state, and the University of Hawaii. And the goal is to support adaptive management of water resources. This is an initiative advanced by the Deputy Director, Kahaani, at SeaWORM.

And we believe that this project will contribute substantially to that and even be a pathfinder in many ways. The goal is to standardize our approach to it both statewide and with Maui as an initial value by standing up a long term operational model that provides decision support to our partners initially and then ultimately to any member of the state or any the water community throughout the state that has an interest in this. But also, I don't want this to be lost and what I'll show you subsequently, the goal is to also establish a long term training program for professional staff and students both through the university and in the municipal, state, federal agencies in Hawaii with knowledge of Hawaii resources and peculiarities, but to make that a long standing institutional asset and program. So I'll focus on that, but I also want to highlight it at the outset. This is the big picture.

It's got a bunch of different pieces here. I'm going to start at the bottom, or actually I'm to start on the upper right. That's the goal is to make sure water comes out of our taps in a reliable way and it proceeds that way by the function of the services of water utilities. But in order for these water utilities to do their job and that's a water utility is something like the Department of Water Supply or Hawaii Water Service or any of the other six or seven different water utility throughout West Maui, and I'll keep referring to West Maui as an example, how that water is provided goes all the way back to the lower left of this cartoon which shows rain coming into Puu Kukui in this notional example. The rain flows down through the volcano, pools up in various aquifers.

There are a lot of unknowns about the nature and extent of these aquifers. And the project itself, the airborne electromagnetic mapping or imaging, is a project to focus on characterizing those aquifers using helicopters to fly an instrument that zigzags in that mapping pattern that is shown in the cartoon by sending a signal down into the earth like an MRI type sensor and returning data that is then forwarded into a modeling and analysis capability that lets us predict and monitor the sustainable resources that we have that are both being recharged or not and the degree to which pumping affects our ability to have a reliable water supply. So this is the big picture, I'm gonna come back to it. Some of the data from groundwater wells are shown at the top. I'll talk a little bit more about those time series plots, refer to them as we get along here.

This is just meant to give you an introduction to the overview of the project. So the imaging works by a sensor that hangs beneath the helicopter. See it here as a little cone depicted below these cartoon helicopters. It's not quite a circle but it's approximately like that, it's about a 20 to 30 meter wide antenna and it sends out electromagnetic waves like radio and it goes down into the volcanic rock to about 500 meters, stimulates the rock electrically and the water of various kinds, whether it's fresh or salt or brackish, and they have different kinds of electromagnetic responses. And because of that, we were able to measure that response and turned it into data.

And the project itself now is constituted by these six agency partners, or project partners I should say. Ainahoe, Kapua, Okilauea we refer to fondly as AHK. There are three folks on Kauai who are part of the initial project team. We have Sea Worm now, Deputy Director Kiara Kahane and Ryan Yamamata, or Yamada rather, who's a hydrologic program manager, and Maui's Department of Water Supply Director John Stuffelbine, Manoa representatives, Doctor. Amir Haroun, who's a geophysicist Doctor.

Zhilong Zheng, who is a modeler. We have the Pacific Island Water Science Center folks from the USGS through Doctor. Steven Zahniser and some industry at least one industry contact through BlueRock LLC, Eric Eldred. And this is not meant to be exclusive or limiting, this is our nucleus to start with. So our problem statement, and this focuses on Westside Maui is that we're heavily dependent on over pumped groundwater.

We know that precipitation is decreasing. Our supplemental surface water is erratic and diminishing and this leads to declining water quantity and water quality as everyone more or less realizes now I believe. We're faced with no new housing without water. We have no additional potable water without more rain, desalination or what's referred to as R0. Most of you have heard of R1 and know what R1 is.

It's recycled water. R0 is recycled but also qualified for potable use. It's equivalent to the kind of water that astronauts use in outer space. In the meantime, our only choices really in the short term are to reallocate our existing resources and those reallocation decisions and sustainable limits need information that doesn't exist at the moment. So how do you make these decisions without understanding aquifer conditions?

Historically, the exploitation of groundwater in Maui has been quite extensive. This is a map of all the, I guess known to sea worm in the sense that these are red dots and green dots that are the well locations and the surface water diversion locations throughout Maui in the history that's recorded by Seaworm. Not all of these wells in West Maui are currently active, I'll show you a currently active set. But this gives you an idea of the intense development of groundwater throughout the island and doesn't reflect the rest of the county, of course. But this also reflects the limits of our knowledge.

The Stearns of McDonald here.

Did you lose it? On.

Can I hear nothing?

How about now? Can you guys hear us?

Hello. Okay. Can hear now? We might

No, I just heard you.

Okay. How about, council member Senensi, I saw you. Can you hear us? Everybody's got thumbs. I don't know what's going on with the Internet, but I think we can continue if everybody can hear us.

Where did lose me, I guess?

Just like a second ago.

Okay. So this is an old map from Stearns and McDonald's, the authoritative geological reference. Things really haven't changed since 1942 in our geologic knowledge, but we've continued to drill wells throughout the island nonetheless. This is a cross section through the West Maui Mountains showing the ocean on the left which is the channel out toward the Paoloa Channel and on the other side you can see Waikapu. But this depicts the stratification of the volcano in the green layers and the red layers are things that are called dikes which are vertical chunks or vertical streams of basalt rock that come up from the volcanic center in terms of magma and they create barriers to water flow.

So the water flows from Mauka to Makai and gets trapped in these rocks. The problem we have in West Maui is we have a crisis of over pumping and you can see that in these data. On the left hand side, this is salt level and the different concentrations for the various pumps. This is I think 23 wells throughout West Maui. For example here are Kanapali wells, they're operated by the Hawaii Water Service.

So there's a mixture here of wells that are operated by both the county, Department of Water Supply and private water systems. And the problems that we face are the red line indicates where there's an acceptable threshold for drinking water, potable water. And when the time series lines, the colored lines that are not red exceed that red line, that's when there's a problem and the water can't be directly consumed by humans safely. So what can we do about this water scarcity? We need to know more about where the water is and what's sustainable to extract and that requires a long term water monitoring program which we do not have.

The current methods are inadequate and they lack sufficient data. And the well data, while it's important and currently collected by the state, it's not sufficient. There's more needed about what's going on in the wells, but you cannot build enough wells, monitor wells or instrumented wells. You can't build enough to really understand what's going on in a way that we need to. A solution to that is the airborne electromagnetic imaging approach.

It provides key missing information and combined with well data on an ongoing monitoring basis the way it's currently collected as well as an intensified program combined with the AEM based modeling provides the best solution to the problem. And that's not just best solution in Maui, it's the best solution in the world. So here's an example of what AEM and modeling can achieve and this is an example from Hawke's Bay, New Zealand that flew the same instrument that we're planning on flying here on Maui. And it flies from Mauka to Makai. So if you can see this cursor on the left here, so this is a upland Malka in New Zealand down to the ocean through Hawke's Bay, if you're familiar with any of that area.

And what the model was able to generate through the data provided by the AEM sensor is where there's fresh water and where the water is flowing within this volcanic terrain. Remember that New Zealand is also a volcanic island nation. So if we look at what we're planning to do with just respect to West Maui, this is what we've been scoping currently. The current project scope is West Maui, our goal is to connect the dots by flying helicopter over this terrain in a jigsaw pattern or rather mowing the lawn pattern is a better way to look at it. Connecting those dots and developing that into a three-dimensional image which is similar to the one I just showed you for Hawke's Bay.

I'll show you a representation that's pertinent to West Maui in a moment. But the there are areas that we can't fly and that's due to the FAA flight restrictions of not being able to fly over heavily populated areas with an instrument hanging below a helicopter or an aircraft of any type really. And our preliminary budget estimate to do this has a non recurring cost of about $2,500,000 in the first year with recurring cost that goes on indefinitely into the future to support the monitoring program of about $05,000,000 So the goal here is to fly the helicopter instrument once, collect the data that tells us the structure of the aquifers, their interconnectivity and where they're located and then to monitor that resource over time using well data and other ground based instruments that the University of Hawaii has actually developed recently. I'm not going go into those in this presentation but there are there is more to the story than what I'm just telling you here today. This shows you West Maui from kind of somewhere out in the middle of the channel, high up looking down at Puokukui here, here's Kaolui in the background.

And these data that are the colored vertical streams, I don't know how well you can see this in the computer image, are the data observations that come from the helicopter and then we can calculate cross sections and that's what this shows here. I actually have an animation of this which I'm prepared to show you, but I don't want to interrupt the presentation because if we may get hung up in Internet stuff that will distract at the moment, we can come back to it if there's time. But the color coding of these streams are the lithology of the rocks that tells us which, what layers correspond to what types of rocks and those different layers have different hydraulic properties they refer to as, they conduct water more or less effectively and how those rocks are connected define the aquifer structures. And so a lot of cartoons that you see typically envision or give the impression that there's a kind of water lake underneath Maui or anywhere that has this kind of island structure when it's really much more like a sponge. So if you imagine a sponge sitting in your kitchen sink, excuse me, you run water on it, the sponge will saturate but it will accumulate in the spaces and voids within your sponge.

And if you stuck a straw into the sponge, that's really what groundwater wells are doing within the volcanic rock. This is the working schedule that we have planned for this project. We have, we believe the funding in hand to start this for a total of close to $3,000,000 between funding on the island of Kauai through the NGO, AHK, which I referred to earlier, plus additional funding which we depend on from the Department of Water Supply through Director Stuffelbine and he can comment on that I'm sure himself. But the plan is to fly the helicopter missions in 2026 and the bulk of the cost comes from the flight time for the helicopter. But once that helicopter data acquisition is done flying Maui and Kauai, then we and currently with the acquisition of those data, we can do model development.

So the helicopter data will be collected during the 2026. We'll have the deliverables completed by the 2027. The QAQC for those data will take about two years as we go through the modeling process and understand where there's need for clarification of the data that have been collected or ambiguities that have to be resolved. And then the model results, meaning the results that we can use to manage pumping operations and to do predictions about what water resources are available to us will begin to appear at the 2027 based on this schedule. And then we can shift into a long term monitoring and operations mode in the green, which would just extend indefinitely into the future involving sea worm, the county, the NGO on Kauai and hopefully their local water agencies as well as the USGS.

Our expected results are sustainable and adaptive pumping limits. So the well diagrams or plots that I showed you earlier that show well pumping operations that exceed potable limits should be able to be maintained operationally below those limits in an ongoing way and it will also tell us the best and worst places for future wells if there are any. One of the concerns people have expressed is that this is a water discovery project and it's not the primary focus. Our primary focus is to understand what exists and how to best manage it. Given the intensity of water development historically on Maui, it would be surprising if there are undiscovered water resources.

Of course it's a possibility it can't be ruled out, but it would be a surprise at least to me. So what we're talking about is an ongoing monitoring, modeling and decision making process that allows us to judiciously allocate water for current and future social activities and also to provide again the professional opportunities for future generations through education, training and employment. Through the university program, in cooperation with the state agencies and with the federal agencies. We've only focused so far on the West Side, West Maui rather and in particular on the West Side Of West Maui. But there's a natural and easy extension once the helicopter and the instrument are here, obviously we're going to fly Kauai as well.

It would be a relatively straightforward extension to fly the rest of the island. You can see the well development throughout the rest of East Maui and the South Central area as well as the Hana areas. We could do that, it takes money and it would be about $2,000,000 probably to fly the rest of Maui given what we know about the West Side planning we've done. So to summarize, this is just the first slide that I had. We want to develop a new monitoring and management water resource framework.

We started by characterizing the aquifers so we get a better handle on what we know and don't know. We expand our current modeling capabilities to take advantage of those data and then we support the adaptive management approach being undertaken at the state and presumably at the county levels and then standardize this in a way that can be institutionalized through professional and educational opportunities for future generations. Thank you. That's the end of my presentation. I have the animation that I can show you if we care to see that.

Sure. You want to set it up right now? We're gonna

Whatever. Whichever way you want

to Yeah. Let's see if we can see it.

All right.

We'll pray to the Internet gods that it works. And if not, we'll jump right into Okay.

Very good. Well, so far so good. This is the animation. And let me see if I can find the thing that opens it up. Picture in picture, no.

Okay, I'm reluctant to go too far out here. But what you're seeing is the cross section that I showed you earlier in the static image crossing through the data that would be collected by the helicopter. And if I interrupt it I can stop it. Just about now. And that cross section is a vertical cross section through the volcano which shows both the permeable and the non permeable layers.

Right now the data are made up based on the lithology data that I have from the Mahina Hina deep monitor well. It's the only well we have with this kind of information at the moment. There are a number of other all the drillers well logs which provide similar but not reliable information. This gives you an idea of what we'll be able to understand that we don't know, which is if you imagine these the light blue line, if it looks that way to you, within this cross section, this would delineate the actual freshwater resources that we have in the aquifers, give us the integrated view of these cross sections which show us the distribution and shape of the aquifers and allow us to understand and model the consequences of additional pumping or the levels of intensity of pumping that affect the salt concentration in the water that we extract. Stop there.

Okay. Thank you, Doctor. For your excellent presentation. Want to see if we can get some comments from the administration. Director Stuffelbine, are you on the call? We're going to turn off this share.

Yes, I am.

Okay, Director, floor is yours.

Sure. Yeah, I've been working with or listening mostly to John for quite a few months on this. And it is it has some very exciting potential. You know he's a- identify the problem exactly correctly which is that. That we have the aquifers here on on Maui tend to be very heterogeneous.

Is it you know it isn't like other aquifers I've been in other places it's like Take a big bowl of sand so it's kind of the same no matter where you are but here it's very different. And as you move across the aqua because of the way the- the- the rock was deposited. I'm very here you know haphazardly from the volcanic explosion that eruption so. So I you know and so the fact that you can't put enough wells into really understand what's going on in a thorough basis. So remote monitoring is a great idea. I'm totally supportive of seeing if we can make this work. It is really sea worms responsibility to do this, but I'm totally willing to do what we can to help and as the water utility, it would be extremely valuable information for us

to have. So we're supportive. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Director Stuffelbien. Okay, let's move on to public testimony for adjusted debt one parentheses 12. At this time, if there's anyone wishing to testify on this item, please use the raise your hand function and you'll be called upon testify. Staff, is there anyone wishing to testify?

No, Chair. The individual who was originally signed up has left the call.

Members seeing there are no more individuals wishing to testify, I'll now close public testimony for this item. Any objections members? Thank you. Let's proceed with this agenda. ADEPT one, parentheses 12, aquifer mapping and long term monitoring of water resources on Maui. I propose three minutes per council member for each round of discussion, and we'll just go down the same route. And that would be vice chair of Senancy, council member Noelani Umu Hajes, council chair Alice Lee, council member Paul Mamish. And I'm hearing an echo. Got it? Okay.

Council member Senensi. Oh, hold on a minute. Council member Senancy, you're on mute. And just to let you know Same thing as before. Priorities. This might be one of my priorities. I don't know why it keeps that clear. Know why it keeps that clear. Can you hear me now? Very well, I tried to explain. Very well, I tried to explain.

Model for the presentation. Go ahead, Shane. Yep. So for this type of technology, it would just kind of, locate where the aquifers are instead of trying to, you know, guess where they're at. Okay. And and to see Okay. I guess, how much fresh water or salt water is in them.

That's correct. So That's correct. The Tyler? The data line

get boxed data line get boxed in. Customer sentencing, do you have another device on? We're getting echoed. We're getting echoed.

No, but the fan was on. Okay. Are you still getting the okay?

Yeah. I'll try.

Yeah. I'll try.

Am I on twice? We're gonna have council members We're gonna have you, council member. Every time he's not talking, that's It's It's recommended? I well, that's sorry, Thanks. Sorry. Thanks.

Councilperson Nancy, do you mind leaving Do when you're not you mind me speaking? You're not speaking.

Maybe you have two windows open. I don't know. Anyways, he's muted. So.

Well, let me try and answer the question. I think I understand it. If you can hear me. I assume you can still hear me, okay. The instrument sends energy down and gets back a pulse.

So we got a bunch of profiles. Those profiles can be integrated together to create a picture, a three-dimensional picture showing exactly where the fresh water is, the extent of it, where the boundary is with the impermeable volcanic rock around it. So from that we can calculate the volumes of that water supply and we can calculate the interconnectivity and then use those data in a three-dimensional model, conventional models that the USGS has developed and uses widely in other places in order to calculate where the water flows to and from as well as the consequences of pumping operations on those water volumes and on the intrusion by seawater into the freshwater resource itself.

Then do we see the same type of act because we have volcanic rock, do we can we see the same type of aquifer collapse like some of the other areas on the Mainland?

Doctor. Haley? Doctor. Haley?

That's an interesting question. There's a lot of subsidence in the Central Valley Of California for example and in the Southwest of the Continental US. We don't experience that here because we don't have sedimentation the same way that they do. So that the rock itself provides a lot of structure. There may be areas that do collapse because of marginal integrity and the water somehow contributes to their structural integrity.

I don't think that would generally be the case And it might even be a rare exception for it to ever occur. But they're not the same kind of conditions that we have. So if we deplete a volume here, if we pump fresh water exhaustively from an area, our problem is that seawater comes in to replace it.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councilmember. Okay, let's move on to, Councilmember Uhajins followed by Councilmember Cook.

Thank you, Chair. For right now, I have no questions either. Thank you for the presentation. I look forward to seeing this on your budget priorities.

Sounds good. Councilmember Cook, followed by well, Councilmember Paul.

Thank you, doctor. Is there a consensus on rates of recharge? I assume it would vary greatly depending upon the terrain and the porosity of the soil and whatnot, but I've heard that it takes centuries, years, days. So could you give from your experience with Hawaiian soils what how recharges works?

Sure. The basis on USGS reports that I've read, not on direct first hand experience, and the literature that I've read about it, the Hawaiian terrain is complicated obviously by the stratification. So we get rainfall at the surface, let's say from Puukucui, it percolates down through this dike structure and toward the ocean. The recharge rate near the surface, and by the near the surface I mean the first tens of meters into the groundwater aquifers, when it gets down toward Mackay, it gets down low enough to pool up so to speak. Then there's mixing below that which is much slower on the order of sixty to ninety years depending upon how it's measured, where it's measured and how much rain there's been and how much is taken upstream as well through pumping.

But then there's water below that that we don't really know much about, certainly not in Maui, which probably moves on geologic time scales, which is more like ten thousand years. So there's a hierarchy, a stratification of recharge, which is short term but still measured in years from a meaningful groundwater resource point of view. Although it's stream flow at the surface as a reflection of groundwater, so that happens within days sometimes, but that's very shallow if even penetrating at all. But then as you go down the time constant changes, it gets longer and longer. My understanding is that we're talking about decades, two centuries of the water resources that we've been taking and that the plantations have been taking for one hundred and fifty years?

So let me put it in the context for South Maui where we get a tremendous amount of floodwaters from upcountry. The recharge on the from Kulikai, basically the the mountain, get Kona weathers. But in general, it's a very low rainfall. Right. But you get a tremendous amount of water from the ridge line coming down. The idea of basically doing major detention, terraces and basins to capture the floodwater, that type of thing, say, 2,000 feet elevation, will that impact the re will that be recharged? And is it like my lifetime or somebody else's lifetime? Recharge

intentional recharge like that, sometimes referred to as water banking, depends on where you do it. So if you're doing it in an area that's highly permeable, it'll happen in a short time. It will happen for example Tulare Lake in California had a tremendous flood in 2017 and I think extending into twenty eighteen water years where there was a lake that appeared that historically had been present but had also been not present for quite a long time, on the order of a hundred years I think. But it reappeared because of the flood condition. That water disappeared within a year or two by intentional recharge and also natural percolation and evaporation.

So it depends on where you put a recharge detention basin and what the underlying geology is. You probably don't want to put it down in a very low lying area where the water table is already high because you're not going to get any recharge or you're going to lose the freshwater resource to mixing. So probably that's a key consideration in the South So like at

a 2,000 foot elevation?

I don't know right number. I don't want to put a number on it because I don't think I don't know enough. We could fly this instrument and try and understand the structure of that area better. I think that we've come up with a better answer.

Thank you, sir.

Let's move on to Councilmember Poulton.

Thank you, chair. So, first question, we wouldn't if we had this data, like, from the AEM, we wouldn't need, like, a guy like Tom Nance telling us where to place the wells because we'd see like where the water is and how sealing it is. Is that accurate to say? Doctor.

Hill. What Tom Nance uses to the things that I've the studies that I've seen that he's done, he collects the same, a similar type of data using a single point source or a small number. So he puts antennas out in the field and will cover a particular area. What and that's a valuable thing, I've looked at those data in particular for West Maui and we've looked at the depth, what's called depth of penetration of his signals down to about, we estimate they could go to about 300 meters. This, which is about a thousand feet, this instrument will go to 500 meters allow us to characterize the bottom layers of the volcanic strata much more completely.

But also in a way that Tom can't do or Mr. Nance, I don't know him personally, I shouldn't refer to him by first name, is we can fly an area synoptically in a short period of time, get data of better quality over a broader area at a higher resolution than you can achieve by walking around and putting instruments out in the field. So this helicopter will fly flight lines that are separated by about 100 meters, more or less getting a continuous stream of profiles where the NANC type instrument would get one profile at each location. So in the course of a few weeks, hopefully we would someone we'd be able to do the entire

I wanted to ask about, the initial 2.5 mil seems like it would be for the mapping with the helicopter, and then the 0.5 mil for maintenance. How does that work? Like, as water gets taken out, you use the 2.5 as the base the data collected with the 2,500,000 shot as the baseline, and then you, calculate how much is being pumped and the salinity levels, you only need to fly one time. How is the 0.5 mil utilized for maintenance?

The helicopter flight is a one time thing. You could of course fly it subsequently for scientific interest or other reasons, but it's not necessary. The plan is that you fly at one time that gives you the container structure if you like, the reservoir structure. And then we monitor that reservoir structure by single point instruments analogous to Tom Nantes type measurement but also through measurements in the wells. I'll elaborate this a little bit.

The deep monitor well in Mahinahina is the only one that goes from surface to the sea and it's designed for monitoring, it's not designed for production. Production wells do not, cannot be instrumented, you can't make measurements in them because they tend, they're generally blocked or measurements would interfere with the production and just doesn't work. The USGS because of its work in Red Hill has come up with instruments that can take advantage of some types of production wells and basically do an NMR or a different kind of horizontal imaging by lowering the instrument down the borehole. So we're optimistic that with the helicopter data as the baseline as you say, then in the indefinite future we can start to take advantage of some of these more modern techniques for exploiting the wells themselves.

Jerry? We have Director Stuffelbeam.

I just want to add that this will not put Tom Nance out of business.

I don't mind. I don't care.

Out of business.

What this will do though is I think in my opinion would provide them additional information, very valuable information to help them do their job better. Okay.

Are you finished? Then Go ahead.

So when you have the deep monitoring well, the pumpage data and the information from this, how does that help you calculate what a daily sustainable yield is for any given well? Doctor. Healy? All

right. So the three-dimensional, so you get the three-dimensional structure that gives us a three-dimensional mesh, it's referred to for the modeling. Then the recharge estimate comes from the kinds of studies that the USGS has already done conventionally. There was one published just two years ago, an update, that provides what are called initial and boundary conditions for the surface conditions. So it tells us how the model, how nature behaves and that is used to drive the model to set use the term drive the model, a three-dimensional mesh by recharge and then we monitor the model predictions as we run it forward through time for prediction by what we see in the wells.

So by that's where the adaptive management part comes through here because it's an iterative process, we make a prediction, make measurements based on the well performance and then we adapt the modeling predictions based on the feedback from those measurements.

The bell rang. Okay. I'll do a second round if you need them, but I'd like to ask a couple of questions as well. Doctor. Helly, the idea of the helicopter is fascinating to me and that it's already being done. Has anybody been looking at drones instead of helicopters? Is that an option on the table?

Drones are an obvious desirability. The problem is that the instrument package weighs about GBP 12 100. So you really need a helicopter to fly it. Similar kinds of instruments are flown on fixed wing aircraft, but they're really designed for much larger areas like the Outback Of Australia.

Okay. I want to ask a little bit about the actual numbers you were saying. Correct me if I'm wrong, 500 meters is a typical well, is that?

500 meters is maximum depth of penetration of the instrument.

Okay. And what how deep do our wells typically go? Production?

Well, the deep monitor well goes to about just under 1,300 feet. Okay.

So the Mahina deepwater wells just under 1,300 feet you say? All right. And so this should be able to the apparatus, the AEM I think it's called, right? That should be able to find water sources that our regular wells are tapping in to, right? And all of the dikes you say, the interconnectivity between the two, is that

that monitored or So when we're when the when the instrument's flying close to the ocean, close to sea level, it'll penetrate obviously say, let's say 500 meters down, so 1,600 feet or so. When you actually more like 1,800 feet, but the as you move Malka, you're that you're moving into a higher greater elevation. Sure. So you're still only gonna get that layer Okay. Down to 500 meters.

But we're hopeful that we can see the dike structure as we move Malka. One of problems we have in flying the helicopters that the valleys that are of greatest interest are very narrow and difficult to fly a helicopter in, just because of the instrument hanging below it, but also because of the wind. So we don't know how much of that we're going to be able to sample. But the goal is to sample as much as we can because the important streams go up into those valleys.

Yeah, very important. Well, okay, thank you for your time and thank you for your presentation. Let me see if there's a need for a second round otherwise members I think that takes us to the end. Any second round questions? Okay, seeing none. I want to thank you once again for your time and your presentation and thank Director Stuffelbine for working with you because it's really interesting stuff. And once again members, we're softening up for a budget ask. So be ready for if that comes around and then you can always reach out to Doctor. Haley on your own time and if you have any more questions. Thank you for all your hard work with this community.

Members, if there's any objections, I'll defer this item. Okay. Does that take us to the end of the agenda staff? That's at the end of the agenda members. It's 12:01 and the adept committee is now adjourned.