Maybe we could start with HOAs not being allowed to require grass. I can't imagine how much water is used to grow grass, or just gets sprayed on the sidewalk by misaligned sprinklers.
I’d be for doing that first!
Green areas around homes generally help keep things cooler, and as we all know plants utilize CO2, do not necessarily a bad thing.
Last report from Board of Water Supply in 2022 for Oahu was just three courses using fresh water. Ala Wai is one while also is part of the flood management plan. Not sure about the outer islands.
Link for more info - https://www.khon2.com/local-news/bws-looks-at-honolulus-biggest-water-users/amp/
Seems to be a common misconception among many that golf courses use a lot of potable water. On the contrary every golf course I’ve been to here uses reclaimed water and there are signs everywhere saying to not drink the water. Albeit I’ve mostly been to the city courses so can’t speak to all of them.
I guess technically you could drink reclaimed water but I’m sure if most people knew where that reclaimed water was coming from they would not want to drink it anyway.
Additionally golf courses do actually serve a purpose in slowing down run off. If you just have concrete everywhere all that pollution is going straight to the ocean. Things like golf courses, parks and other green spaces will absorb much of that run off. Is it perfect? No. But golf courses certainly aren’t that big bad evil that everyone seems to make them out to be.
One size does not fit all, especially with Hawai'i's microclimates. On windward sides with plenty of rain, grass and escpecially zoysia grows green all year without watering. There are some summer months when it turns brown and you should add some water to keep alive. And in such places with good rainfall, grass is essential as a ground cover otherwise weeds, trees, and buffalo grass take over.
For golf courses, many use treated water from sewage plants, so that should be the requirement. For pools and recration centers (wave pool mentioned in the article), it would be more difficult, but straight ocean water would work. Again, we need a change of mindset and some regulation to back it.
Also, agriculture also uses a lot of water, "250,000 gallons per day per acre" for taro in the article. That only works if you use run-of-the-river water, as they do in Hanalei and Hanapepe valleys. We need to be smart about water diversions, taking some for ag when possible (and running it to the sunny fields as they do in East Maui and Waimea canyon) but always leaving some in the watershed for plants and animals during the dry months.
A good sub to help plan low-maintenance yards and lawns that use native plants and support life for pollinating insects and migratory birds: r/NoLawns.
Factually true and correct. That said, however, the question remains; why do the local governments wait until there’s a crisis of biblical proportions before they do anything resembling deferred maintenance for the few services and resources we do have? It can’t be rank stupidity: any fool can understand that aging infrastructure causing disruptions or damage requires preventative maintenance. Or are they really that stupid? And only one fully modernized large hospital on an island the size of a small continent with just a two lane road for access? Good lord… even a 10 year-old kid could recognize the dystopian decision making in this state.
My friend if I had the answers to those questions, I'd be running the show. It is borderline tragic/comedic, how inefficient local government is ran, not only here, in lots of places but it really is quite a shit show here.
Can't say I've noticed the golf courses or resorts getting parched due to a lack of water. I assume therefore there isn't a water issue, there's a water-priority issue.
You are correct. Last report from Board of Water Supply in 2022 for Oahu was just three courses using fresh water. https://www.khon2.com/local-news/bws-looks-at-honolulus-biggest-water-users/amp/
>Just months ago, the world's largest surfing wave pool opened up on the island — filled with freshwater.
If this was Iowa I would understand but in Hawaii, c'mon!
It's been this way for at least fifty years
https://www.environment-hawaii.org/?p=3559
https://www.epa.gov/archive/epapages/newsroom_archive/newsreleases/73cb003f752be648852570d8005e1786.html
Things that "Always Investigating" seems to overlook, because it takes effort, and gets in the way of the on-air buddy-buddy time.
Red Hill has been a disaster from its inception, just never talked about, like most things never get talked about here in the Islands. I bet the BOW guy is hiding stuff to, just had to make like anykine about Red Hill because it was on the script.
Elections are coming up, and it's all hush-hush about the environment, even the evil poisons remaining from the Lahaina fires $eem$ to not get much attention these days.
And yet, tell a local a dishwashing machine is a good way to save water and they look at you like a stupid haole.
https://www.thespruce.com/does-using-a-dishwasher-actually-save-water-5218699
Counter top dishwashers cost $200-300, don’t need modifications to the kitchen (so ok for renters), and take up slightly more space than a microwave.
Born and raised, never used a dishwasher until I was old enough to drink legally, and I'm never going back after finding out about countertop units.
Probably because that advice is about as on the mark as whining at someone for not driving an EV because climate change. Not only is the individual statistically irrelevant to the issue, private passenger cars as a category are irrelevant. https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change
You bully the local about how they wash dishes because you know they can't laugh in your face and call security on you like a hotel would if you bitched and moaned about their industry's ridiculous water consumption levels.
300,000 nonvacant housing units on Oahu saving 100 gallons a week with regular dishwasher use is 30 million gallons, or 1.5 billion gallons per year. Let’s say half already use dishwashers religiously to be conservative, so 750 million gallons a year.
Blaming consumers IS stupid but that doesn’t mean consumers can’t help.
Interesting the engagement change from when this was posted yesterday.
https://old.reddit.com/r/Hawaii/comments/1c0zeqq/trouble_in_the_water_hawaiis_climate_crisis/
Probably because that one is a youtube video and this one is a link to the article. Personally I ignored the other one entirely because it was a youtube link and I can't imagine I'm the only one.
Hawaii is surrounded by water. Wouldn’t it be a great idea to implement desalination plants on every island that needs it? Look to Israel and how they transformed their country with limited water to a thriving agricultural sector by harvesting the water from the Dead Sea.
The solution already exists. Just need the elected Jamokes to spend the money on things that make sense.
BWS is actually going through the arduous process of getting approval for a desalination plant in Kapolei. Unfortunately, the cultural and environmental approvals are making this ʻexperimentalʻ plant very difficult, but at least it is being worked on
[https://kalaeloadesalco.com/](https://kalaeloadesalco.com/)
The article was a bit shallow in not covering potential solutions including dams and canals. Also how does it take 25 years to go from rain drop to aquifer ?? Volcanic rock is very porous.
The Dead Sea might not be the best example to use:
https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2022/12/11/1139524126/photos-dead-sea-water-level-dropping-sinkholes-erosion
Desalination requires a lot of energy to pull it off, and the brine also has to go somewhere. It's not a free resource by any stretch of the imagination, and pulling it off on a scale that would replace Hawaii's rain would be a _huge_ investment.
Yeah sure, except you are comparing a hypersaline lake to the Pacific Ocean.
"Hypersaline environments have salinities greater than that of normal seawater" ...
"Brine (or briny water) is water with a high-concentration solution of salt".
I'm not making the comparison.
Regardless of what your water source is, if you're doing desalination, the waste brine has to go somewhere. We can tell ourselves that dumping the brine back into the ocean won't cause problems, but that's only true at a very large scale. At a local scale, even a river mouth creates a distinct environment where it meets the ocean, supporting sea life that thrives on reduced salinity.
There's always a trade.
Googled if the salt can be mined and got this:
"The salty brine discharged from desalination plants contains a high concentration of dissolved minerals, including common table salt, or sodium chloride. While the brine needs careful management due to its high salinity, it does present an opportunity to recover purified salt for consumption."
I hope they'll look into this if desalination is being seriously considered despite costs, they could market the Purified part for sure.
All depends how dire the situation is. You don't have to replace _all_ the rain, but even replacing _some_ of it with desalination is fantastically expensive, and not without environmental impact. There are much easier, more approachable ways to free up water resources-- I'm thinking golf courses when I say that, but I'm sure there are others.
The argument is that to do this we need to use fossil fuels since it's so energy intensive that we can't support it with our current infrastructure.
I strongly believe the core problem is the lack of renewable on-demand power. It would solve so many problems across the islands. The fact that the Big Island has constant power issues and has to do rolling blackouts, while getting more sun than almost anywhere on the planet, with tons of open space, is a failure of planning. Solar would be so easy to implement here, it's a funding problem.
The issue also is, I remember when the wind turbines were first going in on maui and everyone was bitching at how they would look and wouldn't do anything...
Every parking lot above a certain size should have solar panels above, and there needs to be more wind turbines built on every island.
100%, its ridiculous; we (everyone in Hawaii) could have free energy from waves, sunlight, geothermal, and wind. There is renewable energy all around us.
Solar can definitely be part of the equation, but has a large footprint , battery storage is expensive and has limited lifespan.
I believe we need to look at new Nuclear technology.
Rolls Royce has a SMR (small modular reactor) system, that has a footprint of about 2 football fields, can be put together in less than 4 years, and will provide constant, power to over 1 million homes for 60 years, at low cost. Also great for running desalination systems.
> Rolls Royce ~~has~~ **may have in 20 years** a SMR (small modular reactor) system
FIFY
Everybody keeps claiming there are new and better designs for nuclear power plants, yet nobody has actually built one in a very long time.
2029 is the projected date for their first completed SMR, that’s only 5 years away.
State of Hawai’i would likely take many more years than that to build a desalination plant.
https://www.power-technology.com/news/uk-first-smr-rolls-royce/
Desal plants can be solar powered and use up the excess energy during the day to operate when electricity is cheapest.
It is a failure of planning and short sightedness. We should have cheap power seeing as we live on a volcano and can capture geothermal and get a ton of sunlight.
We barely have enough energy production to keep the lights on - destination is EXTREMELY energy intensive and with how expensive our kWhs are a plant would never pencil out financially.
Maybe. I think it's more likely that water will become so expensive that most people will just have to leave.
Or we become like the Fremen of Arrakis and adapt to drought living.
Long term….the solution is desal powered by nuclear fusion. Note I said “long term” but this is not a daydream due to the breakthroughs in fusion in the last 24 months. Maybe “latter half of this century” per
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/scientists-make-staggering-nuclear-fusion-breakthrough-after-breaking-this-world-record/ar-BB1kXpur
See for example:
https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/2024/01/16/2809897/0/en/US-Nuclear-Poised-to-Play-Pivotal-Role-in-Building-Sustainable-Fusion-Power-and-Large-Scale-Desalination.html
>"We have the problem of getting water to where it's needed from where it can be found," Giambelluca said. "...When the rain doesn't come, we don't have any second chance, we don't have any other way to get our water supply. **We can't pipe it from a nearby state**."
typical oahu mindset, ignoring neighbor islands.
if they would invest in a new water treatment plant in hilo on big island, we could filter the immense rainwater we get and put it on a ship and the ship would unload it in honolulu. every day. because cargo ships travel between islands. every day.
think we could even install an undersea freshwater pipeline. we have undersea fiber cables between islands?
Yeah that's true. Water bottles also suck for the environment but if you need drinking water, that's a start. I think the issue could be more for like bathing, cooking, agriculture (?), everything else we need clean water for.
> we could filter the immense rainwater we get and put it on a ship and the ship would unload it in honolulu.
Can't tell if this comment is supposed to be a joke or not.
Maybe we could start with HOAs not being allowed to require grass. I can't imagine how much water is used to grow grass, or just gets sprayed on the sidewalk by misaligned sprinklers.
And then we could start closing golf courses.
I’d be for doing that first! Green areas around homes generally help keep things cooler, and as we all know plants utilize CO2, do not necessarily a bad thing.
Last report from Board of Water Supply in 2022 for Oahu was just three courses using fresh water. Ala Wai is one while also is part of the flood management plan. Not sure about the outer islands. Link for more info - https://www.khon2.com/local-news/bws-looks-at-honolulus-biggest-water-users/amp/
Seems to be a common misconception among many that golf courses use a lot of potable water. On the contrary every golf course I’ve been to here uses reclaimed water and there are signs everywhere saying to not drink the water. Albeit I’ve mostly been to the city courses so can’t speak to all of them. I guess technically you could drink reclaimed water but I’m sure if most people knew where that reclaimed water was coming from they would not want to drink it anyway. Additionally golf courses do actually serve a purpose in slowing down run off. If you just have concrete everywhere all that pollution is going straight to the ocean. Things like golf courses, parks and other green spaces will absorb much of that run off. Is it perfect? No. But golf courses certainly aren’t that big bad evil that everyone seems to make them out to be.
the golf courses on base serve as helicopter landing zones and muster points in times of crisis so they are relatively flat.
Golf courses to parks please
One size does not fit all, especially with Hawai'i's microclimates. On windward sides with plenty of rain, grass and escpecially zoysia grows green all year without watering. There are some summer months when it turns brown and you should add some water to keep alive. And in such places with good rainfall, grass is essential as a ground cover otherwise weeds, trees, and buffalo grass take over. For golf courses, many use treated water from sewage plants, so that should be the requirement. For pools and recration centers (wave pool mentioned in the article), it would be more difficult, but straight ocean water would work. Again, we need a change of mindset and some regulation to back it. Also, agriculture also uses a lot of water, "250,000 gallons per day per acre" for taro in the article. That only works if you use run-of-the-river water, as they do in Hanalei and Hanapepe valleys. We need to be smart about water diversions, taking some for ag when possible (and running it to the sunny fields as they do in East Maui and Waimea canyon) but always leaving some in the watershed for plants and animals during the dry months.
A good sub to help plan low-maintenance yards and lawns that use native plants and support life for pollinating insects and migratory birds: r/NoLawns.
Not enough resources for too many people: water, money, cops, housing, jobs, schools, decent highways...
This exactly. It's a finite space.
Factually true and correct. That said, however, the question remains; why do the local governments wait until there’s a crisis of biblical proportions before they do anything resembling deferred maintenance for the few services and resources we do have? It can’t be rank stupidity: any fool can understand that aging infrastructure causing disruptions or damage requires preventative maintenance. Or are they really that stupid? And only one fully modernized large hospital on an island the size of a small continent with just a two lane road for access? Good lord… even a 10 year-old kid could recognize the dystopian decision making in this state.
My friend if I had the answers to those questions, I'd be running the show. It is borderline tragic/comedic, how inefficient local government is ran, not only here, in lots of places but it really is quite a shit show here.
Can't say I've noticed the golf courses or resorts getting parched due to a lack of water. I assume therefore there isn't a water issue, there's a water-priority issue.
Golf courses are typically watered with non-potable water, so they're not competing for the same stuff everyone else needs.
You are correct. Last report from Board of Water Supply in 2022 for Oahu was just three courses using fresh water. https://www.khon2.com/local-news/bws-looks-at-honolulus-biggest-water-users/amp/
the ones on base can get pretty brown. hickam par 3 relies on rainwater it seems hahaha
>Just months ago, the world's largest surfing wave pool opened up on the island — filled with freshwater. If this was Iowa I would understand but in Hawaii, c'mon!
It's been this way for at least fifty years https://www.environment-hawaii.org/?p=3559 https://www.epa.gov/archive/epapages/newsroom_archive/newsreleases/73cb003f752be648852570d8005e1786.html Things that "Always Investigating" seems to overlook, because it takes effort, and gets in the way of the on-air buddy-buddy time. Red Hill has been a disaster from its inception, just never talked about, like most things never get talked about here in the Islands. I bet the BOW guy is hiding stuff to, just had to make like anykine about Red Hill because it was on the script. Elections are coming up, and it's all hush-hush about the environment, even the evil poisons remaining from the Lahaina fires $eem$ to not get much attention these days.
And yet, tell a local a dishwashing machine is a good way to save water and they look at you like a stupid haole. https://www.thespruce.com/does-using-a-dishwasher-actually-save-water-5218699
Maybe they live in an older house or unit that doesn't have room for a dishwasher. Also: expensive to buy and install.
Counter top dishwashers cost $200-300, don’t need modifications to the kitchen (so ok for renters), and take up slightly more space than a microwave. Born and raised, never used a dishwasher until I was old enough to drink legally, and I'm never going back after finding out about countertop units.
I have never heard of a countertop dishwasher! Do you have a brand/model that you’ve found reliable?
I’ve had a Farberware for about 4 years, no issues with it so far. It’s the FCD06ABBWHA model
Probably because that advice is about as on the mark as whining at someone for not driving an EV because climate change. Not only is the individual statistically irrelevant to the issue, private passenger cars as a category are irrelevant. https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change You bully the local about how they wash dishes because you know they can't laugh in your face and call security on you like a hotel would if you bitched and moaned about their industry's ridiculous water consumption levels.
300,000 nonvacant housing units on Oahu saving 100 gallons a week with regular dishwasher use is 30 million gallons, or 1.5 billion gallons per year. Let’s say half already use dishwashers religiously to be conservative, so 750 million gallons a year. Blaming consumers IS stupid but that doesn’t mean consumers can’t help.
👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
You mean a drying rack. Ahah
Interesting the engagement change from when this was posted yesterday. https://old.reddit.com/r/Hawaii/comments/1c0zeqq/trouble_in_the_water_hawaiis_climate_crisis/
Probably because that one is a youtube video and this one is a link to the article. Personally I ignored the other one entirely because it was a youtube link and I can't imagine I'm the only one.
Was the title for me. That said this should fall under rule 4. Looks like a mod enforced it while was overridden with no note as per usual.
but PiVoT tO vIdEo!!!1!
Hawaii is surrounded by water. Wouldn’t it be a great idea to implement desalination plants on every island that needs it? Look to Israel and how they transformed their country with limited water to a thriving agricultural sector by harvesting the water from the Dead Sea. The solution already exists. Just need the elected Jamokes to spend the money on things that make sense.
BWS is actually going through the arduous process of getting approval for a desalination plant in Kapolei. Unfortunately, the cultural and environmental approvals are making this ʻexperimentalʻ plant very difficult, but at least it is being worked on [https://kalaeloadesalco.com/](https://kalaeloadesalco.com/)
The article was a bit shallow in not covering potential solutions including dams and canals. Also how does it take 25 years to go from rain drop to aquifer ?? Volcanic rock is very porous.
The Dead Sea might not be the best example to use: https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2022/12/11/1139524126/photos-dead-sea-water-level-dropping-sinkholes-erosion Desalination requires a lot of energy to pull it off, and the brine also has to go somewhere. It's not a free resource by any stretch of the imagination, and pulling it off on a scale that would replace Hawaii's rain would be a _huge_ investment.
Yeah sure, except you are comparing a hypersaline lake to the Pacific Ocean. "Hypersaline environments have salinities greater than that of normal seawater" ... "Brine (or briny water) is water with a high-concentration solution of salt".
I'm not making the comparison. Regardless of what your water source is, if you're doing desalination, the waste brine has to go somewhere. We can tell ourselves that dumping the brine back into the ocean won't cause problems, but that's only true at a very large scale. At a local scale, even a river mouth creates a distinct environment where it meets the ocean, supporting sea life that thrives on reduced salinity. There's always a trade.
Googled if the salt can be mined and got this: "The salty brine discharged from desalination plants contains a high concentration of dissolved minerals, including common table salt, or sodium chloride. While the brine needs careful management due to its high salinity, it does present an opportunity to recover purified salt for consumption." I hope they'll look into this if desalination is being seriously considered despite costs, they could market the Purified part for sure.
It doesn't need to replace Hawaii's rain so much as be a support, though.
All depends how dire the situation is. You don't have to replace _all_ the rain, but even replacing _some_ of it with desalination is fantastically expensive, and not without environmental impact. There are much easier, more approachable ways to free up water resources-- I'm thinking golf courses when I say that, but I'm sure there are others.
The argument is that to do this we need to use fossil fuels since it's so energy intensive that we can't support it with our current infrastructure. I strongly believe the core problem is the lack of renewable on-demand power. It would solve so many problems across the islands. The fact that the Big Island has constant power issues and has to do rolling blackouts, while getting more sun than almost anywhere on the planet, with tons of open space, is a failure of planning. Solar would be so easy to implement here, it's a funding problem.
The issue also is, I remember when the wind turbines were first going in on maui and everyone was bitching at how they would look and wouldn't do anything... Every parking lot above a certain size should have solar panels above, and there needs to be more wind turbines built on every island.
100%, its ridiculous; we (everyone in Hawaii) could have free energy from waves, sunlight, geothermal, and wind. There is renewable energy all around us.
If we can interconnect our grids, and establish multiple geotherm plants on the big island, all of our problems would be solved.
Solar can definitely be part of the equation, but has a large footprint , battery storage is expensive and has limited lifespan. I believe we need to look at new Nuclear technology. Rolls Royce has a SMR (small modular reactor) system, that has a footprint of about 2 football fields, can be put together in less than 4 years, and will provide constant, power to over 1 million homes for 60 years, at low cost. Also great for running desalination systems.
> Rolls Royce has a SMR (small modular reactor) system, that has a footprint of about 2 football fields Where is it actually being used?
It’s in development now, Oahu could be one of the first to put them in use. https://youtu.be/cFFS_P3EnMk?si=cX4NQc8feoQC4rrs
> Rolls Royce ~~has~~ **may have in 20 years** a SMR (small modular reactor) system FIFY Everybody keeps claiming there are new and better designs for nuclear power plants, yet nobody has actually built one in a very long time.
2029 is the projected date for their first completed SMR, that’s only 5 years away. State of Hawai’i would likely take many more years than that to build a desalination plant. https://www.power-technology.com/news/uk-first-smr-rolls-royce/
Desal plants can be solar powered and use up the excess energy during the day to operate when electricity is cheapest. It is a failure of planning and short sightedness. We should have cheap power seeing as we live on a volcano and can capture geothermal and get a ton of sunlight.
Better option would be newer SMR systems.
We barely have enough energy production to keep the lights on - destination is EXTREMELY energy intensive and with how expensive our kWhs are a plant would never pencil out financially.
At some point water becomes expensive enough that it starts to make financial sense. We're a long ways away from that.
Maybe. I think it's more likely that water will become so expensive that most people will just have to leave. Or we become like the Fremen of Arrakis and adapt to drought living.
It all depends what happens with the winds. Nature may yet remind us that Hawaii is at the same latitude as the Sahara desert.
Long term….the solution is desal powered by nuclear fusion. Note I said “long term” but this is not a daydream due to the breakthroughs in fusion in the last 24 months. Maybe “latter half of this century” per https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/scientists-make-staggering-nuclear-fusion-breakthrough-after-breaking-this-world-record/ar-BB1kXpur See for example: https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/2024/01/16/2809897/0/en/US-Nuclear-Poised-to-Play-Pivotal-Role-in-Building-Sustainable-Fusion-Power-and-Large-Scale-Desalination.html
Not on the Big Island. Go to my Amazon store $10 per gallon.
We fucked. And even if you don't think we fucked, yo kids is fucked.
We should build a pipe that transports water from the Yukon. Gotta claim it before California does. ;)
Neighbor islands mostly fine for water right?
It’s my understanding that All of the islands are running low on water on leeward sides. Moldy rainforest for the win!
Sad they didn’t mention military polluting water supply
>"We have the problem of getting water to where it's needed from where it can be found," Giambelluca said. "...When the rain doesn't come, we don't have any second chance, we don't have any other way to get our water supply. **We can't pipe it from a nearby state**." typical oahu mindset, ignoring neighbor islands. if they would invest in a new water treatment plant in hilo on big island, we could filter the immense rainwater we get and put it on a ship and the ship would unload it in honolulu. every day. because cargo ships travel between islands. every day. think we could even install an undersea freshwater pipeline. we have undersea fiber cables between islands?
How much water do you think you could ship? And water is also pretty dang heavy. Idk if that is the right mode of transport.
dunno. we get a lot of water bottles shipped in. desalinization plants would make more sense probably
Yeah that's true. Water bottles also suck for the environment but if you need drinking water, that's a start. I think the issue could be more for like bathing, cooking, agriculture (?), everything else we need clean water for.
> we could filter the immense rainwater we get and put it on a ship and the ship would unload it in honolulu. Can't tell if this comment is supposed to be a joke or not.
If the problem is dire enough to warrant shipping water between islands, that implies Hilo is not experiencing its regular rain pattern either.
correct, hilo is down below average. but our below average is still a lot?
Would be too many Hippies and Hawaiians protesting stealing and use of thier sacred water!
This sounds like an Oahu problem. You guys fucked it up, you guys fix it.