Aloha ladies and gentlemen. We are just a few minutes behind today beginning the 35th session of the Communications Reports and Council Oversight Committee. Today is October 1st, 2024. The time is 417 p.m. joining us today here in the Hawaii County Building in Hilo. Our council member Evans, council member Caguata, council member Cunley-Ekline Felder, council member Kimball, council member Inaba, and council member Galimba. Excuse right now our council member Kirkowitz and council member Liloi. My name is Rebecca Villegas and I am the chair of this committee. At this time, we will see if we have any testifiers. No testifiers today. Okay, so with that, let's go ahead and just go in order here. Can you go ahead and read in? Communication 322.5. Communication 322.5, quarterly affordable housing report, April 1 through June 30, 2020, from Housing Administrator Susan Coon stated, August 29, 2024, our Transmitted Report pursuant to Section 11-19 of the Hawaii County Code. Chair, motion to close file and communication 322.5. It's been moved by Council Member Kimball and seconded by Council Member Inaba. And with that up and we're going to Zoom and I see Administrator Coons there for us. Take it away Administrator Coons. Hi, good afternoon. Chair Villegas and members of the Communications Reports and Council Oversight Committee. I am today giving you our quarterly report, OECD's quarterly report for the period. Let's see. April 1, 2024 to June 30, 2024. And for this period, I don't have any activity to report. You can see that there were no new units being added, whether for sale or for rent, developed, conveyed. Any, there were no additional housing credits that were issued or transferred. There were no changes to our affordable housing inventory. This for this period as well, but I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have. Thank you, administrative coots. Any comments or questions from the council? Council member Galimba. Thank you. Just a quick question Susan, do you hope to track all of like non-affordable housing starts at all? Just market? No. Not at all. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you council member Kimbo. Council member Connie Wannock. Thank you. Administrator, so we don't count things like the Salvation Army caught thing because it's not in space that we own and manage. Is that why that would not be as a shelter bed? Yeah, you know, hmm that's a good question. And those are, you know, they're shelter, caught sleeping, overnight caught sleeping. It's not even like it's a housing unit. So what we've been recording would be in the way of homelessness will be shelter units. Oh, I just realized that it didn't open till after this time period. So you're still good. Just get it in the next report. Okay, so maybe I do need to consider if that's something that we would add onto an inventory list. Let me give that some thought. Okay, thank you. I appreciate that. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Of course. I yield. Thank you, Councilmember Connie Lee, Kleinfelder. Thank you. Hi, Susan. Hi. How you doing? Good. You doing good. That's wonderful. Will you say you've been better? Did I say that? Yeah, did you say that? No. OK, OK. Good. I'm telling me good. I'm talking to me good. All right, I have a question for you. So I'm looking over the report. Is this, is there a way for us to quantify how many units we've made created, built in the past four years? You know, the dashboard that we recently went live with would account for any of that. And as I'm thinking through your question, everything that's on this inventory list, affordable housing inventory list would include any of the activity that happened within the last four years actually. But not specifically what happened in the last four years. Some of these are existing already, correct? Yes. Yes. Okay. I'd be interested in all that number. Would you, okay. If it's okay, you can do it. So like this, I mean, yeah, so we could look on the dashboard for sure and be able to pull some of those numbers But if you want me to give you some totals, I could I could do that Yeah, maybe get it be the chance Sure Okay, thank you Are you Thank you, Mr. Connelly, you client-felder Mrs. Evans. Thank you Hello, director Coons Councilmember Evans here. My question is, so there was no action on the status report of developers in possession of these excess credits. So how long does it take if there is a developer that needs to have affordable housing and they decide they want to go and purchase or purchase them. Kind of what it is, there's a take a while for you to know that the developer is doing that. Or is this only when, I guess what I'm getting at is, well, you know if someone's working on an affordable housing project and pursuing the use of these excess credits, will they tell you that when they come in to say they want to do an affordable housing? Or you just wait until, I mean, how do you know? How do I know? Yeah. So the housing developers would either through the planning department or by direct contact with us would be working either, especially if they want to utilize tools like the 201H, or if they say, for example, triggered chapter 11 by doing some type of rezone, would have to be working directly with my office on a project. And through that process, they would learn what their affordable requirement would be for that project. And at that time, they would determine whether or not they are going to meet that requirement by building it on site or any of the options that are listed in chapter 11 and certainly utilizing credits is is still currently one of the options. They would have to go through a process with us to determine what is available, who has them available, are they within the myo range that it was developed or generated? So many criteria would need to be determined. We would have to certify that the credits that they're looking at are actual credits that we would recognize and then do a process where the transfer are. So, in any way, they would have to come through the housing office in order to start that process. Thank you for that information. I think that's informative. I looked at it and I went, oh, I guess somebody's people aren't building. I'm not seeing any movement on these credits. And if we saw a movement on the credits, it means people are building. I'm not seeing any movement on these credits and if we saw moving on the credits it means people are building. So anyway I'm hopeful that- I mean but there are projects that don't use that option. So you know it doesn't necessarily mean because there is no movement on the credits on this report that there isn't housing production. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Aya. Thank you, Council Member Evans, Council Member Nabba. Thank you. I just wanna thank your office administrator, Koonz, for this report, especially with the live version on the dashboard. Now we have that live access to data, but to have a snapshot on a quarterly basis. And you know me, I'm quick to point out the reports I don't like, but I think we've landed on a really good place with the formatting of this report. So just want to thank you and your team for putting this together. Thank you so much. Thank you. Chera Yul. Thank you so much. Thank you. Cher, are you? Thank you, Council Member Nava. With that, just a quick wrap up. Personally and professionally, I'm glad to see that none of the Affordable Housing Credits have been used because I would prefer that developers actually build the affordable housing that our community needs so desperately. Those affordable housing credits are quite. It's kind of scary how much money they represent as far as value versus however many homes we could utilize. So thanks for pointing that out. Councilmember Evans, appreciate that. And I don't think I have any other questions. So thank you Administrator Coons for also streamlining and keeping this report has become It's the same each time so we know which appendix represents which information so it makes it much easier to to go through it and be familiar with and Automatically see any changes. Great. Good. All right. All those in favor of closing file on communication 322.5? Please say aye. We have seven council members in favor with council Member Kirkowitz and Council Member Lee Loy. Excuse. Moving on to Communication 1058. Certainly testimony for Communication 1058. Hearing none, Communication 1058 request an update for the US Forest Reserve and Arizona State University regarding the rich to reef decision support tools from Council Member Heather Elkimble dated September 16, 124 and Concussion 1058.1. From Council Member Heather Elkimble dated September 23, 23, 2024, transmitting a slide deck from the US Forest Reserve in Arizona State University. Go ahead and hand this over to Council Member Kimble. Motion to close by on the communication 1058. All right. Been moved by council member Kimball and secited by council member eNaba. Council member Kimball. All right. Thank you chair. If you guys recall about a year ago, we had Mr. Guarra join us along with Mr. Dr. Christian Jardina in the back there and give us an introduction to the decision support tools that they were working on for our island. Since we had the presentation by the decision theater a couple of years ago and they've made some pretty significant progress on the build out of this tool. I wanted to have them come back in and give you an update on the build out of this tool. I wanted to have them come back in and give you an update on the status of the different tools that they're working on. And I think it's gonna be easiest if I just pass it over to Gina right now. We have a whole bunch of people visiting us that are part of this project. So she'll do the introductions and take us through the slides. So it's all yours Gina. It's on, it's on. Yeah, okay. and take us through this slide. So that's all yours Gina. It's on. Yeah. OK. Aloha noi. I'm so stoked and humbled to be back with you guys. Also, I feel like it's an exciting day to be here. So thank you for having us. Just a brief background. I'm from Puna, born and raised in Mountain View. My parents are from Hawaiian beaches down lower Puna area, but super stoked to be here and represent we have an amazing team that's visiting and I'll introduce you to them but just to reiterate give you a brief background on our project we are doing decision support in three geographies on Hawaii Island I don't know if I need to be this close I I do. Okay. We have North Kunnan, South Kohala, Outland and Blue, North Hilo and Hamakua, Outland and Yellow, and South Kunna, Outland and Red. And so each of these three geographies have their own, as you guys understand, representing them, their own embassies and different specific topics. So my colleagues are going to walk us through each wine in the embassies and different specific topics. So my colleagues are gonna walk us through each wine in the embassies, but just briefly, North Kunan, South Kohala, we are focused on fire and sediment modeling, North Hulu, Hama Kua, invasive species mapping, and South Kunan, the embassies is on wastewater contaminant flow into near shore ecosystems. So just to introduce our team, we have me. I'm a postdoctoral ecologist at the Forest Service Christian Gerardina who's here in the back. I have, you guys can shout out your names or Paul Hesberg visiting from Washington. Brian Salter also visiting from Washington. Alex Tullier, our hydrologist from originally from France, works with UH, Rachel Shenaker from Washington and Jennifer Holging from New Mexico, Texas, New Mexico. Yeah, Southwest. And I'm terrible. And Jasper Ocean, Arizona State University, who is based here. And I've all did the folks that are presenting. But we really want to be partner driven. And we have in this process really tried to incorporate feedback and make sure that our process and our research priorities are really grounded in community needs and we're providing the best available science to meet those needs so those partners include watershed partnerships state and federal conservation agencies community-based stewardship nonprofits conservation education programs and then hopefully you guys, county council, we really value your input as well as county planning, different offices that we're meeting with regularly, and especially a little bit more intensively over the next three weeks, while we have our research team here. And our core questions are, I keep looking in front of the computer. Our core questions really are how and at what scale we can do restoration for these different topics, rich to reef, fire, development, climate change, invasive species across these radiographies. And what are the solutions and what are the challenges within this space within a really integrated watershed model. And you guys have seen these slides before, but just to reiterate, thinking about invasive plants and animals, where, how and what scale. We can meet those showing a graphic here from North Helo Hama Kua that emphasis on strawberry guava cover climate change. It's going to be important across all three geographies and impacting our different topics differently. But considering climate change both in terrestrial and near-shore ecosystems, we have wildfire, I think, after Lahaina. This has been particularly heavy and I think the timing is really important for interventions within the fire landscape in North Conan, South Cahalla, and then development as it grows and the consequences of that. So I love that we just had affordable housing come up right before. We do have improved socio-ecological data sets. What I'm showing here are improved stewardship mapping from North Conan, South Coca-Halla. So what these maps highlight, the orange one on the left is highlighting stewardship group density, where people are already doing restoration on the landscape. And then on the right, we have organizations that are doing agri-ecological, so food oriented and ecological restoration oriented with a cultural component, but highlighting where a lot of that activity is happening as well as primarily ecological restoration on the right, so thinking about who's doing just conservation and cultural restoration in North Kronan, South Kohala. My colleagues are going to talk a little bit more about what a decision and support to entails, so I'm not going to go into too much in depth on that. And what I'm showing here is some of the solutions that we have proposed, which we're going to be talking a little bit more about, but they include Indigenous Agro ecological scenarios. We have development projections. That's what I'm showing here on the left. Thomas, I didn't say Thomas is here and Melissa, I missed you guys. I'm sorry. Thomas put together a whole E. County-wide development model, which I'm sure he would love to talk more with he folks about. And we're thinking about things like climate projections, of course, in Rapidoe,ia death and consequences that has across the three geographies. So I'd like to turn it over to the South Conna team. Hello again. So as Gina mentioned, we're going to be going through geography by geography now and we're starting out with South Kona. And kind of the guiding question for this geography is how land use will affect water quality from ridge to reef in this study area. And we're really tackling this question with three different areas of work. The main one we're going to be talking about today is groundwater modeling of human waste pollutants and seeing the routing of that from ridge to lands end. And Elix is going to be talking more about the methodology behind that. Another area of work is going past lands end into the near shore and seeing where those pollutants can affect coral repelth in that area. And then finally, looking at how those concentrations of pollutants can change in both realms over time by looking at changes in development patterns pollutants can change in both realms over time by looking at changes in development patterns and predicting how growth may change in the future in that realm. So for the source corner region, so we used what we call a groundwater modeling approach, so covering the mountain ridge area to the fringing reef area. So the idea of this approach is to apply a chromatomodeling on the soft conar region, and especially on the middle area, which is considered as a pilot site for research, since we have a very good knowledge, local knowledge about this area, in terms of OSDS density, so many cesspools, in terms of health, coral-wield health, also considering that there is a fishing reserve. And we have the ASU teams with a lab over there to provide a more local knowledge. So, and also we have a pretty good knowledge in terms of hydrogeology. So basically the idea was to create a model. So for that we created a model architecture considering the land domain and the ocean domain that you can see here on this picture. So we have a 2D model and then we can convert that to a 3D model. Once it's created, we can start to implement any kind of field data that we already collected and then we can start to run that what we call groundwater flow and transport simulations for curants and future scenarios. So the idea was to study mainly, I would say, so the main nutrient load from human wastewater such as nitrate and phosphorus. So we tried to do that to study these compounds related to the agriculture, but also from the OSDS, as I said many from CESPOL, and in the situation of a current development scenario, and also for different future development scenarios. You can see here on the right side that could be what we call the fully saturated scenario, considering a very huge amount of cesspool and many septic tanks for the future. Another thing is from our colleagues, from ASU, we are now allowed to use what we call the submarine, groundwater discharge data. So, basically, on this area, I mean, along the west coast of Hawaii, the submarine springs are almost everywhere, but we want to be able to quantify what is it, the quantity of water outflowing into the ocean. So, basically, from this new data release, we want to make the link between what's happening on the land in terms of contaminants, and what is it really released into the near-shore environment and thanks to a groundwater modeling? So this is typically the kind of results that we got. You can see on the map on the left, this is a groundwater contamination map that shows the different concentration in nitrate, so in milligram polluters. And the thing is, for example, in Mille-Oli, especially in the Papabé, the maximum concentration is about 20 milligram per liter. And once we know this concentration in the groundwater table, the next step is to try to know what will be exactly the contamination reaching the roof in order to evaluate, to assess the core roof health. So the next step, we want to create a new layer of what makes sense to restore and protect the roof. So for that, we are starting to create a new roof, priority criteria, considering the previous results, that we, the new results that we have. So for example, the living RIF cover map, the near-shore contamination model results, and also the submarine-gonwarder discharge plume, which is basically where it's outflowing, where outflowing the submarine springs. All these data can then be implemented into the decision support tool model. So thinking ahead to next steps for this project and also kind of highlighting why such a big group of us have traveled all this way for this trip. I want to talk a little bit about the decision model that the outputs that Elixis is talking about will be fed into. And the idea of this decision model is again to consider all the factors that land managers may be considering when strategizing where to focus their land management. And so this diagram is really showing the factors that we would fit in as spatial data that you could end up having a map that prioritizes where to do that management. So you'll see that part of it is the ecology, the state of the system, and that's in the bubbles of terrestrial inputs or refresilience, but there's other things to be considered. There's possibly the propensity of an area to be developed within the study area. There's the cost of the treatments and management strategies themselves. And through the meetings that we're having with partners, partners in the study area, we want to identify other values that we may not be knowledgeable about, but that we should also incorporate into the tool. And that's where we're going with next steps. So thank you. Hello, everyone. So excited to be here. I'm just so you know, I'm gonna go quickly through a lot of my slides. Go ahead and just state your name for the record. Enjoy yourself. My name is Jennifer Olgane and I coming from the Southwest, New Mexico, Texas, meaning together. It's great to be here. OK. So I mentioned this particular part of the tool or the geographies. We are aiming at identifying priority areas for implementing vegetation management to reduce wildfire hazard and postfire sedimentation. So, the North Connocelle Collar region, of course, is on the leeward side of this island. And in this area, it's not only dominated by these non-native grasses, but these non-native grasses also represent the lancar type that is most impacted by wildfires. Grasses, especially these non-antigrasses, are particularly problematic as they can cure very quickly, ignite easily, form dense and continuous field beds and can show these high intensity fires, even at some pretty benign conditions. So when designing this project, we are motivating question was, what needs to happen to reduce wildfire in Hawaii? And there's been a ton of work, but one of the reports that I would like to focus on is the 2018-2019 vegetation management report, which it's essentially show that there is a ton of vegetation management happening around the island, but there is still a need for additional management to help combat these wildfires. Additionally, there is a lot of challenges and considerations with fuel management with some of the key takeaways being that typical fuel management strategies that are currently employed usually require a lot of maintenance so more a lot of people and it could be costly. Other strategies could also lead to unintended effects like runoff with fire breaks. So one potential long term solution could be the implementation of shaded fuel breaks, which in the differs in the Pacific versus temperate forests. In the Pacific, we see shaded fuel breaks as planting trees at a high enough density to reduce fine fuels in the understory and to also increase moisture. But some parents note that the shade of field break efficacy in the Pacific is primarily anecdotal but there is some good evidence that shows that fires in other Pacific islands naturally extinguished at these forest edges and in Hawaii kind of be shading by secondary forests and outplanting trees have shown to reduce non-native grass biomass, which is the problem that we have here. So for this decisions part tool, what we're looking to do is to help blend managers and others find where we should prioritize these field management strategies, including shade, including but not limited to shaded field breaks. We're also hoping to consider some key considerations from the community and land managers, etc, which can include things like costs, labor, feasibility, and proximity to high-value areas and resources. So this is just the general overview of the tool development and there's multiple steps. For our modeling, we are planning on incorporating three main modeling approaches. So fire, sediment modeling and the identification of areas that could support these shaded fuel breaks. So one component of the fire modeling includes a landscape exposure analysis, which quantifies the potential for fire transmission based on the proximity to hazardous fuel types. And this works really well in data limited geographies like Hawaii. This is just a preliminary analysis of this landscape fire exposure model, which essentially shows that the model is able to identify these high exposure areas that are more likely to burn, and as well as the lower exposure, less likely to burn. From there, we plan on incorporating this exposure analysis into a probabilistic model, which will incorporate a lot of other drivers that are important to wildfire. And for the settlement modeling, the conceptual work is currently in progress, but essentially what we're looking to do is find where the areas where sedimentation is most likely to be a problem, especially under a postfire event. For the shaded full-break capable area identification, we're looking to find where trees are most likely to survive, and because the entire landscape is mostly arid, we're suspecting that water will probably be the most limiting factor for these shaded field breaks. This is just an example of the third step, which is a logic model which could basically bring together different models to identify areas that could be both low wildfire has low to high wildfire hazard and low to high shaded field weight capable. And this is step four, which is perhaps the most important part of this tool, which really enables the users to identify to define priorities across the landscape, whether it be cost, labor, or proximity to whatever they're trying to protect. And this is step five, so the final output, which is the mapping of the decision model, which allows for the comparison of different alternatives, like different priorities, for instance. And in this photo here, we can see that this is a mapping of fuel treatment priority from very low to very high. So we have made some progress, a lot of progress, but there's still a ton of work to do them. We're excited to hear your input for any of this. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Councilor Wersen-Kimble for the invitation and thanks to all the Council for your interest in incorporating science and local knowledge and decision making. So my name is- Oh, you got me here. My name is Jasper Ocean and I moved to this island with my family in the beginning in helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and helping and in South Cahalla, which is a related, is exacerbated by fire, but it's also an independent, a problem is independent of fire. And this, for motivation, I'm looking to some of my ASU colleagues, and I think you heard about this in the past year, in terms of the Ridge Dreef perspective, and thinking about this incredible natural cultural resource you have along the west coast of the island, the coral reef, and that that coral reef has been declining, especially due to global heating events. And those global heating events, when they're paired with land-based pollutants that has a double-way me effect on the corals. And one of those that's most detrimental to corals is the episodic influx of sediment. It's one decision that we as a community on the island might be able to do something about. So thinking about how we got here, is a view looking from the Kauai High Harbor and Pelican Bay up towards Waimea and Kauhala Mountain. And you can see that in this landscape, which was once covered in sandalwood forest and once supported perennial streams, it is now mostly invasive grasses and bareland. So this diagram here, which I contracted, my eldest daughter, to help me create, shows the transition from sandalwood forests that limited the intensity of rainfall events and then also provided pathways for water to infiltrate through the subsurface, creating the sponge that then drains slowly to streams and supported streams through the dry season. And that's been transformed to a landscape that you see on the right where you have these alien bunch grasses that are susceptible to fire and also bare ground that's very susceptible to being mobilized in high intensity rainfalls. And so a couple slides about what we know. We know that high intensity rainfall, particularly in the lower part of the watershed where there's more bare ground is important for mobilizing sediment. We know that the Bay is in filling and we know that the source of this sediment is primarily from reels and gullies and that there's a two-step of this sediment is primarily from rills and gullies, and that there's a two-step process where sediment is mobilized and then stored on the landscape and mobilized again to be flushed out. So a recent study looking at that has basically supported that conceptual model that rainfall thresholds of about 20 millimeters per hour will mobilize sediment on the landscape that basically exceeds the capacity of the bare ground to absorb the rain. And so that causes water to pool on the surface and then that mobilizes sediment. But then that sediment doesn't necessarily make its way to the reef. It takes a higher intensity storm for that sediment to be mobilized or mined from gullies and then transported to the reef. One thing we don't yet know is how much of that sediment actually reaches the bay. And so one thing that I think that we should be doing is to measure both the flux of water and the flux of sediment at the outlet of the streams so that we know, for example, when a certain size storm occurs, how much water is produced and how much sediment is that storm surge carrying? So I have ideas about how that might be implemented, but I'll pass it on to the next region, and I'm going to bring it home with our last geography today. This is North Yohama Kua. This one is actually a little bit different from our other two with South Kona and North Kona South Kahala. Their entirely new tools focused on entirely new core issues. Whereas North Yohama Kua was the basis for the previous decision support tool that was developed on the Big Island. And this resulted in a study published in 2017 that involved several of our current team members as well, and decision support tool to go with it. And it did address some of the core issues that we're still focused on today, specifically freshwater surface hydrology in the area and how that's affected by strawberry guava and just invasive vegetation management in general. When we're thinking about the outcomes of that previous study, however, there were some limitations on how the tool could actually be implemented. Specifically, the distribution of strawberry guava that spatial data, ended up being inaccurate because there was no high-quality distribution data available at the time. It had to be based on a simple regression model that was predicting where the strawberry guava would be located. So when field crews with management strategies actually went out and tried to visit these areas that were supposed to be highly invaded by Strawberry Guava. It was not always accurate to show that degree of invasion. In addition to that, there was no high-quality spatial data showing climate change projections at the time. So while they were looking at the effect of climate change on how surface hydrology could change in the future, There was no spatial variation across the geography that could really be understood because of that lack of data. With that in mind, when we're thinking about this version two of the tool that we're working on now, there are some improvements that we're working on based on these obstacles from the previous tool, as well as some additions that we're hoping to make the tool kind of more holistic and have more utility. The kind of improvements we're looking at are again improving the accuracy of that vegetation mapping and the strawberry guapa specifically. We have some other high quality data products like climate change projections that are spatial data that we can implement. And then thinking about the additions, Gina will be talking more about this, but she with the team has developed some indigenous agroecological land use scenarios to show how that could affect some of these core issues on the landscape and something that we're also adding that could be affected by the agriculture scenarios Gina is working on is sediment transport modeling and seeing how different environmental stressors in the landscape affect sediments in this area. I'm just going to go into a little bit more detail about some of the improvements, the first being this more accurate vegetation mapping for the study area. We're really able to do this thing so our partnership with Greg Asner's lab at ASU, he's been making some great data products with his satellite imagery, including this Ohea percent coverage map for the study area that was developed by Meg Sealy. And then there's also some lidar data that we're hoping to use to distinguish between Ohea Forest that is invaded with Strawberry Guava and Forest that has not been invaded yet. And then again, thinking about those other new data products, another one I wanted to focus on is this ungulate distribution mapping that's been done for the Big Island as a whole by Derek Reeshen Melissa Price, and we're hoping to use this to specifically look more at sediment transport in the study area. And then again, kind of bringing this full circle. The ecology is not the only important thing to managers that are deciding how to strategize their management. In the previous study, the other factors considered were things like treatment cost, access to different areas of the landscape and land ownership. But again, through the meetings that we're having with partners during these few weeks that we're all here together, we're hoping to identify other values that are important to them as they make these decisions. And then thinking about the final tool that we're creating for each of these different study areas, I just wanted to show you what that tool looked like for the previous study. And essentially what you're seeing here is these different factors or decision making values that we incorporated. Essentially what you're seeing here is these different factors or decision making values that we incorporated. So on the first line you see ecological score. That's really again just the ecology, the state of the system. But through these pairwise comparisons you're able to look at the ecology compared to something like travel costs and say which is more important and relatively how much more important is it. And through all of these different comparisons of importance, you end up with these output maps that you see on the right. They're really highlight where to strategize your management based on your priorities. Awesome. So I think Norki Lohama Kula is a really exciting geography because it is where we're piloting our Indigenous Agri-Colagical scenarios. and just want to say I'm going to bring this more broadly out to the wider project but we have the best available biophysical researchers and data products to drive this but we are also pairing that with Ike Kupuna and and Sustal Knowledge so trying to bring that into the decision support tool how we can. So there's a lot on this slide, but we want to bring forward solutions that are not just benefiting ecologically ecological systems, but like Rachel said, there's more to it than that. So thinking about things like food sovereignty and communities within this model, how can things like Indigenous Agri ecological scenarios, things like Agroforestry, our Lo-Iqalo and the Hamakua Coast, but where do those fall into restoration? So the map, oh gosh, I hit this mic, the map that I provided here is just showing this where came out early in 2024, highlighting the different systems around the island. And I'm highlighting this not just in North Helo, Hamakua, but how this might also fit into things like shaded fuel breaks in North Kunan, South Kohala. Can we do things like food for us? So I think that's kind of where we're moving next in this project, thinking about I'm really curious to get your guys's input. Things we've thought about are where can we do a Hupua-A-Y'd? Restoration, where is that possible in Northeulhamakua? And thinking about small ag lots, but I think you guys might have some ideas that we'd love to hear. We've also thought about roadway food forests and if that's something you guys are interested in and if DOT can get on board with doing that. But now to bring this out to the wider decision support tool, just wanting to make really clear that we are trying to bring in cultural landscape mapping in ways that are meaningful for decision support. This slide is just showing the realities of the things that we've talked about, brown water advisories. We have water infrastructure, historical water infrastructure, colonial legacies that we're dealing with within this landscape, that we are aware of in trying to bring to the forefront as well. And my happy place is doing Bahikopuna mapping, specifically focused on the Pohoyhoy at the moment for that and doing cultural forest mapping in North Kunan, South Kohala, but thinking about where are not just where are most important coral reefs or where is our pristine native forest, but where is important to our Hawaiian communities on the landscape? To do this, so far the layers that we've brought in our local eosophish ponds, archeological sites from the State Historic Preservation Office, local vies, so thinking about our in-key line ponds, and we really appreciate, I think, that was said about a year ago from you folks, so we were able to bring that in and then bringing in cultural assessments and historic maps and there's a lot of ethics around that as well so we are trying to do this in the most funnily possible and I just want to bring us back out to the wider lens of decision support across these radiographies. I'm also curious for those that we're not working in their districts. If I'm just curious long term, if this is something Kauu and Puna is interested in, we're also super open hearing that. But we are super eager to get your input and we are visiting with different, we're visiting with County Planning Oscar. So different County Departments as well as different community groups while we're here. So I will just say, I'm going to ask you a question visiting with different, we're visiting with County Planning Oscar. So different county departments as well as different community groups while we're here. So I will wrap us up there and thank you for your time. We're excited to hear from you. Thank you so much. And huge points for getting through that deck with such efficiency and detail and enthusiasm. Nailed it. Opening it up to any questions from council members. Council member Evans. Yeah, thank you. I do have a lot. I think the bigger question for me is what would you like to hear from us? Clearly, I've been to Phoenix, Arizona to your decision room, your decision tree modeling. I've seen it. It's wonderful. I love the data sets that you create that helps decision makers as you layer the different data. I think that's really good. My bigger question is what would you want from us, but for me personally, I wanna know if you, how you see artificial intelligence in AI kinda as you develop these spatial layer data sets, which there's some that aren't here that I would advise you to add. But if you had all those and you got them all layered in find ways of scoring or you know the logic connection of wondered the other and you come up with matrix as I don't know how you do it. But if you eventually get to that AI space to where you input this and you come up with Matrix says I don't know how you do it, but if you eventually get to that AI space to where you input this and you have that logic, decision, matrix modeling numbers and all that, that you see this is kind of where you're headed. I guess where you're going with this, I guess where you going with this, I guess is my bigger question. Yeah. Great question, Membravins. So our lab has been... We'll head and state your name just in the right place. I'm sorry, I get for this. Paul Hesberg, this is my team here and our lab has specialized for decades in doing decision models of this sort. And the question is brilliant. The thing that's new is that the machine learning and AI algorithms have been around for 40 years. What's changed is computing power. And so we've been doing these things for a very long time. And so we're going to actually be developing these kinds of machine learning models for some of the parts of the model that go into it that allow us to actually detect really cool patterns and then reflect them back to decision makers. This is what we learned when we consider these data layers together and this particular response. I have more but I'll pass it on. I'll come back. Okay, Councilmember Evans. Councilmember Connie Lee, Klein-Fulder. I'm glad you asked because you said you're from Poonam, but there was no Poonam slide deck at all. I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, I missed something. It's all Poonam, yes. I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, I missed something. So, one of yes, and the reason is developing rapidly. Density is increasing. And there's a lot of, sorry, we have agricultural sub-divisions that were created decades ago, even before statehood. As those are clear cut by tree acre, by tree acre, by tree acre, lots, you're going to see a tremendous amount of forest go and a lot of invasive stakeholder. And so a reason being, one, we're not in the slide deck, two, we're the last affordable place to build, probably in the state of Hawaii, and you're going to see a tremendous amount of infill there. That's a perfect place to get in front of the issue before it's gone, because that really is a beautiful native forest that still exists that hasn't been touched in a long time. Some of my other notes, did you consider wind-borne sediment in the Kohala areas versus stream and water. Sorry, we gotta go on the record. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks for the question. Yeah, so I know that that is from anecdotal evidence that there can be a lot of wind bone sediment that arrives on the reef. My colleagues that I cited briefly at the USGS were trying to measure that and they didn't measure much So I'm aware that it could potentially be an issue But I don't know what the magnitude of wind blown sediment is compared to the Fluvial transport sediment. Okay, I wanted to ask you my I have a family who lives in Kauai in the Kailapa Hawaiian home states. And on a windy day, you're eating dirt. And if you go to a point of beach, on a windy day, you're eating sand, you're getting sandblasted. So I couldn't help but ask. I know you guys are smart. That's what I am. So it sounds like we should be measuring it. It might be good to look at if you haven't already. Thank you. The project as a whole would seem like would benefit from tying in with the INA, Aloha, economic values or economic futures that we have. If you haven't already, I think those two might go hand in hand or at least tie in together in some of these different areas. That'll be interesting place to look to see if it ties in. And then for Ahupwa, that Mowana lives in Kailapa, that is one of the few existing Malkotumakai Ahupwa that still exists and is entirely owned by DHL. That is a tremendous place to look for, one if you haven't already. And then the food for is interesting, because I have a guy in my district, Gary, you might know him. He wants to take roads and turn them into food production. There is interesting idea. There's a lot involved in that. And he, but he does have, I think it's 60 miles of private roadway that he has purchased for zero dollars because nobody wants them. Because they're old bust up roads that were created during the subdivision process. And the organizations that created them went defunct. And so now they're mainly the responsibility of the private landowners. So you have a tremendous amount of roadways that we all deal with on a regular basis that the county doesn't want, that the state doesn't want that may tie into your food forest idea. What's the name on the guy Gary? Gary Rosenberger. Rosenberg. He's a character. I'll say it on the record. He's a character but he's driven and he wants this to be the thing that we do. He wants us to focus on agriculture. He wants us to grow our own food and there's nothing wrong with that. It's a tremendous idea. But growing it on our roadways is an interesting thing. But you brought it up. So I thought I'd mention it. Awesome. Thank you. Okay. I'm looking forward to seeing something on Punda. I would love that. Okay. Thank you. It's a development model, like a futures development model. Would that be something value for PUNA? Sorry, what is the question? The development model that's being put together, it was like that hot spot map of like where it's projected to grow to. Would that be? I'm thinking yes, but I don't think I understand any question perfectly. I'll show you the thing. But we're gonna it's it's being developed and so. Oh you guys are developing. Oh we are developing but people people in general are developing. I'm sorry. I'm thinking developing. No no no yet. Development actually hard to develop in point of because there's no county water, there's no county sewer, so massive development isn't happening. But, lot by lot, by lot. This Hawaiian acres is 4,096 tree acre lots. That's a lot of land. That's one subdivision of many. So yeah, just trying to get ahead of the curve. But there's actually been some interest from the community to figure out how to preserve whatever forest we can going into the future. And as I look at our knowing colloquial, the requirement to preserve the drip forest, because of what it does for the environment. Or as in Pona we don't have that and it would actually offer a tremendous ability for us to preserve both our rainfall and our native forest and protect from overclearing and over development just this would be a very useful tool. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Coney Water. Thank you, Chair. So I will try not to be offended that South Yellow was never even mentioned in any way. But I'll just say, I'd love, I love the idea that you're going to be meeting with some other folks, that you are going to be meeting with Bethany Morrison with Oscar. I'm wondering if you're planning to meet with anybody in our research and development department. I think on Friday they might be coming with the planning department, but I got to confirm. Okay. I'm going to see if I can get one particular person, Elizabeth,xter, to join that just because we did get a grant from the federal government to do a full on a Hilo Bay watershed plan and really it's going to be a community-based plan but clearly some of the tools that you have here would be very valuable, I think, for, you know, for kind of rounding that out. I know we were looking for more money for doing some of the testing and data gathering that is necessary and feeling like we didn't necessarily have as much money as we felt we needed for that end of things But maybe because you have some of these tools already developed it might be a good fit So yeah, hope that I can connect you with Beth Dykstra and Bethany Morrison on this To look to just talk story about that Oh, you already met with her. Okay. Yeah, just Bethany. And Kendra. Okay. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. Right. A lot. Councilmember Evans. Okay. I think I'll start with a story. The story being as our Congressman, Albert Cromby, based on the local Hawaiian community, San Pelicani Bay was being destroyed and so the sharks, hey, I was being covered up and the ability for them to fish there was going away. They were very upset. He gave money to Noah. I think maybe even the nature conservancy and they did a lot of work. The other thing he did is he got money for the watershed alliance, Amanekia watershed and the soil conservation district and all of a sudden over a period of maybe six or eight years. They started planting trees, creating dams on the on the gulches and the streams to stop the brownouts going into Pellet County Bay. It was amazing. I mean every month they would have people out there volunteers and they were going up the they were going up the streams just trying to bring the forest back. The biggest problem we had then was ungulates. The goats were denuding the whole entire side of the mountain and so a lot of money was spent on fencing and so all of a sudden you had the fencing, you had the forest being re-planeted, you're having them stopping the water flowing at the rate it was. And you could look up the mountain and start seeing it change color. Then all of a sudden we had one of those hundred-year floods or whatever. It was all wiped out. So the trees had not grown to maturity and gotten their roots in the ground. The dams and the earthen dams and the things they put in was totally destroyed. And then you looked at Pelicani Bay and the plume went way out. And all those people and all that devotion of six or eight years was so disheartening. They gave up and they went away. And we don't have that right now. And that's sad because there's not the will or the desire to kind of do it again. Why? Because we're concerned about the next 50 or 75 year 100 flood that's gonna wipe it out again. So there when you talk about the cultural aspect of it, I just wanted to share that story because they were pretty disheartened because they worked every month they were on that mountain and they were devoted. So I just wanted to share that story. I really appreciate that. Yeah, thank you. And then the other thing is recently, there was a Native Hawaiian conference. I don't know if any of you attended, you would have enjoyed it. It was what two weeks ago. And for the cultural perspective of what the Hawaiian community feels about their INA and the land and the future of the land here. And the big takeaway for me, which I don't see as a layer, a suggestion for one of your layers, for them, the big missing piece is water. And water means the mountain rainfall, the importance of, like, above Y-Maya, because I represent North Koala, South Koala. The discussion by the community there about looking above Y-Maya town and looking up at that forest reserve that's up at the top. And they say if you go into that forest reserve, which is kind of where the water comes down that really supports the farmers that supports supports the farmers, that supports, you know, because it's a huge farming community. But they say now when you go up there and you go in the forest, though he a rapid ohia death has been harming the upper canopy, which is now harming the middle canopy and the lower canopy and they're really upset and they're worried about it. But then you get the pig farmers and the pig hunters that said the fencing of that forest reserve is a failure in their part. Why? Because they truly believe that the ecosystem, here's the other thing for you for layering, okay? So the ecosystem, so what's happened is the natural animals, right? The birds at poop seeds or the pigs who dig up the dirt so the seeds get down in the ground and so there's this natural regeneration because the ecosystem was a very developed ecosystem but because of what we're doing with fencing, and what we're doing, removing pigs who actually contributed to the ecosystem they're gone, it's like we've been messing with an ecosystem, and no one is evaluating the data, evaluating the data of how you change the ecosystem and the animals that were in the ecosystem. And you change that. How does that affect, you know, your forest, for example, what's happening in the forest. Okay. And so, and this is kind of the local conversation of the local Hawaiians about the Aina and what they learn from their parents and how they see that's, you know, their love and respect of the pig. Why? Because the pig put food on the table. And then the other thing about the ankle-lined ponds, another story to tell you, the ankle-lined ponds was a place that people would go to get shrimp. And so now when you go along the coast to those ponds, what you're seeing is the shrimp are not thriving because of the nitrogen and the phosphorus from land development is creating this growth that is like covering with just as yucky, green, algae, whatever, and it's just killing off the shrimp. So I guess what I'm thinking is there's indicators about the health. There's indicators that tell you what the health of your aboa is. And some of those indicators right now are showing that you can actually compare one pond, probably to another pond, to another pond, and see the indicators or the shrimp and the health of the shrimp that's in the pond. So there is indicators, you know, just like, yeah. But some of it because of your capability of satellites and because you're, you know, I mean, you have tools to you. I mean, these are people just on the ground, walking the ground and they're telling stories from what they see. But you see it at a much higher level because you can use your satellites and, you know, Google Earth or flying over with, you know, flying over with the airplanes. Like, you're seeing something that they kind of know only because they go into the forest and the big thing that I'm hearing, I heard at this conference is they kind of know the health of the, so the Hawaiians use the forest for their cultural practitioners. There's cultural practitioners. And so they go in the forest to gather the Miley Lay. I don't know, they gather things for their cultural practices and what they're telling me is that forest that's above Waimea which is above what you're looking at Kohala up there that they're having a lot of problem with getting their cultural whatever they're, they're noticing that it's going away, that it's harder and harder to harvest what they need for their cultural practices. So, so this is just, you know, if you want to talk folklore, people talking culturally, they're the ones that are telling us that something's going on. And so I just- Thank you, Council Member Evan. Sorry, that time is, yep, perfect. I really appreciate that point of view. Yes. Thank you. Just briefly, thanks very much for this. The models on South Dakota, especially the ground water, the plumes, that's a very, very interesting to see visually. And I guess it's kind of interesting seeing these three different areas and their different problems that are focused on. And it's kind of the question that you're asking, looking at different kinds of vegetation or lack of vegetation or habitation or lack of habitation, there's all these trade offs that are implicit in that. So you know, what is the best use for these different areas? And it may be what is best for one area is not best for another area, or they may actually inform each other. And how do we... There's a lot of data, but there's also a lot more questions to be answered, basically, but thank you. Okay, so I'm going to... Oh, Mr. Coney, let me call you in, Fr. Okay, come on, guys. Let's wrap it up. We can always meet with them and talk with them afterwards. Yeah, and I'll save my questions on some of the specific content to another day, but I think you all are being here and it's nice to see some old friends. I think there's a couple of really important things I want to highlight. I'll highlight, speaking about the potential build out scenarios that are proposed or the propensity to be developed. Thinking about the bill, I don't know if it was you Cindy and Helika or was Ashley and Helika put forward about having a sense of what's happening in the area when we look at a rezoning project. Yeah, this is the kind of thing that I think would be very useful because we are so often you know, making decisions about a property without having any contextual information and whether it's about fire, it's about flood plains, you know, thinking about another decision, it's about flood plains, you know, thinking about another decision, it's about potential for runoff. I think that looking at the kind of decisions that that we need to make at this body, having that information is going to be pretty critical. The other thing that I would say is that with respect to the models and the modeling methods. Thinking about a scenario with a piece of legislation I was working on last year, actually at the state level. It actually ended up not passing because it was based on the data model. It had to deal with the requirement to have de-naturefication in areas like MillilyE that were more porous, right? And so the data model that we have for the soil types, the folks that created that data model set were uncomfortable with us using their model as the basis of legislation. And so as you guys are thinking about these model buildouts, we need to be able to feel secure enough in the quality of those data models. We don't know. Models are flies, right? Models are models, but to the point that if we were to, for example, require folks to make an economic decision that would require them to spend $10,000 more dollars on the system of denotification. We need to be able to appoint to a model that's robust enough that we can legislate around that. So, in the interest of not making too many layers for us to explore all the potential options, I would highlight creating really, really robust layers that we could legislate around. The other thing, just looking at the decision model for South Kona, One of the things that's kind of ties into the last comment, as far as decision making, and what our roles are in terms of justifying again, taking the recent example about the de-nitrification of the potential additional costs to homeowners, right, we need to be able to communicate that longer term cost benefit analysis. So if we say, hey, we're going to ask you, we're going to require you to pay 5,000, 10,000 more per installation of your wastewater treatment unit. But you have this somewhat quantifiable, and I, you know, there's always been the debate about ecosystem resources, right? But whether or not we're talking about the coastal protections that happen from having a robust reef system, the fact that we would have fishery resources, whatever it is, when we're in a community meeting and we're saying, we're gonna pass this this law that's going to charge you more. We've got to be able to say, on the flip side, these are the benefits for you and the community that are going to be coming forward. You know, it doesn't always boil down to economics, but it often does. And then just finally I'll conclude, if there's one thing that I learned and this is not to disparage anybody. It is hard for us in these positions of decision making to truly walk down every alley and explore every potential decision outcome and alternative. It's just not humanly possible. And even though we're all brilliant up here, it's where I'm going with that is simplicity is of the essence. You know, boiling things down to really easily, justifiable, understandable decision making is going to be prioritized over having every scenario examined. And so, you know, that comes with diagnosing, and I think further conversations may be more one-on-one conversations are needed to really say, these are the key factors that we really need very good information about. For us, it's nice to have, there's some need to have, and there's some absolutely must have. Anyway, thanks for being here. Okay, I'm going to wrap this up real quick. Lots of them. Oh, okay. It's never any talk. No, I'll be quick. I just, I didn't say thank you for coming in front of us two times now to bring us this information and to try to work on a set of criteria that can help guide how we look at development and what we need to be thinking about for our future. And I forgot to say that it's like my ADHD brain trying to figure out things that are important this district wide I don't know why things that I know and trying to like work on with that as you but I forgot to say thank you so thank you appreciate your time and energy this is a big project and I'm very supportive and this is really neat so I just wanted to say that before I forget thank you perfect and I share those sentiments. Sorry, am I? I'm starting to just get feeling a little loopy at the end of the day here. But I really appreciate your guys' report. Incredibly grateful for the work that you're doing. Also really proud and it resonates really close to me that you are taking into consideration indigenously informed decisions and inclusion in the data there. I think it's so interesting how the Western mindset we need to have seven million data points to prove something that an indigenous person would say, yeah, obviously. But sometimes that's a part of tying the need for data to economics, because we sit here and we can hear all kinds of information and we have all kinds of proof of what's happening with climate change and deforestation and water pollution, but does it change the decisions we make sitting here based on what we allow or don't allow to be done on that land or near that water or to those trees. And so that opportunity to hold us accountable based on that data. We have a general plan coming out which sounds fantastic based on all these value systems, but there if there is no legal ramifications for us making decisions that do not authentically align with that value system, then it's just smoke and mirrors. And yeah, I just a couple of things that came to me real fast, capacity. We're on an island. How do we quantify and validate what we say we're at for capacity? And what does the island need as its own ecosystem to survive when it comes to enough forested space, when it comes to enough healthy and sacred and untapped aquifers, when it comes to enough healthy and sacred and untapped aquifers, when it comes to reef coral ecosystems. And what is the capacity of meddling in those systems? What level do we have to bring it back to for a resilient regenerative future? If this island was its own, you know, biome, its own microbiome. And then, you know, something Council Member Kanye Lee Kleinfeld mentioned was the Aina Aloha economic futures. And a lot of the work that they're doing, I see these terms, you know, Aina and economy, which haven't always been really validly aligned. They're usually commodified. But aligning those things based on the principle and the wisdom of our host culture, because I truly believe that the wisdom that resides there contains the solutions for the challenges that we face. So thank you for taking the scientific mind and incorporating it and aligning it with indigously, indigenously informed decisions. I feel like sometimes it does come down to as Councillor Marie Kimball said, the simplified, does it do more harm than good? good period. And it cannot be based on a linear economic standard. We need to return to circular economy. And so the work you guys are doing is really showing the effects of all the things that humans have done to this place over the last few hundred years and my hope is, my belief is that through your help and your support that we as legislators can be held accountable to making better decisions and be informed so that we can make better decisions. So thank you for being here today. We appreciate you. My daughter's working with a co-ocorrestoration project. She's doing their social media. So I have a little place in my heart for the work you guys do, and I'm just so grateful that you're here. So thank you. Appreciate you guys. I think Paul maybe wanted to make a quick comment before we totally close this up. Sure. Go ahead, Paul. With your permission, some great questions were asked of us. And I'll start with Councilmember Gilemba. We probably didn't make the point well enough that little graphic that Rachel was showing that had the sliders on it. We actually do a little math with you all to determine what your values are and to rate them in a pairwise fashion relative to other values. And out of that comes the ability to essentially reflect back to you what you said your values are. And if you see the results and you don't love them you actually get to play with re-weighting those sliders. So you can game such a tool to see whether I didn't expect that outcome. I didn't love that outcome so forth. So I just wanted to reflect that back. It's part of what COS comes out of the decision model. Thank you. Thank you so much. All those in favor of closing file on communication 1058. Please say aye. We have six members in support with three members excused. Council members Lee Loy, Kirkowitz and Inaba. And with that, no further business. This meeting is adjourned.