APPENDICES A - Fresh Water Council’s Work Process
Q3 2014 • Council meeting 6
Q4 2013 • Council meeting 1 & 2 • Member survey on water issues
Q1 2014 • Council meeting 3 & 4 • Work group meetings • Expert presentations
Q2 2014 • Council meeting 5 • Site visits • Work groups identify priority areas
• Research projects ongoing • Work groups transition to review groups
Q4 2014 • Council meeting 7 • Research findings presented • Develop recommendations
Q1 2015 • Council meeting 8 & 9 • Prioritize recommendations • Compile and revise drafts • Adopt final Blueprint • Begin Phase 2
• Selection of research projects
• Site visits
• Adopt group charter • Define work groups
B - Water Planning Principles As Hawai‘i confronts an aging water infrastructure and reduced rainfall, three significant barriers have emerged that threaten our ability to develop a modern, resilient water supply system for the 21st century. First, questions have been raised about the sustainability and viability of maintaining large, centralized systems that were designed to extract, treat, and dispose water covering large geographic areas. Distributed systems that diversify capture, encourage reuse, and reduce transmission can protect both fresh water supplies Hawai‘i Community Foundation
and bottom lines as energy costs rise. Second, our natural ability to capture and store fresh water has been degraded to the point where far too much of the rain that falls on our islands winds up as runoff in the ocean. The destruction of mauka native forests and poor practices in makai urban and agricultural landscapes need to be addressed and reversed. Third, utilities and others have tremendous concerns about the financial model supporting our water infrastructure—and by extension, what defines the “full value” of water. However, for each of these “barriers” to water security, there is a positive long-term planning principle that should guide Hawai‘i’s future decision-making in a new direction. A BLUEPRINT FOR HAWAI‘I’S WATER FUTURE | 19
