The Hawaii Community Foundation launched the Hawaii Fresh Water Initiative (Wai Maoli) in 2013 to address looming water shortages due to future climate change.
They started by putting together the Hawaii Fresh Water Council with membership mainly from the drinking water industry and environmentalists to research future fresh water needs and come up with strategies for meeting those needs. The Initiative has important implications for the wastewater and stormwater industries in Hawaii and thus HWEA.
The Fresh water Council conducted research and found several factors that cause uncertainty in Hawaii’s long-term water security. These include reduced rainfall (22% in the past 30 years), 28% less tradewind days in the past 35 years, increased droughts, decreasing groundwater levels (largest source of drinking water), loss of watershed forests, increased impervious area and thus runoff, increased evaporation of surface water and soil moisture, increased transpiration by invasive species in the forests.
The Fresh Water Council established a goal to create 100 mgd of additional fresh water capacity for the Hawaiian islands by 2030. There are three strategy areas with targets: 1) 40 mgd via water conservation, 2) 30 mgd via rainfall/stormwater recharge, and 3) 30 mgd of additional water reuse. Both wastewater reuse and stormwater recharge affect HWEA members. The Council laid out 18 specific policy and implementation recommendations Hawaii Fresh Water Initiative The Hawaii Community Foundation launched the Hawaii Fresh Water Initiative (Wai Maoli) in 2013 to address looming water shortages due to future climate change. They started by putting together the Hawaii Fresh Water Council with membership mainly from the drinking water industry and environmentalists
to research future fresh water needs and come up with strategies for meeting those needs. The Initiative has important implications for the wastewater and stormwater industries in Hawaii and thus HWEA.
to achieve the goals and wrote “A Blueprint for Action: Water Security for an Uncertain Future, 2016-2018.” This report can be found on-line at: https://www.hawaiicommunityfoundation. org/strengthening/fresh-water. In the area of water reuse, the Fresh Water Initiative has three main
“The Fresh Water Council established a goal to create 100 mgd of additional fresh water capacity for the Hawaiian islands by 2030.”
recommendations which include: a) revision of the Water Reuse Guidelines to make it more user-friendly and expand the potential uses of recycled water (good for 15 mgd), b) revision of the Gray Water
Guidelines to promote the expanded use of gray water (good for 5 mgd), and c) increase water reuse for large landscaped areas such as new developments, golf courses, parks, schools, roadways, and industrial uses, including requiring installation of dual water lines, and scalping plants where feasible (good for 10 mgd).
Presentations on the Hawaii Fresh Water Initiative have been made at HWEA’s Water Reuse Conference on Maui in November 2018, at the 2019 Pacific Water Conference in February 2019, and at the wateReuse Symposium in San Diego in September 2019. Some of the folks who are heavily involved with these efforts include Cristin Reynolds (One World Water) and Bahman Sheikh (consultant) who Is developing the strategies for the water reuse portion. To make this happen, the efforts of all of the water/wastewater industry is going to be required.