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Safe Drinking Water Branch details monitoring, PFAS study, UIC concerns and emergency response support
Summary
Department of Health Safe Drinking Water Branch staff described their regulatory authorities, monitoring programs, PFAS sampling work, underground injection control responsibilities and emergency response actions during the 2023 Lahaina wildfire response.
Department of Health Safe Drinking Water Branch (SDWB) staff summarized the branch's responsibilities and recent work, emphasizing monitoring, sanitary surveys, the statewide PFAS study and underground-injection control oversight.
"We administer the Safe Drinking Water Act," SDWB Branch Chief Dennis Galdencho Lopez told attendees, describing the branch's authority under federal law and its implementation through Hawaii Revised Statutes and Hawai`i Administrative Rules. He said SDWB's program areas include administrative engineering, compliance monitoring and groundwater pollution control.
Monitoring and emergency response were a major focus. Melvin Tokuru, a monitoring-section supervisor, described SDWB's role in emergency sampling and investigations. He recounted SDWB's work in Lahaina after the 2023 wildfire, where the branch helped start drinking-water sampling and trained non-sampling personnel and visiting teams: "We helped the Department of Water Supply get their sampling program started," he said. Tokuru also noted the branch runs a PFAS study that began in 2022 and has expanded beyond its initial sampling list.
Iris Vander Zander, supervisor of the Underground Injection Control (UIC) section, explained the UIC line concept the branch uses in Hawaii to separate disposal seaward of a line from aquifer areas used for potable supply. She described challenges posed by increasing use of reverse osmosis and concentrated brines from treatment and by dry wells that may be proposed above the UIC line.
Wong, the SDWB compliance officer, described data-management and enforcement processes: public water systems must submit monitoring data to SDWB's Safe Drinking Water Information System and the branch issues violations and works with systems to return them to compliance. Wong emphasized the branch's role providing technical assistance and training, including coordinating operator certification and continuing-education opportunities.
SDWB staff reiterated that while national SRF funds are large, the state-level appropriations and awards available to Hawaii are limited and administered through state program channels. Dennis Galdencho Lopez summarized: "Hawaii's total appropriation with clean water and drinking water SRF programs ... is just under a hundred million," and said specific local requests were handled through the state process.
Ending: SDWB presenters invited utilities to use branch contacts and the state laboratory for compliance sampling and to request technical assistance during emergencies and routine sanitary-survey follow-up.
