Honolulu Board of Water Supply Chief Engineer Ernie Lau would like to think that the Navy Red Hill fuel storage facility's contamination of Oʻahu's drinking water has made people more mindful of not wasting water.
Another reason to save water is cost — and the BWS has proposed a water rate increase. Residential water rates follow a tier system, but the BWS reports an average family using 9,000 gallons monthly would see their bills increase from $60 to nearly $100 by July 2028.
Water rates for businesses would increase incrementally from $5.27 to $8.80 per 1,000 gallons in July 2028. Lau said more revenue is necessary to improve BWS's aging infrastructure and pay the utility's electricity bill.
"What we're doing is economizing and tightening our belt, but we're at the point where we need to get more revenue to continue to operate this massive water system," he said. The BWS Board of Directors last approved a rate increase in 2018.
Lau said the water utility needs to invest more than $1 billion in projects like new pipelines, monitor wells, water sources and water storage over the next five or six years. He said addressing the Red Hill water contamination has added to the utility's challenges.
In a few weeks, the military will start draining 104 million gallons of fuel from the World War II-era fuel tank facility that poisoned 6,000 people when it leaked jet fuel into Pearl Harbor's drinking water in November 2021.
Lau said after years of stonewalling the release of information on the facility, there has been better communication since Joint Task Force-Red Hill took over last year. He said the military seems on track to start defueling in the middle of October.
"I'm just praying that they'll be completely successful. I think it's important for all of us that they are. The last remaining amount of fuel that's there, whether it's 100,000, or up to maybe 400,000, whatever the number is, I really still strongly encourage them to get that out of there as soon as possible too. Don't wait three years or more to do that," Lau said.
"When every drop is out, then I think I can breathe the final sigh of relief. But then we have the issue of cleanup because this facility has been around for 80 years. And it's had a history of leaks in over the 80 years and where has that fuel gone?" he said. "Can it be cleaned up or remediated? Can we keep it away from our Board of Water Supply wells or other private or Navy wells in the area?"
The public is invited to comment on the proposed BWS water rate schedule by Oct. 15.
This interview aired on The Conversation on Sept. 25, 2023. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1. Sophia McCullough adapted this interview for the web.
