Portion of Lahaina removed from Unsafe Water Advisory area

County of Maui Department of Water Supply amended the Unsafe Water Advisory for Lahaina to remove L-4C, an area surrounding Safeway that moves north along Front Street to the Old Chart House in Lahaina. Water serving buildings and homes in areas L-4C on the Maui Recovers website is declared safe for unrestricted use effective today, Dec. 21, 2023.

Community members can search an address using the interactive Water Advisory Map to confirm if their address is outside or within the advisory area. 

Water may have stagnated in the plumbing of homes and buildings within areas L-4C, while the advisories were in effect, and the Department of Water Supply recommends customers flush their lines to remove any standing water in plumbing and pipes due to non-use and replace with fresh water. Lines may be flushed by opening valves and letting the faucets run for at least 10 minutes. 

Areas L-4A, and L-4D through L-6A of the fire-impacted area in Lahaina remain under the Unsafe Water Advisory until further notice. Customers within the advisory area should continue to NOT drink or boil their tap water. Boiling, freezing, filtering, adding chlorine or other disinfectants or letting water stand will not make the water safe. Bottled water or potable water provided by the County of Maui must be used for drinking (including making baby formula and juice), brushing teeth, making ice, and food preparation. Customers in the advisory area are also advised to limit water use for hygiene purposes such as showers. Failure to follow the advisory could result in illness. 

The Unsafe Water Advisory was issued on Aug. 11, 2023, as a precautionary measure due to the unknown impacts of the August 2023 Maui wildfires on the drinking water system in the area. In Upper Kula and Lahaina, structures in the water system in both areas were destroyed by the fire, and some areas in the system experienced water pressure loss. These conditions may have caused harmful contaminants to enter the water system.

The Department of Water Supply has been working closely with the Hawaiʻi State Department of Health and US Environmental Protection Agency to complete its Volatile Organic Compound investigation, isolate the system from fire damaged structures to ensure minimal potential from any contamination, and conduct ongoing water quality sampling and testing at key points throughout the system. The decision to amend the Unsafe Water Advisory for Lahaina was based on  multiple lines of evidence collected through this process.

For more information about the Unsafe Water Advisory, the Department of water Supply’s VOC investigation, as well as answers to frequently asked questions, go to mauirecovers.org/recovery/utilities.