Lahaina fire survivors want to use treated wastewater to mitigate the fire

LAHAINA (HawaiiNewsNow) – The fight for water continues on west Maui.

Community members gathered in Lahaina on Tuesday to express to state health officials their concerns about the use of reclaimed wastewater.

On Tuesday afternoon, Hawaii Department of Health officials held a public hearing at the Lahaina Civic Center regarding the Clean Water Act permit the county must obtain for the Lahaina Wastewater Reclamation Facility.

The facility treats sewage.

Some of what remains is used in agriculture.

However, every day millions of gallons are dumped into the ocean through injection wells.

Environmentalists successfully argued in court that ocean lightning was killing coral reefs and harming marine life.

They say you can make better use of it.

“This equates to three to five million gallons per day of essentially liquid fertilizer,” said Earthjustice attorney Mahesh Cleveland.

Cleveland argues that treated wastewater, whose quality is simply inferior to drinking water, should be used entirely for irrigation.

He said it would free up more drinking water, which is badly needed in West Maui, which has a population of about 40,000.

“Instead of it ending up in our reefs and destroying the ocean and coral reefs, we could have access to at least three million gallons a day that could go directly to our community,” said Katie Austin, organizer of Lahaina Strong. “It could help with fire breaks and all kinds of mitigation. So this is really important to our community.”

Additional funding would be needed to move the treated water mauka and create a distribution system.

Proponents say it’s worth the investment.

“We had to go to court to prove they needed a permit. But that’s behind us and now we’re in the permitting stage, and at this point it’s really the community’s game, it’s about what they need and what they want,” Cleveland said.

“We have an opportunity to really protect our community and the more water access there is for Lahaina, the better off we will be,” Austin said.

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