KAILUA-KONA — Climate scientists at Stanford University project that in a worst-case scenario, rainfall across the Hawaiian Islands might decrease as much as 50 percent by the end of the century.
Other projections are less dire, but Rick Bennett, Ph.D., chairman of the Hawaii County Environmental Management Commission, said in a meeting with the Hawaii County Council Tuesday that based on the work done at Stanford, no scenario exists in which rainfall doesn’t drop significantly in coming decades.
And a reduction in rainfall, he added, is inevitably accompanied by a more limited supply of fresh water. Conservation and reuse, then, will be paramount to state and county efforts to maintain an adequate supply of drinking water in the years ahead.
According to Act 141, signed last summer by Gov. David Ige, a crucial element of this endeavor “…is the timely adoption of amendments to the state building codes, which include the Uniform Plumbing Code, to encourage water resource conservation, improvements to water distribution systems, and recovery of used water.”
Timely adoption of these codes, however, has been a challenge at both state and county levels.
The International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials updates the Uniform Plumbing Code (UPC) every three years and released the 2018 version in August. But because of adoption hurdles and timetables, some of which have been addressed by Act 141, both the state and the county have lagged behind.
Catching up
Neal Tanaka, mechanical engineer III with the Department of Public Works Building Division, explained to the council Tuesday that Hawaii County is currently operating on its adopted version of the 2006 UPC. Based on timetables, the county won’t amend and implement the state-adopted 2012 plumbing code until 2020.
“Doesn’t that seem kind of shocking?” asked Kona Councilman Dru Kanuha, adding that implementation of newer policies to aid suffering nearshore environments and subdivision water quality is something the county should prioritize.
“I just hate to see bureaucracy get in the way of these high standards we need to have in our communities,” he continued.
Tanaka said the necessary time to review codes and adjust them to county specifics is crucial to achieving the desired standards, describing it as “due process.”
Hilo Councilwoman Susan Lee Loy and Puna Councilwoman Eileen O’Hara, who chairs the Committee on Environmental Management, both pressed the need to move more quickly through the process to start addressing water usage and reclamation practices they’d like to see expeditiously improved.
Bennett said updating the UPC would give the county more room to mandate better water conservation design, such as broader utilization of WaterSense appliances that reduce water loss when people wash clothes, shower or use toilets.
“It does seem like we need to start skipping some steps here to get up to a more progressive code,” O’Hara said, pointing out that the county bypassed the 2009 plumbing code for the 2012 guidelines and suggesting perhaps the leap should have been greater.
Code adoption
Gaur Johnson chairs the State Building Code Council (SBCC), a voluntary council comprised of 11 members and connected to the Hawaii Department of Accounting and General Services.
The SBCC is charged with code adoption at the state level, and Johnson explained that based on the minutiae of the process, skipping now to the 2018 plumbing code would actually hinder state and county efforts toward better water conservation policy.
Tanaka wasn’t making excuses when he explained the timelines to the County Council. Hawaii County isn’t allowed to adopt a new code until the state does, and the most recent UPC adopted by the state was drafted in 2006. The SBCC is currently working toward adoption of the 2012 UPC.
Part of the lag time can be attributed to the fact that SBCC doesn’t just look at the plumbing code, but also the building code and several others, amending and adopting them to fit conditions in the state as appropriate. The process can take years. Counties then have two years following state adoption to amend the codes to their specifications.
Foregoing the 2012 UPC in favor of the 2018 UPC would restart the process and keep the state and county codes stuck in 2006 for at least an extra year or two.
But there’s more to it even than that. Prior to Act 141, which was signed in July, any effective updates to state codes required funds to facilitate necessary changes via the Hawaii Administrative Rules process.
The SBCC actually adopted 2009 codes, including that year’s UPC, at a state level. However, the state Legislature and the administration at the time — the two entities Johnson said share responsibility for appropriating such funds — never released the money necessary to make new codes official. Thus, the county timelines to adopt the 2009 UPC were never triggered.
“The issue isn’t that we’re not doing our job,” Johnson said. “You could give us a very quick deadline. There’s just no funds to make the process happen.”
Act 141 did away with the obstructive rules provision requiring funding the SBCC could never seem to procure and also put a two-year clock on the council to act. The 2018 plumbing codes were released in August, meaning the SBCC has until August 2019 to adopt amendments or the unamended versions automatically become the new official state guidelines.
State adoption starts a one-year clock on contractors involved in state construction to comply with code updates and also triggers a two-year clock on counties to make their own amendments. Act 141 didn’t affect these timelines, which existed before its passage.
“Because of the timeline, we just don’t have the time to do 2015,” Johnson said. “We’re going to jump 2015 and we’ve already started to develop amendments for the 2018 codes.”
That means that while Hawaii County won’t update to the 2012 UPC until the year 2020, the entire state and all the counties should be operating on 2018 standards by 2022.
Roughly four years following code publication will be about as fast as counties will ever be able to adopt new regulations, assuming they use the maximum time allotted via the amendment process.
Johnson added, however, neither the state nor the county must remain stuck in 2012. Two code updates have been published since that time, and the SBCC has reviewed those updates for consideration in the amendments it’s currently proposing for the state’s version of the 2012 UPC.
The counties can also reference guidelines from 2018 and utilize them in the amendments they decide to make to the state’s adopted 2012 UPC once it is handed down.
Essentially, Hawaii County can start working toward better water conservation as soon as the state completes its 2012 UPC amendments, which Johnson said should be within the next year.
Because the adoption cycle remains ongoing, Johnson said the public can still engage in the process. Part of the cycle includes an SBCC meeting to receive and consider public comments, which the council will consider before finalizing amendments.
The meeting has not been scheduled, but those interested can use ags.hawaii.gov/bcc as a reference, where Johnson proposed state codes will be published for review.