DIRE wants waste water re-used not injected

The Maui News article on DIRE's intervention in the $million dollar plan to drill two new injection wells at Kahului could have gone into more depth.

For instance, the waters off Kanaha beach have 20 times more bacteria than normal and there has been a big jump in staph infections in swimmers, paddlers, surfers, divers and wind surfers.

When Save Kahului Harbor asked for a ball park price on piping the reclaimed water to the nearby cane fields, those figures were not available.

The two new wells are required to supply extra capacity that is required by the State.  However, reusing some of the water would achieve the same result, while saving drinking water and helping clean up shoreline water quality.

Save Kahului Harbor indicated their intention in intervening was to force the County to look at reuse rather than spending the money to drill new wells. 

Also not mentioned in the article was the EPA's signals that they could at any time demand Maui quickly phase out  injection wells...especially now that there is evidence that they are impacting ocean water quality.

Mayor Tavares is caught in a hard place.  There are revolving funds available right now from Obama's stimulus  package that could pay for either cleaning up the water to a higher standard or paying for the infrastructure to reuse the water but Gov. Lingle is refusing to allow her to apply for these funds.

The Maui News article also does not mention that part of the leachate from the dump is going through the Kahului waste water plant, adding who knows what kind of toxic and infectious waste to the stream entering the ocean.