Aloha Council and Chair,
I wanted to share some additional resources which might be helpful in your decision making.
Ideally we would have had bio-filtration socks/compost socks installed months ago to help with toxic-debris run off control measures on the island. I feel like I failed our island for not being able to push harder for these interventions to be laid out as they were in other fires across the WestCoast and to see the rains and the runoff happening right now has been a heavy weight on my heart.
As of now bioremediation has not been built into the Federal Wildfire Clean up programs. We have been working on getting it adopted and this week we have Jennifer Gray Thompson from After the Fires speaking to Congress to push for getting these interventions built in on a Federal level so that it doesn't fall on the County/State or private citizens to do on their own dime.
We have had to find creative ways of building it into programs to get it covered after other fires.
After the CampFire, Butte County submitted a proposal to Cal OES, and that led to the very first trial of sediment/toxic debris-run-off control measures utilizing myco and bioremediation to scale. That trial created some of the original structure to create this new program enacted on Oct 19th 2019 in the N. Complex burned areas, and then it informed how we got it covered for the CZU fires in 2020 in Santa Cruz County. It is good to note that in both of these cases the ash was still taken away to a toxic-waste facility so the community did not have to deal with the long term impacts.
I believe that the best practice that should be adopted post fire should be:
1.)Removal of highly toxic footprints (not just the batteries themselves) by the EPA
2.) All highly toxic areas get surrounded by compost socks, mycosocks, sprayed with liquid amendments and covered with biochar and tarps while we wait for Phase 2 clean up to happen.
3. )Toxic debris run off control measures including compost socks and mycosocks be laid on contour (or keyline depending on the area) to ensure that there is no run off happening from these sites.
4.) Run off areas be identified and appropriate swales, burms and retention basins to be created to ensure the protection of all watershed/ocean and sensitive ecosystems are protected and bioremediaion efforts should be integrated in these areas. (note none of this would slow down the Phase 2 clean up in anyway... these are all efforts that can be happening alongside)
5.) Spraying liquid bioamendments on the sites so that we have the microbes working on the material to help neutralize as many of the toxins as possible while we are waiting for the phase 2 clean up to happen. We all know that the Phase 2 clean up will take many months and so it is easy for the applications of liquid bioamendments to happen while we wait for the clean up to happen and to be happening alongside the clean up without it slowing anything down.
6.) Have bioremediation experts be part of the design for the temporary holding site so that we can ensure we have the best chance of neutralizing the most toxins possible so that wherever this permanent toxic debris goes... it is least toxic for the people, the environment and for the workers.
7.) As the issue of Heavy metals came up quite a lot, there are studies done both with certain fungi, microbes, biochar, followed by vermiculture (using worms that then get incinerated) followed by phytoremediation (using plants and algeas) to chelate heavy metals. If we can build in plans to have scientists working on the best possible bioremediation plans for post-fire clean up- this could also be deeply helpful for communities around the world who are impacted by future wildfires.
Maui can be a leader in this space- and there is still so much to learn because there have been so few longitudinal studies done.
I encourage you to look at the work that CoRenewal did as they studied mycoremediation across multiple Megafires between 2020-2024.
I also know that sometimes the way to get FEMA to cover costs for things depends on the wording and while they are not currently covering "bioremediation" They have covered "Toxic debris run-off-control measures" and "Erosion Control".
Below I wanted to just share how we have been able to get these things covered in California and I know that there is also funding under Mitigation (preventing secondary disasters) and I encourage you to find the ways that it can get covered under whatever language is needing to be used.
This is what worked for Butte County and Santa Cruz County which we also sent to Talent after their fires .
The program is a partnership (working group) of The County, FEMA, CAL OES, The State Water Quality Board, and The Department of Water Resources. In the CZU fire due to the past relationship between the County and Cal Oes, this time the county did not have to create a proposal, just a request to OES.. Which was approved rather quickly when the proper request was made because they had already seen it in action for Butte County.
Here’s how we did it (Per our County Planning Department)
The incident needs to be declared a health Emergency by the incident Health Officer. This allows OES to enter property without an ROE. This is important due to the timeliness of the work.
Then an "Emergency Response Request" must be submitted by the County Emergency Services Coordinator to Cal OES Incident Commander who will then determine priority / eligibility. In Butte County we got this approved on the bases of 2 main factors:
A. Economic Recovery
B. Reducing Risk to Life and Health (polluting drinking water / wells, and sensitive watershed)
C. For CZU in Last Chance we also referenced fish spawning streambeds for protected species
In Butte County, We used water quality as our main argument, because of Lake Oroville and lake Madrone, but in other Counties the language of debris flow or protection of Reef may be a better argument. I think this will be determined by your incident, resource impacts, and local agencies. Remember that the government mainly protects people and infrastructure assets. Focus is on density of homes and proximity of waterways (1st and 2nd order streams). As we know, all streams are important, but this is what they were able to focus on here.
Then Cal OES will request for funding from FEMA. If approved then they will create a "Mission Task" for the operation, assign either a State agency (in our case the CCC’s) or hire private contractors to complete the project scope. The other great thing that was tied to this was that due to materials being focused on structural debris flows, the sediment controls (wattles / compost socks) will be removed in Phase 2 cleanup at no additional expense to the county / OES / homeowner.
I hope that this will be helpful for Maui and of course I am always here as a resource and you are welcome to reach out anytime if I can provide further clarity and support.
Aloha Council and Chair,
I wanted to share some additional resources which might be helpful in your decision making.
Ideally we would have had bio-filtration socks/compost socks installed months ago to help with toxic-debris run off control measures on the island. I feel like I failed our island for not being able to push harder for these interventions to be laid out as they were in other fires across the WestCoast and to see the rains and the runoff happening right now has been a heavy weight on my heart.
As of now bioremediation has not been built into the Federal Wildfire Clean up programs. We have been working on getting it adopted and this week we have Jennifer Gray Thompson from After the Fires speaking to Congress to push for getting these interventions built in on a Federal level so that it doesn't fall on the County/State or private citizens to do on their own dime.
We have had to find creative ways of building it into programs to get it covered after other fires.
After the CampFire, Butte County submitted a proposal to Cal OES, and that led to the very first trial of sediment/toxic debris-run-off control measures utilizing myco and bioremediation to scale. That trial created some of the original structure to create this new program enacted on Oct 19th 2019 in the N. Complex burned areas, and then it informed how we got it covered for the CZU fires in 2020 in Santa Cruz County. It is good to note that in both of these cases the ash was still taken away to a toxic-waste facility so the community did not have to deal with the long term impacts.
I believe that the best practice that should be adopted post fire should be:
1.)Removal of highly toxic footprints (not just the batteries themselves) by the EPA
2.) All highly toxic areas get surrounded by compost socks, mycosocks, sprayed with liquid amendments and covered with biochar and tarps while we wait for Phase 2 clean up to happen.
3. )Toxic debris run off control measures including compost socks and mycosocks be laid on contour (or keyline depending on the area) to ensure that there is no run off happening from these sites.
4.) Run off areas be identified and appropriate swales, burms and retention basins to be created to ensure the protection of all watershed/ocean and sensitive ecosystems are protected and bioremediaion efforts should be integrated in these areas. (note none of this would slow down the Phase 2 clean up in anyway... these are all efforts that can be happening alongside)
5.) Spraying liquid bioamendments on the sites so that we have the microbes working on the material to help neutralize as many of the toxins as possible while we are waiting for the phase 2 clean up to happen. We all know that the Phase 2 clean up will take many months and so it is easy for the applications of liquid bioamendments to happen while we wait for the clean up to happen and to be happening alongside the clean up without it slowing anything down.
6.) Have bioremediation experts be part of the design for the temporary holding site so that we can ensure we have the best chance of neutralizing the most toxins possible so that wherever this permanent toxic debris goes... it is least toxic for the people, the environment and for the workers.
7.) As the issue of Heavy metals came up quite a lot, there are studies done both with certain fungi, microbes, biochar, followed by vermiculture (using worms that then get incinerated) followed by phytoremediation (using plants and algeas) to chelate heavy metals. If we can build in plans to have scientists working on the best possible bioremediation plans for post-fire clean up- this could also be deeply helpful for communities around the world who are impacted by future wildfires.
Maui can be a leader in this space- and there is still so much to learn because there have been so few longitudinal studies done.
I encourage you to look at the work that CoRenewal did as they studied mycoremediation across multiple Megafires between 2020-2024.
I also know that sometimes the way to get FEMA to cover costs for things depends on the wording and while they are not currently covering "bioremediation" They have covered "Toxic debris run-off-control measures" and "Erosion Control".
Below I wanted to just share how we have been able to get these things covered in California and I know that there is also funding under Mitigation (preventing secondary disasters) and I encourage you to find the ways that it can get covered under whatever language is needing to be used.
This is what worked for Butte County and Santa Cruz County which we also sent to Talent after their fires .
The program is a partnership (working group) of The County, FEMA, CAL OES, The State Water Quality Board, and The Department of Water Resources. In the CZU fire due to the past relationship between the County and Cal Oes, this time the county did not have to create a proposal, just a request to OES.. Which was approved rather quickly when the proper request was made because they had already seen it in action for Butte County.
Here’s how we did it (Per our County Planning Department)
The incident needs to be declared a health Emergency by the incident Health Officer. This allows OES to enter property without an ROE. This is important due to the timeliness of the work.
Then an "Emergency Response Request" must be submitted by the County Emergency Services Coordinator to Cal OES Incident Commander who will then determine priority / eligibility. In Butte County we got this approved on the bases of 2 main factors:
A. Economic Recovery
B. Reducing Risk to Life and Health (polluting drinking water / wells, and sensitive watershed)
C. For CZU in Last Chance we also referenced fish spawning streambeds for protected species
In Butte County, We used water quality as our main argument, because of Lake Oroville and lake Madrone, but in other Counties the language of debris flow or protection of Reef may be a better argument. I think this will be determined by your incident, resource impacts, and local agencies. Remember that the government mainly protects people and infrastructure assets. Focus is on density of homes and proximity of waterways (1st and 2nd order streams). As we know, all streams are important, but this is what they were able to focus on here.
Then Cal OES will request for funding from FEMA. If approved then they will create a "Mission Task" for the operation, assign either a State agency (in our case the CCC’s) or hire private contractors to complete the project scope. The other great thing that was tied to this was that due to materials being focused on structural debris flows, the sediment controls (wattles / compost socks) will be removed in Phase 2 cleanup at no additional expense to the county / OES / homeowner.
I hope that this will be helpful for Maui and of course I am always here as a resource and you are welcome to reach out anytime if I can provide further clarity and support.
PLEASE DO NOT VOTE ON THIS ACTION UNTIL A PLAN TO BREAK UP THE DEBRIS AND SHIP TO CALIF HAS BEEN PROPOSED AND SUBMITTED TO THE MAYOR!