Oahu facing critical water shortage as residents urged to conserve
By Kristen Consillio
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HAWAII (KITV) — A statewide drought comes at an especially bad time with the closure of three critical water wells– causing alarm on Oahu.
So much so that the Honolulu Board of Water Supply is actively reaching out to its top water users — government agencies, hospitals, shopping centers and the visitor industry — for help.
“It’s certainly worrisome,” said Kevin Kodama, hydrologist at the National Weather Service. “They have some critical wells that are out you know they’re not able to provide water. And so that’s going to increase the stresses on their system and then heading into the dry season, if we don’t get a significant rainfall in the next month or so then it could really cause some problems.”
The Board of Water Supply typically doesn’t get this aggressive in conservation efforts until the summer.
But the agency said it does not know when — if ever — the Halawa shaft and Aiea and Halawa wells will be back in operation following the U.S. Navy’s water contamination at Red Hill.
The closed wells provide 50% of the water to the Aiea-Halawa area and 20% of the water to metro-Honolulu.
“It seems to be pretty scary,” said Hawaii Kai resident Dave Woo, a customer at McKinley Car Wash. “I’m concerned just from what I’ve seen on the news, you know, but you know, we’ll just have to see how it plays out.”
McKinley Car Wash said it already recycles 90% of the water used at the popular Honolulu gas station.
But for many businesses already struggling to recoup losses during the pandemic, this could be another blow.
“Sadly, it’s just one more thing that we might have to deal with,” said Kurt Yoshikawa, whose family runs the car wash. “It’s just an unfortunate situation all around that what happened at Red Hill, you know, has affected the thousands of people it did at the time, and now we’re seeing the trickle effect and it’s slowly going to impact businesses.”
The Board of Water Supply has scheduled a press conference tomorrow to urge residents to reduce water by at least 10%.
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