When to Visit Kauai

Based on my experience visiting here and living here, here is my answer to the common question of what to consider when planning the timing of a visit. Tourism is active all year round but there are peaks and low volume seasons. When tourism is up you can count on higher rates and lower availability for lodging and rental cars so expect to plan further ahead and to pay more.

Weather trends are reliable but exactly what the weather will be on a given day seems increasingly hard to predict. Even during the cooler and wetter season it could well be hot and rainless, and vice versa.
Key dates are listed below with understanding that obviously the crowds ramp up several days before and after holidays - i.e. the Christmas / New Year peak season starts around December 20 and tails off after the first week in January.

Christmas - New Year	cool/wet	Very crowded	Busiest time of the year
January - April	cool/wet	Moderately crowded	Busier around holidays
May	moderate	Less crowded	Busier after Memorial Day
June	warmer/drier	Moderately crowded	Busier after schools are out
July - Labor Day	warmest/driest	Crowded	Beaches especially crowded
September - October	warmer/drier	Less crowded	Less busy after school starts
November - December	cooler/wetter	Less crowded	Thanksgiving week is busy

Other seasonal considerations include:

• Hurricanes season in the Pacific runs from summer to fall with September as prime time.
• The Garden Island is colorful all year around but late spring to early summer blooms peak.
• Tropical fruit is especially abundant in the summer time.
• Learn about the Hawaii climate.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
Hi	77.9	77.8	78.2	79.2	81.1	83.0	84.0	84.6	84.8	83.3	80.8	78.6	81.1
Lo	65.0	65.1	66.4	68.2	70.0	72.3	73.5	74.0	73.5	72.0	70.1	67.2	69.8
Rain	5.24	3.61	4.73	2.89	2.63	1.68	2.02	2.00	2.36	4.30	5.18	5.13	41.76

• Source: Average Lihue montyly weather (1950-2005)
• Average Temperatures in Fahrenheit, Rainfall in inches

Kalaheo water details

There has been interest in details I have been writing up here from folks in the community, so here are some more. I hope it is of interest.

Most of today water department trucks were gathered at the entrance to Kakela Makai around a hole in the road working on something.

Gauging the water level in the tank

Today I learned from a citizen in the Kakela Makai area how you can tell the level of water in the supply tanks, i.e. how close the community is to running out of water.

Along Puu Road on the makai side of the Kukuiolono golf course there is a big green water tank. The GPS location is approximately (21.912192,-159.523775) or see Google map.

Along the right side of the tank is a white vertical bar that has an indicator that goes up and down: see the yellow arrow in photo at left. This is attached to a pulley at the top, over, and down into the tank connected to a float to measure the water level. The further up this indicator goes the lower down the float is and vice versa. This shot (June 2, 3pm) shows the indicator about 1/4 from the top (dashed yellow line) which means the water lever is roughly 1/4 from empty (dashed blue line below). As the indicator moves lower it means there is more water in the tank (and if you look closely at the Google Street view at the link above, the indicator is down a few feet from ground level) showing normal very full supply.

Kalaheo's wells and water tanks

The two wells that have both failed causing this water shortage are mauka side uphill from the highway, approximately at (21.938187,-159.525099) according to the map provided at the water department meeting on Saturday. There is a water tank near the wells and another tank (100,000 gallon) further uphill on Puuwai Road.

On the other side of the highway to the south in addition to the Puu Road tank shown above, there is a (250,000 gallon) tank up near the northeast edge of the Kukuiolono golf course, roughly at (21.9180151,-159.5261859).

What about all the other water?

At the water department meeting one good question was about potentially using Alexander Reservoir (21.9570011,-159.5243735) which is just uphill from the highest mauka tank and presumably contains lots of water. Chief Engineer Saiki responded that the water treatment facility for the reservoir was damaged in Iniki (major hurricane) and have been abandoned. Restoring the treatment facility probably doesn't make sense as an interim measure since it would take considerable time and expense, probably repairing the wells is cheaper and faster. Additionally, since this isn't a department of water reservoir (it seems to be private) it isn't even part of the system as I understand it. This explanation makes sense to me. 

Another question was about the nearby Kauai Coffee fields having water while the adjoining neighborhoods in Kalaheo don't. The coffee fields are supplied by private agricultural water system not part of the department of water and since it is non-potable water it isn't clear how they could even usefully share even if they wanted to. That said, so see all that water running in ditches when you have none in the tap is hard to ignore.

Kauai new ordinances

After all the Bill 2491 / Ordinance 960 hubbub last year the legislative activities of the county council have been relatively quite. I recently heard about new county legislation to address the long-standing issue of dealing with barking dogs had passed but it took quite an effort to find it online. This seems like a good reminder so I managed to dig up all the recent new county law.

Here is a summary with links to the actual details. Obviously the law is more complicated than a simple summary so read the linked text if you want to understand the details.

Ordinance 960 - "The Bill" (more precisely Bill 2491) about pesticides and GMO.

Ordinance 961 - Repeals temporary exemptions to ease rebuilding after Hurricane Iniki (well over twenty years ago). Specifically, repeals Ordinances 642, 649, 653, 689, and 716.

Ordinance 962 - Provides exemption from solid waste dumping fees for volunteer public space cleanups.

Ordinance 965 - Provides mandatory licensing for pet cats.

Ordinance 966 - Extends the deadline for homeowners to apply for the Home Preservation Tax Limit (a low income property tax reduction) this year.

Ordinance 967 - Barking dog law.

Ordinance 968 - Changes some fees for solid waste disposal and incorporates the public cleanup exemption of Ordinance 962.

Ordinance 969 - Updates county vehicle tax raising rates.

I do not know why numbers 963-964 were skipped.

The barking dog ordinances carefully defines nuisance barking and imposes escalating fines after an attempt at remediation. A dog violates the ordinance if it "barks, bays, cries, or howls intermittently for a period of twenty (20) minutes within a thirty (30) minute period of time, or continuously or incessantly for a period of ten (10) minutes." It's not easy to define exactly what constitutes a problem but I'm not sure this is the definition I would come up with. I am not a lawyer but I think like art it is something people generally recognize when they see hear it.

Let's hope nobody has a dog next door that barks for nine minutes continuously then takes a six minute rest as I don't believe that qualifies as a violation!

It's nice to see the council addressing contentious issues without an island-wide firestorm. Hope it works.

County council race update

With the filing deadline a few days away here is an updated list of candidates (as of 30 May) vying to get on the primary ballot.

The council's latest appointment Mason K. Chock, Sr. has now filed so all incumbents should be on the ballot ... with the surprising exception of council chair J. Furfaro who has not yet filed nomination papers.

Question mark (?) indicates candidates who have not completed filing. Candidates file and receive papers that they must returned with voter signatures to get on the ballot. June 3 is the deadline to file nomination. Next step to getting on the ballot is for the nomination papers to be validated by election officials to ensure they have the requisite number of voter signatures.

New candidates since last time I reviewed the field are in italics.

1. ? Dominic C. Acain - Kekaha
2. ? William U. Asing - Lihue
3. Arthur Brun - Kekaha, works for Syngenta (biotechnology corporation)
4. Tim L. Bynum (i) - Kapaʻa, recently won settlement to lawsuit against the county in court
5. Mason K. Chock, Sr. (i) - Kapaʻa
6. Felicia E. Cowden - Kilauea, prominent local radio personality
7. ? Vince E. Flores - Lawai
8. ? J. Furfaro (i) - Princeville, current chair of the council
9. Joanne Georgi - Eleele, ran for state senate unsuccessfully in 2010
10. ? Eva Hoopii - Kapaʻa
11. Gary L. Hooser (i) - Kapaʻa
12. Ronald J. Horoshko - Kalaheo, operates the golf course cafe Birdie's
13. Joseph H. Kaauwai, Jr. - Anahola
14. Ross K. Kagawa (i) - Lihue
15. Ernest L. Kanekoa, Jr. - Kalaheo, police commission member
16. Arryl J. Kaneshiro - Lihue
17. ? Sandra I. Klutke - Kapaʻa
18. Kipukai L.P. Kuaalii - Anahola
19. Tiana K. Laranio - Kapaʻa
20. Arnold W. F. Leong - Hanapepe
21. ? Toi Pualaa Norwood - Lihue
22. Darryl D. Perry - Lihue, chief of police
23. Melvin F. Rapozo (i) - Kapaʻa
24. JoAnn A. Yukimura (i) - Lihue

Kalaheo water meeting

Chief Engineer Kirk Saiki & Mayor Carvalho

I attended the community meeting about the water outage here: not a lot of new information but it was good to meet and get everyone together.

Repairs are expected to take about six weeks: most of that delay is time to get a replacement for the part that broke which must be custom made to order. Until repairs are completed all of Kalaheo is asked to voluntarily minimize water usage.

A lot of talk about people who do have water pressure being unaware of the restriction and over consuming. There are two holding tanks on each side of the highway and if you are near the bottom of the area served by a tank you have the best chance of getting water - on the high side if the tank goes empty you are first to lose service. Clearly the meeting was heavily attended by people who had lost water but it's the other folks who need to get the word.

"Connect-CTY" is the county's automated communications system they want everyone to sign up for. Lots of people who heard about it were unable to figure out the web site and it is hard to find and use. To sign up, click this and then click the "Add my contact info" button. You will have to fill out a form and go through another page (called CAPCHA). One problem I have had is that the system sends the same notice three times - by email, by recorded phone message, by SMS text - which is quite annoying.

While it is fine to ask people to signup for this notification service, this incident demonstrates it is not widely used. I would like to know how long this system has been deployed and how many signups they have. I suspect without more aggressively getting people to register it will be hard to reach everyone.

• Latest press release
• News coverage video

The unfortunate background of this problem came out a bit at the meeting that suggests that this may have been avoidable. January 29 the primary well failed and an emergency procurement request was prepared and approved by the water board in February but somehow work did not begin promptly. When questioned about the delay a county attorney responded explaining that "contract and bonding" issues resulted in a delay, and also mentioned that the contractor took "three weeks" to execute the contract and suggested the paperwork was not properly done. Nearly four months went by with no work on the well and then the backup well failed last week. Somehow once the second failure occurred the paperwork got sped up and within a couple days work on the primary well began. Exactly what happened was not revealed: possibly the months-old contracting delay just happened to resolve coincidentally or (what seems more likely to me) with increased urgency a fire was lit under whoever was slowing down the process. This meeting was not the time or place for investigating exactly what happened but in time we deserve to be told why nearly four months was insufficient to repair the primary while we still had backup, completely avoiding all of this.

There are voluntary restrictions being asked to limit water consumption to "essential uses" but I wonder how effective they are. Since they read meters monthly the department will get water usage numbers for Kalaheo residents and should be able to see on a customer basis. I would rather see a suggested amount of water rather than permitted and disallowed usages. If I use less water taking a short shower and washing some clothes that's better than using more water taking a bath. The county directive specifies "limiting" laundry but I don't know quite what that means. At the presentation they suggested using coin laundries in neighboring towns but I doubt they have the capacity for over a thousand households on top of the existing customer base.

What I was hoping to hear but did not was anything the department would do differently in future to avoid repetitions. 

• Faster procurement, approval, funding, contracting for emergency repairs.
• Better information about water outage and restrictions on use to mitigate the problem.

It was very heartening to hear several citizens politely thank the department for their efforts and urge the community to "pull together" and overall a good spirit of aloha was in force.

Kalaheo water supply update

The recent 48 hour water service failure has provided a window in the operation of the Kauai Department of Water in providing clean, safe drinking water - a service too easy to take for granted. Since yesterday afternoon water service has been working for me here so that's real progress.

This part of Kalaheo gets water from who wells near the golf course area at the top of the hill makai of the highway.

Four months ago on January 29 the main well failed and the department responded by requesting a contractor to perform necessary repairs[1]. The emergency procurement request states specifically that the contractor, Oasis Water System, commits to mobilize their rig "same day" the department orders the job. The next mention of this emergency request I could find was two months later[2] contract #581 was awarded as requested (the date of Notice to Proceed is not listed but presumably is before April 24). So repair on the primary well should have been underway at least a month ago.

Then the backup well failed last weekend. "The Department was executing a contract for the repairs to Well no. 1, but before the contractor got started, Well no. 2 was damaged on Sunday, May 25, 2014. "[3]

The latest timeline: "DOW estimates 4-6 weeks to fully restore Kalaheo well damage; Temporary measures should improve water service by early next week"[4] It's unclear if this means repairing the backup well or also the primary well. Temporary pipe was put in across the highway last night which I suppose allows water from the mauka reservoir to be shared with the rest of Kalaheo.

Open questions include:

• Why did it take one to two months to approve an emergency repair request?
• Did the contract indeed start work "same day" and what is the status of that work?

[1] Water board minutes of February 14, 2014: page 51-53.
[2] Water board minutes of April 24, 2014: page 158.
[3] Water department reply to comment on Kauai DOW facebook page.
[4] Water department announcement on Kauai DOW facebook post.

Currently the mainland is facing severe drought conditions in much of the southwest and south central regions. This is a much bigger problem than fixing a couple of broken wells. In the map below the black, red, and orange areas represent exceptional, extreme, and severe drought conditions, respectively. The past two days have demonstrated to me personally that running low on water very quickly impacts daily life. What we can do is raise awareness and act to address these challenges. What we mustn't do is ignore the situation and continue taking our water supply for granted.

No Water in Kalaheo

The water has been off here in Kalaheo since yesterday afternoon. The Kauai Department of Water is providing non-potable water tanks for residents to use at these locations:

• at the Kalaheo neighborhood center
• opposite the Kukuiolono golf course entrance, at Papalina & Puu Road

Apparently this area is served by two wells and both are broken. There is no estimate how long it will take to restore service.

Latest details are posted here.

UPDATE (Thursday 5/29/14 AM): Still no water on third day - that's zero water. If we had any water pressure at any point the toilet tank would have filled to the shutoff and it has not.

This morning saw Department of Water truck working along the road just across the street. The word from neighbors is that there was a leaky valve apparently that someone reported when they saw water gushing out. So it seems that even though they have been trucking water to fill the holding tanks uphill only a little was reaching the most downhill homes here and most of it was being wasted. This would explain why we haven't seen even a drop.

The good news is that with people out to collect water and observe repairs, curious about what's being done to alleviate our shared problem, I've met more of the neighbors. It seems it takes something like this to get people out of the houses where you have a chance to commiserate.

Note to Department of Water: for safety please label the water tanks provided as potable or non-potable. From the updates, both types are being set out and since there has already been one correction as to location of which it would be reassuring to know without doubt whether it is safe to drink the water provided at a given location. Also, it would be good to have authoritative information on how to safely store and use potable water. Here's the CDC's advice for water storage and use ... it begins with washing containers with soap and (safe) water so if you didn't have that prepared ahead one is kind of stuck.

FINAL UPDATE (Thursday 5/29/14 AM): Water is back on after 48 hours! Pressure seems a little low but it's plenty. The Department of Water left a case of bottled water on the porch with a letter of apology. The letter states that they hope to have a plan and timeline for repair "by the end of this week".

I have never experienced long-term water outage before and I certainly learned how important fresh water is to comfortable everyday life and we totally take it for granted. Losing electricity is inconvenient, but I would gladly chose that over no running water.

Perhaps in a small way I can being to imagine how 780 million people live without access to fresh water. Unlike all these people I could drive in my car on paved roads to fetch water, get a shower at a friend's place, and borrow a washing machine, and still it was a big impact.

Mars landing test

NASA is gearing up for a test of a payload landing system for an upcoming Mars mission on Kauai.
Tentative test dates are scheduled for the first half of June. The test will be done at PMRF on the west side. No mention of public viewing opportunity unfortunately.

For full details see coverage on the NASA site.

Learn about the Low-density Supersonic Decelerator project.