My name is Tapani Vuori and I am testifying on behalf of myself in strong support of CARE -55 CC21-358. Sedimentation is #1 threat to our near shore marine ecosystems; excessive nutrients and pollution being right after. Wetlands, or rather the importance of them has not been well recognized by the public and perhaps seen more of a nuisance many times thus the overwhelming need to eliminate them to serve "higher priority" needs. Wetlands do the heavy lifting in keeping the ecosystem in balance and too often we have managed to upset this balance. I echo all the community members here providing written testimony today so no need to repeat all the reasons why this issue needs to be elevated in our priorities and actually support this with strong policy and funding.
Aloha my name is Keolamau Tengan. I support this bill. Wetlands are crucial to our environment and critical to our community. Working with a community-based nonprofit dedicated to preserving the coastal wetlands in Paukūkalo and Waiehu, I have seen how the revitalization of this area has impacted the connection of the people who live here.
Providing a place to gather, wetlands are junctions points where water and land meet. From access points to the beach to fertile soil and fresh water to grown food, it is imperative to ensure the safety of these areas. I have seen how maintaining the natural beauty and creating easy accessibility has and can continue to affect and influence the surrounding community. Indeed, it is because of the kalo that grows in Paukūkalo that the keiki of this area can learn and grown through mālama 'āina. It is because of the openness and accessibility that our kupuna have been able to come back to the lands of their memory. By supporting the preservation of these wetlands now, we are able to ensure that this resource will be available for generations to come. l strongly urge you to step up and support CARE 55.
Testimony to County of Maui Council Climate Action, Resilience and Environment Committee
Sept 29, 2021, Comments on proposed bill CARE 55
My name is Robin Knox
I am testifying on behalf of the Save the Wetland Hui.
The Hui wholeheartedly SUPPORTS the proposed bill. The revised bill addresses the major concerns of the Hui which were raised in the previous committee meeting where this bill was considered. We ask the Council to consider adding a requirement for wetland scientists and Hawaiian cultural advisors as members of the Conservation Planning Committee.
This protections for wetlands are urgently needed. This bill will put Maui County at the forefront of the international efforts to protect wetlands globally.
Just yesterday, Sept 28, 2021, the New York Times published an opened entitled, “ Let Water Go Where it Wants to Go” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/28/opinion/hurricane-ida-new-york-city.html
"Water demands a place to go. That means making room for streams and wetlands, beaches, and salt marshes. It means solving human-caused problems with nature-based solutions. These include removing urban impediments to let streams flow once again, a process known as daylighting, restoring wetlands and planting trees.
Just two weeks ago NOAA published International Guidelines on Natural and Nature-based features for Flood Risk Management. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/news/sep21/nature-based-flood-management.html
The US Army Corps of Engineers led the effort to develop these guidelines. Therefore, it can be seen that the measures in this bill represent the latest understanding of science and engineering with regard to the value of wetlands in mitigating climate change impacts and managing floods.
My name is David Dorn, testifying on behalf of myself and the Sierra Club Maui Chapter, We support this Bill. I have lived on Maui for 30 years, I own a home, I am a business owner, and work with non-profits, and environmental groups, including the South Maui Save the Wetlands Hui (savethewetlands.org).
Our wetlands are rapidly disappearing so we need to take action to prevent our last wetlands from destruction. Our wetlands are vital for habitat, flood mitigation, and protection against the adverse effects of climate change.
Wetlands role in protecting beaches:
Coastal wetlands in Maui play a critical role in protecting beaches and other valuable near-shore natural resources by providing a number of important ecosystem services, including regulating and attenuating sediment flow in nearshore waters, creating a nutrient sink that prevents nitrogen and phosphorous pollution from entering the ocean and harming coral reefs, provisioning of habitat for indigenous and endemic Hawaiian waterbirds, providing for groundwater aquifer recharge, and flood mitigation.
Planning and Developers need to look at these systems in their entirety.
They cannot assess the impacts of single TMKs in isolation, just as a surgeon would not consider removing a vital organ from the human body without first considering the overall impacts on the patient. Each watershed feature has an important role to play, and each part of the system is needed for the entire system to stay viable and alive. Most wetlands are part of families and groupings of wetlands. Wetlands are often chained together where the water flows from one to another. This is more evident during times of flood, but also at other times these water flows are happening just under the surface.
We need wetlands as part of our drainage infrastructure, to help handle stormwater runoff:
Stormwater from flash flooding can create nuisance flooding. Ponding on roadways can disrupt the transport infrastructure. Flooding and stormwater runoff are natural events, so open spaces such as gulches and wetlands must be preserved to give the water somewhere to go. If you remove the wetlands the water will flow into homes, roads, and the ocean.
Wetlands are a part of a life-sustaining watershed system:
Wetlands are an integral part of the watershed and water cycle. The water cycle is the circulatory system of the island’s lifeblood, water (wai). Wetland should not be decouples from their watershed counterparts, because this will disrupt and degrade the entire system. Every watershed needs its kahawai (streams, and gulches), just as every kahawai (stream) needs its upland tributaries, and its lowland floodplains to function. These systems function synergistically together to manage water. Wetlands have always played a significant role in the lives of the Hawaiian people (Kanaka Maoli), as both the domain of aumakua (particularly Kihawahine in the South Maui area), and the establishment of landscapes that serve important economic, social, and ritual purposes, such as lo’i kalo (taro patches), and loko i`a (fishponds).
Holistic approach to development:
We need a broader definition for wetlands:
Many types of Wetlands are not currently designated and have very few protections. Maui has a wide variety of wetlands that provide important functions. Many of these wetlands are degraded or have been disturbed. Many of our remaining wetlands have had some partial destruction from modifications such as, drainage ditches, removal of vegetation, or loss of wildlife, so that they may not currently meet all the specific criteria of the narrow definitions for wetlands. However many of these temporarily degraded wetlands could easily be restored to meet the criteria of the more narrow wetlands definitions. Maui needs to create its own set of wetland definitions that include all of our types of wetlands so that degraded and stressed wetlands will also be preserved, and ultimately restored.
Characterizing Different Types of Wetland:
There are many different types of wetlands, they are varied and diverse, and many types are specific to their areas. In Hawaii, we have our own types of wetlands many of which are not found elsewhere. Because of this diversity, it is even difficult for the experts to agree on a single classification system. So in many cases a local definitions and characterizations are used. Hawaiian wetlands are also areas that have been historically utilized and highly valued by Hawaiian society because they contain the most precious and abundant resources such as food and water. The RAMSAR definitions have a broad application because it refers to their geology and place within the watershed. The “Ramsar Convention” has adopted a Ramsar Classification of Wetland Type which includes 42 types, grouped into three categories: Marine and Coastal Wetlands, Inland Wetlands, and Human-made Wetlands.
The RAMSAR definitions have 5 groupings of the major wetland types:
Marine (coastal wetlands, coastal lagoons, rocky shores, seagrass beds, coral reefs)
Estuarine (deltas, tidal marshes, mudflats, mangrove swamps)
Lacustrine (wetlands near lakes)
Riverine (wetlands near rivers/streams)
Palustrine (marshes, swamps, bogs)
Wetlands can be natural or manmade:
Man-made wetlands can be intentional or unintentional. Intentional wetlands include artificial wetlands or wetland mitigation. Mitigation wetlands (like the ones at Azeka/Pi’ikea in Kihei) are where the original wetlands are relocated. It is widely understood that natural wetlands are far superior to artificial wetlands in many ways.
Wetlands are far more than “water features”,
they are also repositories of biological diversity and habitat to macro and microflora and fauna. For every species of plant, you can see there are millions of bacteria dependent on those plants that you cannot see. A balanced wetland ecosystem will have millions of species of microorganisms that depend on the life cycles of various plant and animal species. So long-established natural wetlands will have a far greater biological diversity that is not easily replicated by man.
WETLAND DISPLACEMENT:
When one wetland is displaced another is often created. Areas of man-made surface runoff are regularly diverted onto open ground. Culverts and bridges along roadways have the tendency to concentrate water flows into new areas. Stormwater management infrastructure redistributes the hydrology supporting wetlands and can cause them to migrate, or reappear in totally new areas. Irrigating farmland causes new sources for water, and an altered hydrology. Transporting water from sources like rivers to other areas creates a new pathway for water and new hydrology for wetlands.
RECLAIMED WETLANDS:
Much of the coastal lands used for development are built on “reclaimed wetlands” Often a system of drainage ditches are used to reduce the water levels. However if this drainage system is not maintained or ever fails the original hydrology is likely to return, and then the original wetlands will reclaim these areas.
WETLANDS ARE ASSOCIATED WITH HAWAIIAN CULTURAL SITES:
Protecting wetlands also helps protect cultural and archeological sites. Watershed systems, ahupua’a, kahawai (gulch, streams), Muliwai (wetlands), and Loko I’a (fishponds) are the locum of ancient Hawaiian settlements and society. These areas are usually closely associated with artifacts including many examples of “indigenous engineering” like settlements, structures, canal systems, various forms of fishponds, and loi kalo (taro patches). When you preserve and protect wetlands you are also protecting many of these important ancient sites as well.
The majority of Maui’s wetlands are on private property.
Many wetlands consist of several TMK parcels, often with multiple land owners. One of the challenges in wetland protection is seeing the whole picture and not treating each individual parcel as a separate issue. The collective system must be protected, and the cumulative effects of development must be properly considered.
Wetlands role in Climate Change:
In the face of climate change and sea-level rise the wetlands provide important protection of land and water. Unfortunately, for well over a century, wetlands have been filled in, cut up, and disconnected resulting in these vital ecosystem services being lost to development. We need to preserve wetlands and open space. We need to create buffer zones around wetlands so that they can expand and migrate. Sea Level Rise will also bring rising water tables that will cause wetlands to migrate shoreward and upward. Our gulches, and streambeds are all part of the wetland and watershed infrastructure, and these are places where future wetlands will likely appear.
Saving the remaining Wetlands:
The importance of protecting, restoring, and expanding, Maui’s remaining wetland ecosystems cannot be overemphasized. We need a County-wide program has to assess, identify, and prioritize the remaining wetlands for restoration. We also need a program to work with landowners to protect wetlands on their property and seek to link wetlands into a corridor that functions as an interconnected ecological system for the mutual benefit of the County. We need to protect the wetlands from destruction and development. If we do not act now, there will be few ecologically viable wetlands left within the coming decade.
Please support this bill and help protect our wetlands.
mahalo,
David Dorn
Savethewetlands.org
County of Maui Council Members CC: Honorable Michael Victorino
200 S. High Street
Kalana O Maui Bldg 8th Floor
Wailuku, HI 96793
September 27, 2021
RE: CARE 55 “REFERRING TO THE PLANNING COMMISSIONS A PROPOSED BILL RELATING TO WETLANDS RESTORATION AND PROTECTION.”
Honorable County of Maui Council Members;
My name is Darla Palmer Ellison, and I am providing testimony on behalf of the Climate Action Advisory Committee (CAAC) as a steering committee director. Robin Knox of CAAC’s Ocean and Sea Level Rise committee provided information to CAAC for this testimony.
The Climate Action Advisory Committee supports CARE 55 and the referenced resolution to refer the proposed bill to the County of Maui Planning Commission. CAAC believes that protecting and restoring wetland functions is an important part of Maui County’s climate resilience plan.
Wetlands functions provide valuable ecosystem services. Wetlands provide net reduction of carbon through sequestration. Disturbance of existing wetlands can release sequestered carbon into the atmosphere. Preserving wetlands can avoid release of sequestered carbon, while protecting and restoring functional wetlands can increase carbon sequestration. Wetlands not only reduce carbon emissions, they increase climate resilience.
Wetlands can mitigate impacts of climate change due to more intense storms and sea level rise. Wetlands, as natural infrastructure, provide storage of storm water and flood waters. Wetlands are more adaptive than typically constructed drainage systems to the expected changes in runoff volume due to increasing storm intensity. Rising sea level will exacerbate existing flooding and drainage problems in coastal communities. The storage volume of wetlands will become increasingly important to climate resilience. One-acre of wetland can store one million gallons of storm water according to US EPA Functions & Values of Wetlands, EPA 843-F-01-002C, Sept 2001.
The wetlands capture much of the sediment and nutrients that would otherwise harm coral reefs. Coral reefs are instrumental in protecting shorelines from rising sea levels. For these reasons specific to climate, and for the other values of wetlands such as habitat for threatened and endangered species, aquatic life support, open space, and recreation, the CAAC supports CARE 55 to protect and restore wetlands.
Best regards,
Darla Palmer-Ellingson
Climate Action Advisory Committee Director
808-280-0949
360socialbiz@gmail.com
Mission
The Climate Action Advisory Committee serves to gather, assess and provide community input and resources to the Maui County Council, Maui County Administration, and others on climate emergency matters affecting Maui Nui.
I fully support CARE-55 bill to protect and restore Maui County wetlands as proposed by the County Council Climate Action, Resilience and Environment (CARE) Committee, chaired by Councilmember Kelly King.
Building on or near wetlands in the past has severely diminished their useful existence in many instances leaving very few viable wetlands left to serve their much need purpose. We must protect what we have left to prevent further flooding in our community as well as serving to protect the precious natural environment.
Wetlands function to provide ecosystem service important to our communities and natural resources by serving as detention of flood waters and settling of sediment, mitigation of nutrients and pollutants that can harm fisheries and coral reefs, habitat for threatened and endangered species, open space and recreation, culturally important natural resources, and mitigation of climate change through carbon sequestration.
Thank you for your consideration to this vital concern,
Patricia Stillwell
Kihei
Honorable Maui County Council and the Chair,
My name is Tapani Vuori and I am testifying on behalf of myself in strong support of CARE -55 CC21-358. Sedimentation is #1 threat to our near shore marine ecosystems; excessive nutrients and pollution being right after. Wetlands, or rather the importance of them has not been well recognized by the public and perhaps seen more of a nuisance many times thus the overwhelming need to eliminate them to serve "higher priority" needs. Wetlands do the heavy lifting in keeping the ecosystem in balance and too often we have managed to upset this balance. I echo all the community members here providing written testimony today so no need to repeat all the reasons why this issue needs to be elevated in our priorities and actually support this with strong policy and funding.
Aloha my name is Keolamau Tengan. I support this bill. Wetlands are crucial to our environment and critical to our community. Working with a community-based nonprofit dedicated to preserving the coastal wetlands in Paukūkalo and Waiehu, I have seen how the revitalization of this area has impacted the connection of the people who live here.
Providing a place to gather, wetlands are junctions points where water and land meet. From access points to the beach to fertile soil and fresh water to grown food, it is imperative to ensure the safety of these areas. I have seen how maintaining the natural beauty and creating easy accessibility has and can continue to affect and influence the surrounding community. Indeed, it is because of the kalo that grows in Paukūkalo that the keiki of this area can learn and grown through mālama 'āina. It is because of the openness and accessibility that our kupuna have been able to come back to the lands of their memory. By supporting the preservation of these wetlands now, we are able to ensure that this resource will be available for generations to come. l strongly urge you to step up and support CARE 55.
Testimony to County of Maui Council Climate Action, Resilience and Environment Committee
Sept 29, 2021, Comments on proposed bill CARE 55
My name is Robin Knox
I am testifying on behalf of the Save the Wetland Hui.
The Hui wholeheartedly SUPPORTS the proposed bill. The revised bill addresses the major concerns of the Hui which were raised in the previous committee meeting where this bill was considered. We ask the Council to consider adding a requirement for wetland scientists and Hawaiian cultural advisors as members of the Conservation Planning Committee.
This protections for wetlands are urgently needed. This bill will put Maui County at the forefront of the international efforts to protect wetlands globally.
Just yesterday, Sept 28, 2021, the New York Times published an opened entitled, “ Let Water Go Where it Wants to Go” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/28/opinion/hurricane-ida-new-york-city.html
"Water demands a place to go. That means making room for streams and wetlands, beaches, and salt marshes. It means solving human-caused problems with nature-based solutions. These include removing urban impediments to let streams flow once again, a process known as daylighting, restoring wetlands and planting trees.
Just two weeks ago NOAA published International Guidelines on Natural and Nature-based features for Flood Risk Management. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/news/sep21/nature-based-flood-management.html
The US Army Corps of Engineers led the effort to develop these guidelines. Therefore, it can be seen that the measures in this bill represent the latest understanding of science and engineering with regard to the value of wetlands in mitigating climate change impacts and managing floods.
WETLANDS RESTORATION (CARE-55)
My name is David Dorn, testifying on behalf of myself and the Sierra Club Maui Chapter, We support this Bill. I have lived on Maui for 30 years, I own a home, I am a business owner, and work with non-profits, and environmental groups, including the South Maui Save the Wetlands Hui (savethewetlands.org).
Our wetlands are rapidly disappearing so we need to take action to prevent our last wetlands from destruction. Our wetlands are vital for habitat, flood mitigation, and protection against the adverse effects of climate change.
Wetlands role in protecting beaches:
Coastal wetlands in Maui play a critical role in protecting beaches and other valuable near-shore natural resources by providing a number of important ecosystem services, including regulating and attenuating sediment flow in nearshore waters, creating a nutrient sink that prevents nitrogen and phosphorous pollution from entering the ocean and harming coral reefs, provisioning of habitat for indigenous and endemic Hawaiian waterbirds, providing for groundwater aquifer recharge, and flood mitigation.
Planning and Developers need to look at these systems in their entirety.
They cannot assess the impacts of single TMKs in isolation, just as a surgeon would not consider removing a vital organ from the human body without first considering the overall impacts on the patient. Each watershed feature has an important role to play, and each part of the system is needed for the entire system to stay viable and alive. Most wetlands are part of families and groupings of wetlands. Wetlands are often chained together where the water flows from one to another. This is more evident during times of flood, but also at other times these water flows are happening just under the surface.
We need wetlands as part of our drainage infrastructure, to help handle stormwater runoff:
Stormwater from flash flooding can create nuisance flooding. Ponding on roadways can disrupt the transport infrastructure. Flooding and stormwater runoff are natural events, so open spaces such as gulches and wetlands must be preserved to give the water somewhere to go. If you remove the wetlands the water will flow into homes, roads, and the ocean.
Wetlands are a part of a life-sustaining watershed system:
Wetlands are an integral part of the watershed and water cycle. The water cycle is the circulatory system of the island’s lifeblood, water (wai). Wetland should not be decouples from their watershed counterparts, because this will disrupt and degrade the entire system. Every watershed needs its kahawai (streams, and gulches), just as every kahawai (stream) needs its upland tributaries, and its lowland floodplains to function. These systems function synergistically together to manage water. Wetlands have always played a significant role in the lives of the Hawaiian people (Kanaka Maoli), as both the domain of aumakua (particularly Kihawahine in the South Maui area), and the establishment of landscapes that serve important economic, social, and ritual purposes, such as lo’i kalo (taro patches), and loko i`a (fishponds).
Holistic approach to development:
We need a broader definition for wetlands:
Many types of Wetlands are not currently designated and have very few protections. Maui has a wide variety of wetlands that provide important functions. Many of these wetlands are degraded or have been disturbed. Many of our remaining wetlands have had some partial destruction from modifications such as, drainage ditches, removal of vegetation, or loss of wildlife, so that they may not currently meet all the specific criteria of the narrow definitions for wetlands. However many of these temporarily degraded wetlands could easily be restored to meet the criteria of the more narrow wetlands definitions. Maui needs to create its own set of wetland definitions that include all of our types of wetlands so that degraded and stressed wetlands will also be preserved, and ultimately restored.
Characterizing Different Types of Wetland:
There are many different types of wetlands, they are varied and diverse, and many types are specific to their areas. In Hawaii, we have our own types of wetlands many of which are not found elsewhere. Because of this diversity, it is even difficult for the experts to agree on a single classification system. So in many cases a local definitions and characterizations are used. Hawaiian wetlands are also areas that have been historically utilized and highly valued by Hawaiian society because they contain the most precious and abundant resources such as food and water. The RAMSAR definitions have a broad application because it refers to their geology and place within the watershed. The “Ramsar Convention” has adopted a Ramsar Classification of Wetland Type which includes 42 types, grouped into three categories: Marine and Coastal Wetlands, Inland Wetlands, and Human-made Wetlands.
The RAMSAR definitions have 5 groupings of the major wetland types:
Marine (coastal wetlands, coastal lagoons, rocky shores, seagrass beds, coral reefs)
Estuarine (deltas, tidal marshes, mudflats, mangrove swamps)
Lacustrine (wetlands near lakes)
Riverine (wetlands near rivers/streams)
Palustrine (marshes, swamps, bogs)
Wetlands can be natural or manmade:
Man-made wetlands can be intentional or unintentional. Intentional wetlands include artificial wetlands or wetland mitigation. Mitigation wetlands (like the ones at Azeka/Pi’ikea in Kihei) are where the original wetlands are relocated. It is widely understood that natural wetlands are far superior to artificial wetlands in many ways.
Wetlands are far more than “water features”,
they are also repositories of biological diversity and habitat to macro and microflora and fauna. For every species of plant, you can see there are millions of bacteria dependent on those plants that you cannot see. A balanced wetland ecosystem will have millions of species of microorganisms that depend on the life cycles of various plant and animal species. So long-established natural wetlands will have a far greater biological diversity that is not easily replicated by man.
WETLAND DISPLACEMENT:
When one wetland is displaced another is often created. Areas of man-made surface runoff are regularly diverted onto open ground. Culverts and bridges along roadways have the tendency to concentrate water flows into new areas. Stormwater management infrastructure redistributes the hydrology supporting wetlands and can cause them to migrate, or reappear in totally new areas. Irrigating farmland causes new sources for water, and an altered hydrology. Transporting water from sources like rivers to other areas creates a new pathway for water and new hydrology for wetlands.
RECLAIMED WETLANDS:
Much of the coastal lands used for development are built on “reclaimed wetlands” Often a system of drainage ditches are used to reduce the water levels. However if this drainage system is not maintained or ever fails the original hydrology is likely to return, and then the original wetlands will reclaim these areas.
WETLANDS ARE ASSOCIATED WITH HAWAIIAN CULTURAL SITES:
Protecting wetlands also helps protect cultural and archeological sites. Watershed systems, ahupua’a, kahawai (gulch, streams), Muliwai (wetlands), and Loko I’a (fishponds) are the locum of ancient Hawaiian settlements and society. These areas are usually closely associated with artifacts including many examples of “indigenous engineering” like settlements, structures, canal systems, various forms of fishponds, and loi kalo (taro patches). When you preserve and protect wetlands you are also protecting many of these important ancient sites as well.
The majority of Maui’s wetlands are on private property.
Many wetlands consist of several TMK parcels, often with multiple land owners. One of the challenges in wetland protection is seeing the whole picture and not treating each individual parcel as a separate issue. The collective system must be protected, and the cumulative effects of development must be properly considered.
Wetlands role in Climate Change:
In the face of climate change and sea-level rise the wetlands provide important protection of land and water. Unfortunately, for well over a century, wetlands have been filled in, cut up, and disconnected resulting in these vital ecosystem services being lost to development. We need to preserve wetlands and open space. We need to create buffer zones around wetlands so that they can expand and migrate. Sea Level Rise will also bring rising water tables that will cause wetlands to migrate shoreward and upward. Our gulches, and streambeds are all part of the wetland and watershed infrastructure, and these are places where future wetlands will likely appear.
Saving the remaining Wetlands:
The importance of protecting, restoring, and expanding, Maui’s remaining wetland ecosystems cannot be overemphasized. We need a County-wide program has to assess, identify, and prioritize the remaining wetlands for restoration. We also need a program to work with landowners to protect wetlands on their property and seek to link wetlands into a corridor that functions as an interconnected ecological system for the mutual benefit of the County. We need to protect the wetlands from destruction and development. If we do not act now, there will be few ecologically viable wetlands left within the coming decade.
Please support this bill and help protect our wetlands.
mahalo,
David Dorn
Savethewetlands.org
County of Maui Council Members CC: Honorable Michael Victorino
200 S. High Street
Kalana O Maui Bldg 8th Floor
Wailuku, HI 96793
September 27, 2021
RE: CARE 55 “REFERRING TO THE PLANNING COMMISSIONS A PROPOSED BILL RELATING TO WETLANDS RESTORATION AND PROTECTION.”
Honorable County of Maui Council Members;
My name is Darla Palmer Ellison, and I am providing testimony on behalf of the Climate Action Advisory Committee (CAAC) as a steering committee director. Robin Knox of CAAC’s Ocean and Sea Level Rise committee provided information to CAAC for this testimony.
The Climate Action Advisory Committee supports CARE 55 and the referenced resolution to refer the proposed bill to the County of Maui Planning Commission. CAAC believes that protecting and restoring wetland functions is an important part of Maui County’s climate resilience plan.
Wetlands functions provide valuable ecosystem services. Wetlands provide net reduction of carbon through sequestration. Disturbance of existing wetlands can release sequestered carbon into the atmosphere. Preserving wetlands can avoid release of sequestered carbon, while protecting and restoring functional wetlands can increase carbon sequestration. Wetlands not only reduce carbon emissions, they increase climate resilience.
Wetlands can mitigate impacts of climate change due to more intense storms and sea level rise. Wetlands, as natural infrastructure, provide storage of storm water and flood waters. Wetlands are more adaptive than typically constructed drainage systems to the expected changes in runoff volume due to increasing storm intensity. Rising sea level will exacerbate existing flooding and drainage problems in coastal communities. The storage volume of wetlands will become increasingly important to climate resilience. One-acre of wetland can store one million gallons of storm water according to US EPA Functions & Values of Wetlands, EPA 843-F-01-002C, Sept 2001.
The wetlands capture much of the sediment and nutrients that would otherwise harm coral reefs. Coral reefs are instrumental in protecting shorelines from rising sea levels. For these reasons specific to climate, and for the other values of wetlands such as habitat for threatened and endangered species, aquatic life support, open space, and recreation, the CAAC supports CARE 55 to protect and restore wetlands.
Best regards,
Darla Palmer-Ellingson
Climate Action Advisory Committee Director
808-280-0949
360socialbiz@gmail.com
Mission
The Climate Action Advisory Committee serves to gather, assess and provide community input and resources to the Maui County Council, Maui County Administration, and others on climate emergency matters affecting Maui Nui.
I fully support CARE-55 bill to protect and restore Maui County wetlands as proposed by the County Council Climate Action, Resilience and Environment (CARE) Committee, chaired by Councilmember Kelly King.
Building on or near wetlands in the past has severely diminished their useful existence in many instances leaving very few viable wetlands left to serve their much need purpose. We must protect what we have left to prevent further flooding in our community as well as serving to protect the precious natural environment.
Wetlands function to provide ecosystem service important to our communities and natural resources by serving as detention of flood waters and settling of sediment, mitigation of nutrients and pollutants that can harm fisheries and coral reefs, habitat for threatened and endangered species, open space and recreation, culturally important natural resources, and mitigation of climate change through carbon sequestration.
Thank you for your consideration to this vital concern,
Patricia Stillwell
Kihei