This morning I talked to Dr. Don Thomas for half an hour. He’s finding really fascinating stuff that turns upside-down the whole theory of how fresh water is stored under the island.

It looks like there is a 15-foot thick, impermeable, layer on the Hilo side that traps freshwater 9,000+ feet down.

This is what we thought the Hawaiian Islands water cycle looks like.

Clouds come in and pile up against the slopes, and then rain falls, percolating down and out toward the ocean. So when we drill, we expect to find a freshwater lens, with salt water beyond (lower than) the freshwater lens. Right? One would expect to find fresh water at roughly around sea level. Or maybe a little deeper.

What if you drilled past the freshwater lens into the salt water and found fresh water at a much deeper level – like 9000 feet? And what if it were cold, and more than 1000 years old and under 160 pounds per square foot pressure? That was what Don Thomas recently found at a well he was drilling by the Hilo airport.

What does this mean? Could it be the same on the Kona side? He thinks so.