KAILUA-KONA — In one week, it’ll be a year.
Hawaii County Department of Water Supply enacted a 25 percent mandatory water reduction in North Kona on Jan. 12, 2017, citing multiple deep well malfunctions limiting the region’s water supply as the reason.
Since then, the restriction was periodically upped as more wells fell out of service, and the original restriction has yet to be reduced or lifted.
On Dec. 20, the department announced repairs to the Keopu deep well were complete and that disinfection and water quality testing were commencing to ready the well for service.
DWS said when Keopu proves to operate reliably, the restriction would be downgraded to a 10 percent voluntary conservation. As of Thursday, 15 days had passed since repairs were finished.
“The 25 (percent) water restriction is still in effect until further notice,” said Department of Water Supply spokeswoman Kaiulani Matsumoto in an email Thursday. “DWS is using and evaluating (the) Keopu well as of today. DWS will notify the public on updates to the water restriction as appropriate.”
She said the department will update repair information sheets on its website by the end of the week for all offline wells.
Matsumoto also said of the three deep wells that remain inoperative, the well at Keahuolu is the department’s top priority.
Keahuolu — like the Hualalai deep well, which is second on the department’s to-do list — was repaired in 2017 only to fail again shortly after because of premature submersible equipment failure.
The Waiaha deep well is the last inoperative well the department plans to address. Repairs were ongoing at the site this summer when a cable snapped during an extraction and sent deep well equipment plummeting to the bottom of the well, where it remains.
Matsumoto said the department is working with contractors to develop firm time lines for a return to service for each of the three inoperative North Kona water sources.
The Hawaiian Ocean View Estates deep well, the only public water source serving Ocean View and the Ranchos area in Ka‘u, also remains offline. That well failed in mid-November, but DWS expects repairs will be completed sometime between the middle and end of this month, Matsumoto said.
Email Max Dible at mdible@westhawaiitoday.com.
