Commission staff outlines key bills and state budget requests for monitoring, studies and Mesonet support

Commission staff provided a legislative and budget briefing on Feb. 18 covering bills the commission is tracking and requests included in the governor’s budget package that would fund monitoring and technical studies.

Bills and tracking highlights - HB 306 (penalty increases): the bill that would raise civil penalties has been amended; staff reported language is now blanked for amounts but that the measure has incorporated many elements of the commission’s administrative proposal and that the Honolulu Board of Water Supply supports the concept. - HB 510 / SB 145 (water shortage): staff said two water‑shortage bills remain active; staff had sought authority to set shortage criteria by rule and allow commission declaration, and were discussing scope (House language as reported removed the outside‑WMA declaration; the Senate companion still includes it). - HB 915 (dual‑line systems): would allow the commission to require dual potable/nonpotable distribution systems as a permit condition in designated groundwater management areas and would ask DOH, county and other entities to update rules to enable dual systems. - SB 3 / SB 3327 (reorganization proposal): a broad measure would reorganize roles and enumerate public‑trust purposes; staff suggested a more holistic review if legislative reorganization is contemplated. - Other bills tracked include a desalination planning task force (SB 848) and a governor‑office working group on housing and water (SB 867). Staff advised commissioners these measures are evolving and asked commissioners to follow status as bills move through crossover deadlines.

Major budget and technical requests (in governor’s package) - USGS monitoring expansion: staff requested $400,000/year (state share) to expand a joint funding agreement to support an additional set of stream gauges (16 streams listed across East, Central and West Maui). USGS gauges are cost‑shared under a JFA; the additional funding would purchase capacity and relieve ad hoc funding pulls from other staff functions. - Central Maui hydrologic study: a proposed joint study with USGS (total cost ≈ $442,000) to reassess hydrologic boundaries and better understand apparent discrepancies between current sustainable‑yield numbers and observed groundwater levels/salinity in Central Maui. USGS would provide about 10% of the cost under the proposed JFA. - Sustainable‑yield investigations: staff asked for funds to update sustainable yields with new recharge estimates; options include RAM‑2 style updates for many aquifers (estimated roughly $6,000 per aquifer for simpler updates) or a higher‑end numerical model for Lahaina at about $200,000 in an initial phase, with follow‑up work into the late 2020s. - Hawaii Mesonet: staff requested $350,000/year in general funds to sustain and expand the Hawaii Mesonet network (telemetered climate stations operated through the University of Hawaii water center), noting the program’s existing partial NSF support and the commission’s current contribution to operations.

Public comment flagged caution: an attorney and longtime observer warned against redrawing hydrologic boundaries without an accompanying, broader reconsideration of sustainable‑yield methodology and the objectives those yields are meant to sustain. He recommended that any change to boundaries be paired with explicit policy choices about what the commission is trying to protect (potable yield, ecosystem flows, cultural uses) to avoid decades of new disputes.

Staff said the budget and legislative items remain under active development and that final appropriation and bill outcomes will be known after legislative crossover and later budget processing.