The Kona earthquake left hundreds with catastrophic damage to water supplies

Just two months after the low-level Kona storms, another potential disaster is unfolding on the rural southwest side of Hawaii Island. But this time, instead of having too much water, farmers and other rural people suddenly don’t have enough water.

Saturday’s 6.0-magnitude earthquake crushed and exploded water harvesting systems — large wooden and metal tanks that hold rainwater that is pumped into homes and agricultural irrigation systems. The county provides very little water to the predominantly agricultural region, and Corey Yeaton, owner of Pacific Blue Catchment Company, estimates as many as 500 people could be without water.

Kai Lin and Roy Santana, who grow coffee and macadamia in Honaunau, got up to survey damage caused by the quake shortly after 1 a.m. Sunday to discover one water tank had collapsed and another completely emptied.

Since then, the farmers have been going back and forth to a nearby public tap, a free source of drinking water provided by the Hawaii County Department of Water Supply.

“We have little 5-gallon jugs now, and we just go to the Yano Hall faucet and bring it into the house to flush the toilets, and do little baths in the bathtub,” Kaylee Santana said.

A wooden water tank collapsed after the May 23 earthquake on the island of Hawaii. (Courtesy of Mark Takizawa)

Officials are still assessing the full extent of the damage. Farmers and other residents will slowly rebuild, but it could be months before they see any financial help.

The timing could have been worse, because the quake came in the middle of the rainy season in the region. The Santana family captured the rain that had fallen since Saturday morning in two 55-gallon trash cans. They are not worried about their crops yet, but they will need to start irrigating soon if the rains stop significantly.

Ten miles south, Linda Grimes lives and grows vegetables near the epicenter. She had two full water tanks on Friday. Then, just minutes after the quake struck, more than 9,000 gallons flowed through her property.

“The cement rim around the tank exploded, punctured the liner and flooded everything,” Grimes said. “Everything that was under my house was taken out into the yard, so there was no water there because I don’t know how long, and there’s a big hole under the tank.”

Her other tank is still half full, but the pump is broken. Over the weekend, it rained on Grimes in buckets.

Sorting and damage inventory

The earthquake caused violent tremors and multiple aftershocks. Houses were moved from their foundations and old rock walls fell. It was 14 miles deep and was felt throughout the islands.

By Monday morning, Yeaton had already received “more than 100” phone calls from Kuna farmers and other rural residents.

“Most of people’s tanks exploded catastrophically,” he said. Some tanks collapsed, and the linings of many others were torn. The liners are usually attached to the ground beneath the tanks, and remained attached while the tanks themselves “traveled up to a foot” in the quake, he said.

Yeaton and employees of WaterWorks, a Hilo-based water tank supplier, “put together a task force” and spent much of the weekend responding to shocked farmers and assessing their tanks. They were sorting, with the shared understanding that the kupuna who had lost their only source of water should be first on the list.

Waterworks sent an emergency load of tank liners from Hilo on Sunday, but Yeaton said they “fully anticipate that the island will run out of steamers by the end of the week.”

Melanie Pondera, another coffee farmer based in Honaunau, said she and her husband lost all the water in one of their three tanks. On Sunday, I got on the phone and started calling neighbors, most of whom were in the same boat.

Pondera is concerned about public health in a region where access to clean water is essential to preventing diseases like leptospirosis. In the long term, she’s concerned about the toll replacing major water infrastructure will take in a community where each tank can cost tens of thousands of dollars, and where many farmers are over 65 and on fixed incomes.

The timing is particularly bad that way, she said, since many farms in the area were severely affected by the low-lying Kona floods.

“We’ve found all the resources to help everyone, and there’s really nothing for water tanks,” Pondera said. “FEMA probably wouldn’t be appropriate, because they probably wouldn’t create a federal disaster from this, and all the agricultural agencies would consider this residential, even if it’s on your farm.”

In the family home of Hawaii State Representative Janie Kabila in South Kona, a water pipe broke during the earthquake. “It’s really difficult timing,” she echoed Pondera’s concerns.

Capella added that it took some time to announce the watershed issue because of the weekend and Saturday’s local graduation ceremony, which brought families back to Konawaena High School for the first time since March. Flooding from low-level Kona storms destroyed 70% of the school’s teaching spaces and students finished their school year from home.

Classrooms at Konawaena High School faced significant damage and flooding after the first low-lying Kona storm in March, closing the school and moving students to virtual learning for the rest of the year. (Courtesy of Konawaena High School)

“I don’t think — at the state level or county level — we captured the full extent of what this damage looked like Friday night,” Capella said.

She urged people to fill out a damage report with the Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency. Once the government has a count, she said she hopes the county can access disaster funding through Aloha United Way and Vibrant Hawaii — the same groups that stepped up in response to recent storms.

Talmadge Magno, director of the Defense Agency, said the agency had received 145 reports as of Tuesday morning. It’s not possible to break down damage to water systems because it’s not a category in the questionnaire, though he said the agency plans to add questions about loss of water systems and other facilities to the form moving forward.

So far, about half of the reports the agency has reviewed are for homes that were either destroyed or severely damaged, and Magno said he expects the majority of those reports “likely have issues with the water tank system as well.”

Magno said the mayor’s office is working to declare a state of emergency because of the level of response and degree of damage the defense agency has seen so far. Although the agency has never had this problem, he said it was monitoring the water closely during the recent drought — and the two scenarios have a lot in common.

“It’s just part of life on Hawaii Island, where there are a lot of people in the watershed,” he said.

In the coming days, the Authority will monitor the level of activity on the taps spread throughout the island and monitor the demand from the companies that deliver water. Public agencies on the island will send so-called water buffalo — large trailer tankers — to provide additional water, if needed, Magno said.

A county where access to water is not a given

South Kona’s rainy season is becoming less predictable, but typically lasts from April to October — a window that suggests residents will be smart to repair and replace their tanks as soon as possible to take advantage of remaining rain.

But rather than focusing solely on individual farmers’ struggle to get back online, Pondera says the earthquake may also provide an opportunity to consider the value of expanding the province’s water infrastructure in the face of ongoing extreme weather events. It’s an idea she and other farmers have floated before, but it always hit a wall.

KayLynne and Ron Santana’s water tank was destroyed by a weekend earthquake, prompting them to capture the rain in two 55-gallon trash cans. (Courtesy: Kaylyn Santana)

“I was blown away at community development meetings when they said, ‘There’s no plan, there won’t be a plan to put water infrastructure up the hill in South Kona,’ and I said, ‘We can’t even talk about that?’ And they said no,” she said.

Chantal Chung, a former University of Hawaii Sea Grant Program extension assistant and co-founder of a community garden and compost space in South Kona, said she has spent years educating farmers about rainwater harvesting. She sees reliance on watersheds and the resulting lack of regulation as a double-edged sword.

“People have absolute freedom to collect their own rainwater, which is great,” Chung said. “Water sovereignty is great.” But with that freedom comes a lack of support from the county when it comes to creating and maintaining watershed systems.

Chung said she believes the county should provide water to more rural residents, but since she lost her job when the county cut funding for extension agents, she sees it as unlikely there will be funding to expand the county’s water system beyond its current footprint any time soon.

“There is no lack of political will there,” she said. “There are a lot of people who know exactly how important this is, but it’s getting there.”

In the meantime, Chung says public taps are definitely better than nothing. And for at least the next few months, those in South Kona and Kau are likely to get a lot of use.

Civil Beat’s reporting on freshwater issues is funded in part by the Ulupono Fund at the Hawaii Community Foundation.

What Are The Main Benefits Of Comparing Car Insurance Quotes Online

LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / June 24, 2020, / Compare-autoinsurance.Org has launched a new blog post that presents the main benefits of comparing multiple car insurance quotes. For more info and free online quotes, please visit https://compare-autoinsurance.Org/the-advantages-of-comparing-prices-with-car-insurance-quotes-online/ The modern society has numerous technological advantages. One important advantage is the speed at which information is sent and received. With the help of the internet, the shopping habits of many persons have drastically changed. The car insurance industry hasn't remained untouched by these changes. On the internet, drivers can compare insurance prices and find out which sellers have the best offers. View photos The advantages of comparing online car insurance quotes are the following: Online quotes can be obtained from anywhere and at any time. Unlike physical insurance agencies, websites don't have a specific schedule and they are available at any time. Drivers that have busy working schedules, can compare quotes from anywhere and at any time, even at midnight. Multiple choices. Almost all insurance providers, no matter if they are well-known brands or just local insurers, have an online presence. Online quotes will allow policyholders the chance to discover multiple insurance companies and check their prices. Drivers are no longer required to get quotes from just a few known insurance companies. Also, local and regional insurers can provide lower insurance rates for the same services. Accurate insurance estimates. Online quotes can only be accurate if the customers provide accurate and real info about their car models and driving history. Lying about past driving incidents can make the price estimates to be lower, but when dealing with an insurance company lying to them is useless. Usually, insurance companies will do research about a potential customer before granting him coverage. Online quotes can be sorted easily. Although drivers are recommended to not choose a policy just based on its price, drivers can easily sort quotes by insurance price. Using brokerage websites will allow drivers to get quotes from multiple insurers, thus making the comparison faster and easier. For additional info, money-saving tips, and free car insurance quotes, visit https://compare-autoinsurance.Org/ Compare-autoinsurance.Org is an online provider of life, home, health, and auto insurance quotes. This website is unique because it does not simply stick to one kind of insurance provider, but brings the clients the best deals from many different online insurance carriers. In this way, clients have access to offers from multiple carriers all in one place: this website. On this site, customers have access to quotes for insurance plans from various agencies, such as local or nationwide agencies, brand names insurance companies, etc. "Online quotes can easily help drivers obtain better car insurance deals. All they have to do is to complete an online form with accurate and real info, then compare prices", said Russell Rabichev, Marketing Director of Internet Marketing Company. CONTACT: Company Name: Internet Marketing CompanyPerson for contact Name: Gurgu CPhone Number: (818) 359-3898Email: [email protected]: https://compare-autoinsurance.Org/ SOURCE: Compare-autoinsurance.Org View source version on accesswire.Com:https://www.Accesswire.Com/595055/What-Are-The-Main-Benefits-Of-Comparing-Car-Insurance-Quotes-Online View photos