Letters to the Editor: 9-16-17

Standing by dual pump system idea

Standing by dual pump system idea

I would like to acknowledge Mr. Bill Culhane’s letter to West Hawaii Today Sept. 7 regarding my Sept. 1 letter where I recommended that secondary wells should be added to the existing deep wells for each of the North Kona mauka water tanks.

I, too, am disappointed with our current water crisis. It’s been over eight months since the 25 percent restriction began and none of the initial four deep wells that failed has been repaired since. As a new member of the Hawaii County Water Board and a resident of North Kona, I feel that it’s also my responsibility to help solve the problem.

It’s not an afterthought that our pumps and motors should not only be robust but also reliable. Therefore, to think that 40 percent failure rate that Mr. Culhane claims that I support as acceptable is not true. I thought that instrumentation to measure critical parameters to determine whether the pumps and motors are operating properly or whether fail is imminent should be utilized. A Big Island newcomer, Mr. Richard Apothaker, wrote a letter to the Water Board and DWS where he discussed an electronic testing method called motor current signature analysis to observe electric motor deep well pump performance. I suggested to invite him to our meeting in order “pick his brain” about this method.

On top of ensuring that pumps and motors are robust and reliable, I think that the dual (primary and secondary) well system should be considered. Boeing and other aircraft manufacturers implement this method as a safety of flight design feature on all the aircraft that they build. All the critical flight systems including hydraulics, operational flight computers, etc. have primary and secondary backups. In the event that the primary system fails, the secondary system takes over resulting in a safe and uneventful flight.

I believe that properly instrumented pumps and motors and two well (dual redundant) systems could be the key to North Kona’s water reliability long into the future.

Nestorio Domingo

Hawaii County Water Board Member

Kailua-Kona

Disasters teach us to think big picture for shelters

I’ve been reading snippets of the various solutions to the house-less and homelessness issue in the island community and I am encouraged to see so many people and agencies involved.

One thing I’ve been mulling over since the recent hurricanes in Texas and Florida is how very quickly everyone in an area can end up in homeless and house-less situations. Because of this, the challenge I want to put forward is that perhaps we on the island and elsewhere need to be thinking more along the lines of permanent large-scale disaster-type shelter that can also house the ongoing chronically homeless.

Perhaps legislators can also look at the current laws regarding the use of disaster monies toward that end.

Thank you for this opportunity to put my two cents in.

Mark Keigley

Ocean View