Brief water outage impacts section of North Kona

KAILUA-KONA — A day after officials expressed the imperative need for public compliance with the mandatory 25 percent water usage reduction in North Kona, water stopped flowing in a portion of West Hawaii.

The timing of the stoppage Tuesday morning was coincidental, but it was also something Department of Water Supply Manager and Chief Engineer Keith Okamoto warned consumers about in an article published in WHT only a few hours before.

Okamoto explained Monday that power glitches could have massive ripple effects leading to imposed service disruptions because water stores have diminished due to four concurrently inoperable wells in North Kona’s 13-well system.

He wrote in an email to WHT Tuesday afternoon that such a glitch was precisely what occurred Tuesday morning, which caused the pumps in the Kahaluu shaft to shut down — an automatic response to protect themselves in the event of a power issue.

“By the time we were aware and restarted the pumps, the water level in the tank had dropped to a few feet,” Okamoto said. “There were some customers that were without water for a period (Tuesday) morning.”

Multiple social media posts originating on Sea View Circle noted that water wasn’t running in the area.

DWS was able to restore tank levels to normal by mid-afternoon, but the event highlighted both the fragile nature and the volatility of the water situation in North Kona, which won’t be alleviated to any degree before the end of July unless the more than 11,000 accounts in the region cut back on usage.

The deepwell at Waiaha is expected to come back online late next month, while the deepwells at Palani and Hualalai are projected to be operational in late October and late November, respectively.

Okamoto said Monday he’s hopeful both of those wells might return ahead of schedule.