Committee advances bill to expand special flood hazard areas

Members of the Maui County Council’s Water and Infrastructure Committee have recommended full Council passage of a bill to establish, administratively, a process to expand regulated special flood hazard areas in the Maui County Code.

Bill 28 would allow additional flood-prone areas to be included in special flood hazard areas for flood insurance purposes. According to a Feb. 14 letter from Department of Public Works Director Jordan Molina, the County has regulated development in special flood hazard areas since 1981, and designation as a so-called SFHA is required for the County’s participation in the National Flood Insurance Program.

That program allows communities to have subsidized flood insurance premiums, federal disaster money in times of a federal disaster declaration, disaster loans and federal mortgage insurance for buildings in special flood hazard areas.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency defines the special flood hazard area as having a high flood risk from overflowing rivers, coastal flooding or localized flooding. The agency identifies flood-prone areas on insurance rate maps. The last such map for Maui County was updated in 2015.

In other action, the committee voted to recommend first-reading passage of Bill 19, which would authorize the mayor to enter into an intergovernmental agreement with the US Geological Survey for the first phase of a three-phase groundwater availability study in West Maui.

A copy of the joint funding agreement and a summary and detailed description of the water investigation project can be found here as attachments to a memorandum from committee Chair Tom Cook.

According to the project summary, future demand for water from the Launiupoko aquifer system of West Maui is expected to increase. “However, direct information on the thickness of the freshwater lens in the area is lacking, which creates a void in understanding the current status of the groundwater resource,” it says. “A deep monitor well in the area would help to fill the current information void and provide data to track changes in the freshwater lens over time as groundwater development in the area increases, which will help water managers evaluate whether the resource is being developed in a sustainable manner.”

The estimated cost of the study’s first phase is $150,000. Details about the other two phases will be determined later. The USGS anticipates contributing to the total cost of the project, depending on the availability of federal funding.

The committee also recommended approval of Bill 16, which authorizes payment of $28,062 to the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relation’s Hawaiʻi Occupational Safety and Health Division for 19 violations of safety and health standards at the Kīhei Wastewater Reclamation Facility noted during an inspection in July 2024.

According to the draft bill and supporting documents, the violations ranged from “serious” to “other than serious” were corrected. Because of the corrections, an initial fine of $40,089 was reduced to $28,062.

The committee’s actions were taken Monday. An Akakū Maui Community Media video of the meeting is available here. All of the bills advance to the full Council for the first of two readings.