 Welcome to another episode of Likeable Science here on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm your host Ethan Allen. Likeable science is all about how science is a vital and dynamic and interesting part of everyone's life. It's not something just done by scientists, just done in laboratories. And we're going to talk today with Kevin Gooden who's here. Welcome Kevin. Nice to have you back. Thank you. Kevin's been on the show a couple of times before and we've talked about various different things. He's recently sort of switched his life around a little bit and is working now as a senior hydrologist and operations manager for Intera. Right? Do I get that right? Yes, Intera. And Intera I guess is a sort of geoscience company in the broader sense, but you being a hydrologist, we're looking at their water issues, right? Yes, I'm a hydrogeologist and I'm working on water issues throughout Hawaii. And so in particular, you would give me some fancy title about groundwater use, reporting outreach, field verification and compliance on Maui and Molokai as the title for what you wanted to talk about and it sounds pretty complicated, but can you maybe tell us briefly sort of what that's all about? Well it does summarize where's the water or where's the wells because that's kind of what I'm doing, doing both, looking for the water and the wells. The water commission collects water use data throughout the state for both the ground and surface water and throughout the years, well let's say let's go back in the past, not all that long ago, let's say just the 70s on this island, there was probably three major categories of users, plantations, the board of water supply and the military. If you got those covered plus a few others, you pretty much know how much water is being used. But now the plantations have all sold out and there's multiple users on, we still have the other two. And so the water commission has been actively trying to collect water use data and maybe about six years ago they came up with an online reporting system. Before that if a thousand people had reported their water use, they would have gotten a thousand sheets of paper. So they would have had to look at all those and transcribe them. Exactly. But now they have an online system, it goes directly into their database after a quick filtering process. And so they're actively trying to get everyone to report their water use so we can understand all of us, not just them, understand the water, what's happening with the water. Right, because water, people sometimes don't think about it this way but that is sort of the one thing we truly can measure accurately, right, how much water we're pumping out, how much water we're using actively, right? Yeah. And that's really the only thing we can tell with a high degree of accuracy. I mean there's rainfall and you can make estimates about how many gallons have fallen over what period of time but it's just really a guess, again even a vague guess about how much water is sort of sitting in the ground at any given time and probably even still a wilder guess about how much water may be flowing out. That makes it down to the groundwater. Right, it goes into the groundwater and flows out in the ocean. People are constantly working on that. Right, but those are all unknown so what you're looking at is that one known piece, right? The one known piece, yeah. Which, well it's not by any means a whole picture, it can tell us a lot, right? Tells us a lot because it's, well like you said it's the one thing we can know and it reduces the uncertainty. I've done a lot of small and slightly larger water studies and if you see a well, a big well and there's no information, you don't know if they're pumping 10 million gallons a day out of it or if it has been inactive for 10 years and so if you're trying to make a conceptual or an actual numerical model of a particular groundwater flow system, it's a guess and it's uncertainty. If you just have a whole area you don't know what's happening. Right and indeed many of the sort of models of where our groundwater is on all of the Hawaiian islands and how much water there is. These are very, a lot of them are decades and decades old, 60, 70 years old, right? And are pretty crude models basically. Somebody looked at the hills and said, well they're this big and therefore they've got that much water in them, right? Yeah, I mean they're based on conceptual models which are kind of pictures and stories about, they were developed, not stories but I mean technical descriptions, they were developed a long time ago, many times in the 40s or so. Right. And they bring some updates. Right. Don Thomas and U.H. Hilo is working hard on updating deeper flow systems that weren't known about in the 40s. That's right, I gather on the big island they recently went through some salt water and through some impermeable rock and then found a whole other supply of fresh water down below that but nobody had a clue was going to be there. Yes, exactly. So yeah, that's the thing, the internal structure of the volcanoes, the extinct volcanoes or active volcanoes that are around here is very complicated, right? With impermeable rock, permeable rock, broken up things, cracks, slabs turned upside down, you know, yeah. Much more complicated than we once thought. Right, and therefore there are pockets of water here, pockets of water there and other places let the water drain up very quickly and yeah, and it's very tricky to know because all that's buried in some cases thousands of feet down, right? Yeah, yeah, sometimes there's several thousand. And therefore, back to our issue, the wells are nice things. I've been pulling out a million gallons over a given time period versus half a million gallons versus 10 million gallons over that same time period. You can make some sense out of that data, particularly if you have combined with other data, right? Yes. I should start out to how this started, I mean I'm a consultant and the state water commission, the commission on water resource management is funding and doing this project. And so I'm doing Maui County, which is not Lonai but Molokai and Maui. And maybe there's about 850 wells on Maui and about 500 aren't reporting their water use. So I'm chasing those 500. So actually, let's pause there and let's start running. We've got a couple pictures because we'll catch up after about one or two images. So the first, I think the first image is just sort of, yeah, that was just sort of your title slide for what we're doing here, right? Where is the water? Where is the water? Chasing water, yeah. This is important. The next slide, I think, talks briefly about what Intera is and who Intera is. I mentioned a little bit of that, but you might want to say a few words about this. Yeah, we're a geosciences company based out of Austin, Texas. I run the Hawaii office. I'm from Hawaii and they recruited me here. My office is in Kailua. We do water resources, environmental, coastal, and waste isolation work, waste management. In Hawaii, it's primarily water resources. And then I think the next picture gets onto the map. Sorry, OK, there's your map on Molokai, right? Oh yeah, we'll just start out with these maps. That's a good idea. Because you were talking about how many wells were ruined there. Well, there's about 180 wells on Molokai total. And kind of the. And I'm 137 weren't reporting. OK, out of 180, 130 still weren't reporting. Yeah. So yeah, again, somebody, the Board of Waters, if I want to know, what are the majority of these wells? How much water is coming out of them over what period of time? What's coming out of them. And it's kind of a reflection of Molokai. They're very friendly people, but they're also very private. And they don't want other people to be knowing their business. And then Maui, on the next slide, has even more wells, right? 850 total. And I am doing about 500. Although word is getting out ahead of me. Once people start reporting and they're hearing about it, then I don't need to go bother them. And probably about a dozen have. So that's a big success. That's good. And are you seeing about the same rate of non-reports? Or you said 137 out of your 150 on Molokai weren't reporting. Is it the vast majority on Maui not reporting? Oh, I kind of don't recall the percents. A smaller percentage of Maui is not reporting. So many of the Molokai wells are old dug wells. Old pan dug wells. If we went back to that picture, the Molokai picture, a lot of the whole South Coast is triangles, green triangles. Those are all dug wells. Many of them old. I mean, we don't really have an age in the database, but they might be very old, pre-contact, and a couple of hundred years old, and then gradually redeveloped and fixed. And a lot are filled, essentially forgotten. Or they're kind of salty, and they just fill out of use. As the Department of Water brought in service. So it's hunting down those. And of course, the people don't report for them, because they're essentially not wells to them. They're just some holding the ground in the backyard. So the powers that they really wanted to know this for, I mean, one, they have a vested interest in just knowing about what's going on in terms of how much water is being pulled out, because there is data too showing that some wells in some places, particularly near the coasts, are getting higher and higher chloride levels, and that is, they're getting salt in that water a little bit from over-pumping in the region. There is in many places. And so clearly, that's a very important data to have, because at some point, you really don't want to keep pumping and getting your water. Saltier and saltier, and people need to cut back, and they'll need to essentially come down. They have to share with each other. One might all need to cut back and not use as much to maintain the resource. And that gets us actually to an interesting point, right, in that Hawaii actually has, I believe, that they have water, sort of general water rights statements in their state constitution, as I understand it. I think they're the only state that actually put that down. I don't know if we're the only, but we definitely have it. It's called the public trust doctrine, which basically means water and other natural resources are held in trust by the state of Hawaii for the use of the citizens of the state. So I mean, we all own the water jointly. We all own the water jointly, yeah. Which means you can't use more than your share, and I can't use more than my share, right? Yes. And you have to use it unreasonably. Right, right. But of course, that's a judgment. Right. It's open to interpretation of what your share is, what my share is, and what the reasonable use is, right? And people can make very good arguments is it reasonable to use all of that water for agriculture? Seems like a sensible thing to do back in earlier days, right? That people use a whole lot of water and lowered the water table here on Oahu significantly. I gather up in the hills by draining off gazillions of gallons and irrigating, well, insulating fields and all, right? Well, between the Constitution, the legislator, and perhaps others, they've come up with public trust uses. And those are, I should be able to name them. Domestic, Department of Hawaiian Homelands, traditional and customary native Hawaiian uses, and natural uses, and call them in-stream or maintain natural systems. And those are the public trust uses that are top tier. Cool. I'll tell you what, I'm gonna stop you there. We're gonna explore that a little further when we come back, but right now I'm told we need to take a break. Kevin Gooding is here with me. I'm Ethan Allen. I'm your host on likable science. And we're gonna take a brief break and then we'll be right back. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. It's choose to treat it with the help of a physical therapist. Physical therapists treat pain through movement and exercise. No warning labels required. And you get to actively participate in your care. Choose to improve your health without the risks of opioids. Choose physical therapy. Welcome to Sister Power. I'm your host, Sharon Thomas Yarbrough, where we motivate, educate, empower, and inspire all women. We are live here every other Thursday at 4 p.m. And we welcome you to join us here at Sister Power. Aloha and thank you. And you're back here on likable science with me, your host, Ethan Allen, here on Think Tech Hawaii. Thanks for coming back and joining us in the second half of our show. Kevin Gooding from Intera. Hydrogeologist is here with me. And we're talking about groundwater, well-reporting, monitoring on Molokai and Maui, particularly just where Kevin is doing his work. And right before the break, we're talking about there are sort of enshrined, recognized uses that are sort of protected uses of water, right? Including some traditional. Native and traditional. I mean, traditional and customary is how they refer to it. Natural systems uses, domestic consumption. And Hawaiian homelands. Hawaiian homelands, okay. Was there anything sort of set aside in any sense for agriculture or did agriculture just sort of take over the water they needed? Well, just because those are top tier, let's call them, it doesn't mean that others, other uses aren't perfectly legitimate. It's just if those interfered. Technically, then these public trust uses would get first choice. Right, because what the state is concerned about, right, is they don't want to have a so-called tragedy of the commons, right? Where, because it belongs to everybody, everybody starts taking too much of it and then nobody has anything at the end, right? That's right. And that would be tragic. Unlivable, right? I mean, we depend on our groundwater here in Hawaii. We have actually a tiny bit of surface water, but relatively minuscule, right? Yeah, we tend to depend more on it than most places. We have no alternatives in terms of rivers. Right, most places on the mainland, of course, can just, they can go somewhere else, tap into another section of a big aquifer and draw up more water. A big deal may cost them a few million dollars to do well, but, you know, that's really... They can go a hundred miles away or so. Right, whereas we have very limited spaces to put wells in, very limited amount, I mean, it's essentially the rain that falls on these islands gives the ground water to the islands. Is our water, yes. Yeah, and the islands are more or less sponges in some sense that hold an X amount of water. And if we start using that faster than it's being replenished, that's not a good thing, right? Then we'll deplete the resource or it could salt up. Yeah. Because there's plenty of salt water in the lower part of the aquifer. Sitting around, sort of waiting, and as we suck fresh water out, yeah, at some point you suck it out, the salt water... We draw it out. Yeah. And yeah, and that's, I mean, this is, again, this is sort of complex interplay of these unknowns, right? We do know how much we're pumping out. We don't know exactly how much is in the big sponge of the island. And we don't, we have some vague guess about its replenishment rate, right? Exactly, that's why we always need more water resources data. Right, and, but clearly, I mean, one, we all need water just to live, right? You can live three minutes without air or three days without water and 30 days without food, right? And we don't want the taps all one day just running dry, right? We need to know what's happening and are our groundwater levels changing in some way, right? We need to know, and this water use data collection is a very personal way of knowing it. Right. The only way is to go out and visit each well owner. Mm-hmm. Because they don't know. Right. They don't know that they're required by law to report water. They don't know the reasons why that it's because of what we've been talking about. So I have, I talk with all 500 of them. But so there are different kinds of wells. We'll go into that in a minute, right? There are drilled wells, hand dug wells, you mentioned earlier, tunnels, shafts, but what do people report to you? I mean, if you've got a big hand dug well, there's my well, you know, like big deal. Well, according to the law, they're supposed to have a water meter. But many people don't. They don't even know they had to have one. They may not be able to afford one. So I help them kind of estimate their water. Okay. If they have a one-inch pipe, we might just use a five-gallon bucket and measure it, try to get how much. And they say, oh, I use it one hour a day and then we can kind of figure out. Okay. So sort of back to the envelope calculations, but again. Better than nothing, exactly. And other people do have flow meters on them and can tell you precisely how much. I expect in a few years, they'll all be set up so that flow meter data on a regular basis is fed automatically back. So they don't have to worry about reporting anymore, right? Maybe someday, yeah. Got a hope, right? But there's always going to be this need to go to the other users too. And even those small-hand dug wells, which aren't taking a lot of water out, presumably, tell us a lot about the water. Because if their numbers change over time or the salinity of that water changes or level in the well changes, that again, that gives you information about the aquifer in the water table, right? Yeah. It gives scientists and managers an idea of what's happening in case they need it. Right. And yeah, other than that, we're sort of running, I guess, and by gosh, in our water. That's a little unnerving if you think about how this is particularly in a place like Oahu where we're building more and more big complexes but suck up a lot of water. I mean, hotels are a classic example, right? If they're washing all their sheets and all that kind of stuff. That's using a tremendous amount of water every day per person, per room. It is, yeah. And you really want to know the long-term trends in your water, in your aquifer levels, right? The long-term trends and what we can sustain. Yeah, exactly. The whole concept of sustainable yield is essential to this whole business, right? And it'll help all these people, the hotels plan, plan their future. Right, right. Because you know, yeah, and help. How much water they might have and maybe how they have to change their laundry practices if that's the case. And or where, if there's other areas on islands where we should be either building instead of building here or developing their water resources and pumping that up and getting ready to pipe it over here if need be or whatever, right? Yep. Because we get on Oahu what 60% of our water comes from one aquifer, the Pearl Harbor aquifer. A large percentage of the Pearl Harbor. Yeah, and that's really probably 20% of the islands area or something less than that maybe even. So it's a very small percentage, but we're getting a lot of water from there. So yeah, it's fascinating. But so yeah, we really need to move ahead on this. So you say one of the things you weren't into is people are scared that the government will take our water, right? Yes, I've heard that a lot. That's the first thing they'll tell me. And so what do you say to them? Well, I say that the use of water is protected. It's in the Constitution. So if you have your little garden and all, you know, that's a perfectly good use if you've been established that use earlier to particularly, that's now your right to keep doing that, right? The government has no intention of taking people's water. Nor any right to actually take that water from you, right? Yeah, they don't have the right to. And of course, I tell them in my field is what I do is develop groundwater. So I very much believe in using it. We're using it reasonably, of course, but not. Right, that's of course the differences particularly in areas where water is scarce. It's reasonable to go and build a golf course and want billions of gallons out to keep grass green so people can knock golf balls around. I mean, is that a reasonable use? Yeah, everyone needs to think about that and chime in if they need to because it is a heavy user of water. Right, right. I know, because I did some work out on YAP and dealing with water issues and there was a plan for a while for a Chinese company to come in and build a 10,000 person resort and a golf course there. And the whole island of YAP is, I mean, all three of the main islands and are probably a quarter of the size of Oahu and low. They don't have the heights and therefore they're not storing as much water and it was just looked at and thought, that's just insane. They're gonna suck that water out of their ground so fast it'll be going in a matter of a few years. Unfortunately, that plan seems to have been put on hold. Yeah, they would need to find alternatives for desalination or, I don't know what. Now there are, of course, new technologies emerging to get desalinate water. I mean, there's, of course, classic technologies like reverse osmosis, which is expensive, basically, relative to pumping out fresh water, right? Of course, there's also simple things that people can do individually like rainwater catchment systems, right? Or you can get, what you know, is pretty good fresh water out of the house when it's falling out of the sky, right? It's pretty clean, pretty non-metaminated. And that's a good way of conserving in Hawaii. Right, and that means you're gonna be using your tap a whole lot less if you're gathering rainwater and using that water instead. Oh yeah, okay, good. So what is the future likely telling, I mean, are you seeing trends in your, I don't know if you've been on this job long enough so you can say, hey, we're seeing good trends, bad trends. Oh, in terms of water resources? Oh, I think it's good trends. Really, okay. I think things are equalizing and old inequities are being repaired gradually. A lot of his traditional and customary uses that were neglected for decades and they're coming, at least the opportunity to do it is coming back. Excellent, so yeah, I know on Maui there's big issues because there are agriculture, sort of some of their big agricultural areas basically stopped being sugarcane producers or pineapple producers or whatever. Now, presumably they don't need all that water to irrigate all those crops. Can they return it now so that the stream flows can return to what they used to be? And they are, they're restoring a lot of streams. Yeah, that's excellent. Streams are pretty resilient actually. Even after decades of low flow, they'll come back, I know, they recently did this in the mouth of the Colorado River and started releasing water there for the first time in probably four decades and the Delta came blooming back apparently the first year they did it rather strongly. People were very surprised how much it was ready to spring back into life. Well, they're studying those streams. East Maui, I've been working in Nahiku a lot looking at wells there and it's a rough terrain to study those streams. But that's great, that's great to know that that's coming, that's being able to come back and hopefully, but is there any sense and do we have that data yet about overall aquifer levels in Maui? Are they staying reasonably stable? As far as you know, are they filling more or are we actually draining them out fast when they're being replenished or don't we know? The major aquifer that's very heavily pumped is Eau under Wailuku Kahalui and it seems to be doing stable. But that's the one really with the one to watch and they have, they need to develop water sources out of Eau. In other places you're saying? Yeah, in other places. But there are other aquifers, as I know in Oahu there are quite a few aquifers, I don't know what the number is here, but. There are others, yeah. But yeah, again, that wouldn't make sense. You want multiple sources for your water just in case one aquifer gets contaminated or whatever, somehow or springs a leak, right? It starts draining out faster than you thought or whatever. In case of some disaster especially, yeah. Yeah, exactly, or yeah, if it's pumping systems they'll break down. You want other pumping systems, you want a redundant. That's the more likely one is pipelines. You have another place to get water. Yeah, exactly. And that's what we all wanna have is a resilient system so that we can know that our water is secure because, again, water, we can't really afford to round it. I mean, you saw that business in Cape Town just a few months ago, right? When Cape Town was coming down to day zero when they were essentially gonna have no water, they sort of narrowly missed that, I guess, and they started getting some. Very aggressive conservation. Right, yeah, excellent. And even that they're analyzing because it worked in some ways and didn't in others. Even when it was coming to a day zero. There are still people out there watering their lawns probably. Exactly, yeah. Yeah, amazing stuff, amazing stuff. So what is, if you have something to tell the viewers here, what's the key takeaway? The key takeaway, let's see. I think that we all need to contribute to preserving our water resources. Like we're all water users. Water users and we're all water users. Yeah, it's not just well owners. Therefore we must all be water stewards basically, right? Water stewards and a part of that is taking, is providing data and understanding what's happening. And we all, and every well owner has a component and actually every person knows a little bit about water resources. They see things, they see streams and they see pollution, they see things. And I think we all need to remember that. We all play a part. Absolutely. Okay, well that's great. We are running the clock down on time here and I thank you, Kevin, for being here. Kevin Gooding from Intera has been here talking about groundwater. I've learned a lot from our conversation today. And thank you for inviting me. You're more than welcome. Hope you'll come back sometime and talk further. I'm your host, Ethan Allen here and I hope you'll join us next week on Likeable Science.