KAILUA-KONA — The Hawaii County Department of Water Supply was hopeful it could return the Honokohau Deepwell to service by early next week, but those hopes were dashed by news coming out of the repair site Friday.
DWS released a statement Friday afternoon indicating the spare motor it intended to install in the recently downed deepwell is “defective and cannot be used.”
The motor, along with an accompanying pump, was diverted from a deepwell in Waimea, for which it was originally ordered. DWS made that decision to create a safety net in case something like the failure at the Honokohau Deepwell occurred, as the two wells require parts with similar specs.
The department will now have to pursue another route to repairing Honokohau, one of the North Kona system’s anchor wells, with a capacity of 2 million gallons. There is no timetable yet for the well’s return to service but in situations where new parts must be ordered, repairs typically take months.
The motor found to be defective Friday was fresh. It hadn’t been previously installed in any other well or used in any other capacity. Its malfunction is the most recent incidence of premature equipment failure in a long chain of such instances over the last several months.
Such issues have been the cause of failures — or at least contributed to them — at the Keahuolu, Hualalai, Palani and Waiaha deepwell sites, as well as the site at Honokohau when it initially broke down Sunday and the most recent problems there Friday.
DWS last Sunday issued the most severe water usage restrictions to date since the first mandatory 25 percent usage reduction went out in January. The most recent mandates include halting all irrigation and the washing of vehicles and boats.
Restrictions have only been this stringent one other time, for a week at the beginning of July when Keahuolu went down and brought the number of inoperative wells in North Kona up to five. There are 13 wells that service the system.
When Honokohau went down last Sunday, the number again rose to five. It is likely now to remain there for several weeks, as repairs at three currently downed wells aren’t scheduled for completion until October, November and December.
DWS acknowledged the difficulty of protracted restrictions on North Kona’s roughly 11,000 accounts in its release Friday.
“The Department of Water Supply sincerely appreciates the community’s efforts to restrict water use during this time,” the release read. “Adjustments have been made to the water system and a minimum level of water service is being maintained. However, without everyone’s continued cooperation, there will be areas that will experience periodic loss of water service or lower water pressures.”
Keith Okamoto, manger and chief engineer at DWS, said earlier this week that tank levels were holding steady, attributing that to community cooperation.
Friday was a state holiday and DWS offices were closed. Department officials did not respond to email requests for comment by press time Friday.