County of Hawaii Department of Water Supply

This week's guest speaker was Keith Okamoto, Manager-Chief
Engineer of the County of Hawaii Department of Water Supply.
Keith is also the most recent past-President of the Hilo Rotary
Club.  Keith noted that he was more nervous than usual when
giving this presentation due to the fact two of our club members
in attendance,  David DeLuz Jr. and Julie Hugo are current
members of the Water Board, while Art Taniguchi, also in
attendance, is a former Chairperson of the Water Board.

The County of Hawaii Department of Water Supply was made
semi-autonomous from the County government in 1949 at a time
when the water system had much deferred maintenance and was
not in great shape overrall.  Keith noted that around the time it
was made semi-autonomous, a community meeting was held
and 1,000 or so people showed up to comment, a huge number
by today's standards, indicative of the state of the water system
at that time.  Semi-autonomy means that the department is self
funded and is able to decide between its management and board
how to spend its revenues.

Today, the County's water system is comprised of 23 different
systems serving 43,000 customers.  The semi-autonomy has
allowed the Department to be more customer and solutions
focused resulting in its current healthy position relative to other
water systems in the State and a far cry from 1949.

Challenges faced by the Department are the always rising costs
of electricity, recovering from un-planned failure of specialized
equipment when you are on a remote island in the Pacific and
balancing supply and demand on an island where the Hilo and
Kona sides are much different with respect to supply.  The
Department is addressing the stability of electricity costs by
entering into PPA agreements with renewable energy providers
(Wind, Solar etc).  Unplanned equipment failure can usually be
mitigated by enhanced conservation, so it is important for all to
keep in mind that it is your responsibility to "use water wisely"
particularly if you live in Kona or other areas on the island subject
to drought.

Mahalo to Keith, his staff and of course the Water Board for
keeping our water supply stable and safe, it is something that is
easy to take for granted.