Water Quality Training

This morning I attended the training for water quality monitoring at the Department of Health's Safe Drinking Water Branch (SDWB) office in Pearl City; this will be where we meet to pair up with our DOH partner, then we take a State car to the residences where we will be collecting water samples. Because there is a potential for law suits as a result of the contaminants found in the water, we were given training in chain of custody documentation as well. There were 10 MRC volunteers there; I had previously worked with Anne, Jeremy, Dan, & Roy. I met Donna, Suzanne, & Eric today when we broke up into smaller groups for the hands-on training. I did not get the names of the 2 other MRC volunteers. The DOH staff doing the training were Mel, Dave, & Terry.

One of the 4 chain of custody forms that need to be filled out.

After the classroom part of the training, we then had a practical part where they showed us how to properly fill the various collection bottles & how to properly remove the gloves to avoid coming in contact with the water. Samples will be tested for a variety of contaminants including petrochemicals, heavy metals, & microbiological agents. The training was about an hour longer than the original email said it would be.

This is the collection kit for one residence.

Bottle on left is filled to black mark; bottle on right to raised mark on bottle.

This one is overfilled so there is no air in it.

All 3 of these are filled to the neck.

I was late getting to the water quality training this morning. I left the house 45 minutes before I needed to be at the training, which is at a site that my phone said would take 30 minutes to get to when I left the house. But there was an accident along the way that blocked all except one lane. From the moment I got on the freeway I was in a traffic jam until I got to the accident site 40 minutes & about 4 miles later. After that the traffic was moving along at about 65 mph; I got to the training about 20 minutes late.

About a couple hundred yards after getting on the freeway.

I also ended up being about 10 minutes late for the meeting with Stephan from National Parks Service in Washington , D.C.; I did not have time to change out of my MRC volunteer shirt in to my Citizen Forester volunteer shirt. I met the group at the parklet in front of The Surfing Pig. Besides Francisco from Citizen Foresters, Sharon from Envision Kaimukī & the Kaimukī Neighborhood Board were there, as well as Dan from Trees for Kaimukī. The 2 other people I met today were Meredith from National Park Service here in Honolulu & Jade who is her Vista assistant. Later Wai met us along Waiʻalae Avenue at one of the tree wells; from there we walked to the Kaimukī Rain Garden Project.

Wai points out some native plants in tree well; Jade is on right.

At proposed rain garden site; L to R Meredith, Sharon, Francisco, Jade, Wai, Stephan, & Daniel.

When everyone else went to pick up lunch, I ran home & quickly changed in to my Citizen Foresters volunteer shirt; Stephan was taking photos to document what was being done here so I wanted to be wearing the correct shirt! I met them up at Puʻu ʻo Kaimukī Community Park where Dan gave Stephan a quick overview of the geology of the area & talked about the work being done at the park by the community in collaboration with the non-profits & the NPS. This is the 1st time I have been to this park; it is the home for the community Christmas tree.

This & next 5 photos are panorama of view; looking northwesterly, Punchbowl in distance at right.

Looking north northwesterly; Tantalus & Roundtop in center distance, St. Louis Hts in mid-ground towards right with Manoa Valley at its base.

Looking northerly; Palolo Valley to left of sapling, Kaimukī fire station tower behind tree, Maunalani Heights in center, Mau'umae Natural Area to right & below Maunalani houses. 

Looking northeasterly; Waiʻalae Iki in center background & base of Christmas tree.

Looking easterly; Koko Head in background to left of center, Kaiwi Channel.

Looking southeasterly; Kaiwi Channel in background, old signal building. Leʻahi is farther right behind the building.

The Christmas tree.

L to R; Stephan, Dan, Francisco. Dan explains about tree & signal building.

The signal building was painted by community members under direction of local artist Solomon Enos.

Dan picked up sandwiches from Sprout Sandwich Shop for the group; he got me The Duke. We had a nice picnic in the shade of some older established Milo trees (Thespesia populnea) at the park. During lunch I learned about the really cool people that I have been working with! After lunch Meredith & Jade took Stephan to other sites, but I left the tour at this point since I was not involved with those projects.

While I was out with the NPS tree people, all kinds of information was being released to the media about the contamination at the Navy wells. The Board of Water Supply Chief Engineer was on Spotlight Hawaiʻi, there was a more than 3 hour long Legislative Briefing by representatives from the Navy, & it has come to light that the  Red Hill shaft contains 350 times the amount of diesel above safe levels! Auē! Based on a lot of the things coming out in the media, it is unlikely that there will be no lawsuits regarding contaminated water. I think the SDWB will be having a lot of requests from people wanting to have their water tested. The Navy appears to have lost the trust of the community & officials.

Tonight I heated up the Field Roast Classic Nuggets for dinner in the air fryer. It is faster & creates less of a mess. I had those along with cauliflower rice, Cashew Crusted Cauliflower, & Sauteed Kale & Won Bok.

This evening there was an email from Morgan from Smart Trees Pacific about the new Pacific Islands Tree Key training; I signed up for it. Two professors at Cal Poly have developed a dichotomous key for the identification of the trees commonly found in the Pacific Islands. It includes both indigenous & introduced street trees so it should be very helpful for the urban tree inventories. 

A little later in the evening Marjorie sent out a thank you about attending the training today. She also reiterated what Melvin told us about developing a schedule when he needed people. 

And quite a bit later I got an email from Sue, our Neighborhood Security Watch coordinator. She sent out photos of houses a block away from us being torn down & wondering if there might be another "monster home" being built in our neighborhood. Within a 1 block radius from us there is already 1 monster home; when it was completed we started having a whole lot more cars parked around the neighborhood since there was too little parking at the home itself for all its occupants. There has been a concern in many residential areas of monster homes being built in a single family residential neighborhood. These monster homes are built under the guise of being a large home for an extended family to live. But it is obvious that it is actually being built as apartment-like rental units when the multiple entrances & utility meters appear on the exterior of the structure. 

The house at the front of the lot. (Photo by Sue)

The house at the back of the lot. (Photo by Sue)

In the morning Keala was in the cat run. She was checking out all the early bird activity!

If she was a bird she would look like she was in an aviary with all the plants around.

Not doing her Travis Bickle impersonation today.

When I returned to change volunteer shirts, Keala was sleeping on the couch; the stool was still on my chair where I put it so it does not interfere with the Roomba. I removed the stool before I went up to Puʻu ʻo Kaimukī. When I returned after the tour with Stephan was done, Keala was still on the couch. It was apparent that she had not moved during the time I was gone, 

Oh, oh. Looks like the Spinner Dolphins around Hawaiʻi Island need a better public relations agent. At the public meeting the other day, people opposed proposed rules to close several bays during certain hours & certain seasons to provide safe resting areas for the Spinner Dolphins that inhabit those areas. The National Marine Fisheries Service would like to establish the new rules to help keep this species from being harassed during their resting periods. The people who spoke feel there needs to be more public education; I think that has been tried already & it's not working, which is why NOAA is pushing for more regulations. The spinners were probably doing really well during the start of the pandemic when there were extremely few tourists around.

Halemaʻumaʻu crater at Kīlauea volcano is still erupting.

The snow is still covering most of the summit of Mauna Kea. But it looks like there is no new snow. I have not been doing screen shots every day so I have not been able to notice if more snow has fallen. I will try to be better about that.

The access has been plowed so I should be able to notice if there are future snowfalls.

The Aix weather app forecast partly cloudy skies all day for Honolulu; that appeared to be accurate. For Kapaʻau, Aix forecast rain until mid-afternoon, then drizzle until after dark when it would turn to rain againl Big Island Now forecast partly sunny with scattered showers & 50% chance of rain. The Honomū weather station recorded no precipitation all day. For Marysville, Aix forecast rain all day, increasing as the day wore on; based on the traffic cams it did not look like they got any precipitation at all.

Kaimukī looking westerly at 7:37 a.m.

Honomū looking northerly at 7:37 a.m.

Marysville looking southerly at 7:38 a.m. HST.

Kaimukī looking northerly at 7:48 a.m.; this is a car from monster home 1/2 block away.

Nā Koʻolau at 7:52 a.m.

Pearl City looking southerly at 10:41 a.m.

Kaimukī looking northerly at 12:47 p.m.

Kaimukī looking westerly at 1:16 p.m.

Honomū looking northerly at 4:25 p.m.

Marysville looking southerly at 4:26 p.m. HST.

The north & west facing shores provided good surfing today.

Laniakea (N) at 7:40 a.m.

Hilo Bay (E) at 7:40 a.m.

Wikīkī (S) at 7:41 a.m.

Banyans (W) at 7:41 a.m.

Laniakea (N) at 4:19 p.m.

Hilo Bay (E) at 4:20 p.m.

Waikīkī (S) at 4:22 p.m.

Banyans (W) at 4:21 p.m.

The DOH has confirmed there are now 12 active Omicron variant cases here; all in Oʻahu residents. None of the cases had a history of travel & it does not appear that they are related to each other. Which is not a good thing; it means the Omicron variant is more widespread than previously thought.

There were 170 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the total known cases up to 88,825. There were also 5 new deaths reported increasing the death toll to 1045; currently there are 1367 cases that are considered active. As of today there have been 2,405,120 doses of vaccine administered, providing 72.6% of the State population with full vaccination & 78% with at least 1 dose. There are 40 cases that are currently hospitalized with 8 in the ICU & 4 on ventilators. The 7-day new case average for the State is 98 with a positivity rate of 1.5%. The 7-day new case average for Oʻahu is 64 with a positivity rate of 1.6%.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Deborah & Lynda!