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Bill seeks $2.5
million yearly to
protect watersheds
A 5-cent tax would be imposed
By Bruce Dunford
on each 1,000 gallons of water used
for domestic purposes
Associated PressHawaii families would pay about $6.25 more a year to protect forested watersheds that replenish the state's vital water supplies, under a bill moving in the state Senate.
The watershed protection bill would
impose a 5-cent tax on each 1,000 gallons of water used for domestic purposes. It was approved by the Senate Committee on Water, Land and Hawaiian Affairs, and now goes to the Ways and Means Committee.
It would set up a nine-member board under the existing Commission on Water Resource Management to identify watershed areas that need protection and to recommend projects to provide that protection.
Rex Johnson, executive director of The Nature Conservancy of Hawaii, supported the measure because it would pay for personnel needed to handle erosion prevention, reforestation, alien species control and eradication, fencing and control of feral animals.
A century ago, community leaders recognized that extensive cattle grazing and other land uses were degrading the upland forests and threatening their ability to recharge Hawaii's underground aquifers and streams, the bill said.
That prompted the establishment of forest reserves and massive reforestation projects.
Since then, however, public and private investment in watershed protection and management has diminished, and the forested watersheds are steadily degrading, the bill says.
Over the last 100 years, Hawaii has lost half of its native forests.
The water tax would generate about $2.5 million a year to protect the watersheds, Johnson said.
Sen. Colleen Hanabusa (D, Nanakuli-Waianae-Makaha), chairwoman of the water committee, said, "We can talk about it, we can form wonderful commissions, but unless there are funds behind the commission to actually start to do whatever these experts feel is necessary to preserve that really great resource of ours, nothing will be done."
Honolulu Board of Water Supply spokeswoman Denise DeCosta said the board supports the concept of preserving watersheds but objects to making the county water agencies collect the tax.
"We have a hard enough time getting people to pay their water bills without adding a tax on top of it," she said.
"It's not that we don't support efforts to protect our watersheds," DeCosta said. "It's just, this is not the way to do it."
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