Oʻahu residents use 145 million gallons of water per day — but where exactly does that water come from?
About 85% of Hawaiʻi’s drinking water gets pumped up from underground aquifers.
The state Department of Health is leading a series of webinars this month on Hawaiʻi’s groundwater resources. Water contaminants will be a focus of the series.
Dan Burnell with Tetra Tech led the first talk last Friday.
"It's very important for us to understand the ways that groundwater can be impacted, and so some of the ways that that can occur are, for example, from cesspools that can leak contaminants into the ground and seep into the groundwater," he said.
"We can have military and industrial facilities that can have leaks — underground storage tanks can, you know, become old and cracked, and so contaminants can leak out of them. And also, just our agricultural activities can also, when herbicides and pesticides are sprayed, some of that can seep into the ground."
There will be a new seminar each Friday in June at 11:30 a.m. with a live Q-and-A to follow. Click here to learn more
