Category Archives: Water

Aquaponics, Bananas, Big Island, Eating Locally, Family of Farms, Food Security, Geothermal, Hamakua Coast, How It All Started, Hydroelectric, Hydroponics, Lowering Electric Rates, Our Employees, Renewable Energy Sources, Sustainability, Taro/Poi, Tomatoes, Water, Where We Live

The Wheres & Whyfors of Hamakua Springs

June 9, 2013 Leslie Lang

By Leslie Lang

The other day Richard gave some of us a tour of Hamakua Springs Country Farms in Pepe‘ekeo, and its new hydroelectric plant, and wow. I hadn’t been out to the farm for awhile, and it was so interesting to ride around the 600 acres with Richard and see all that’s going on there these days.

Most of what I realized (again) that afternoon fell into two
broad categories: That Richard really is a master of seeing the big picture, and that everything he does is related to that big picture.

Hamakua Springs, which started out growing bananas and then expanded into growing the deliciously sweet hydroponic tomatoes we all know the farm for, has other crops as well.

These days there are farmers leasing small plots where they are growing taro, corn, ginger and sweet potato. These farmers’ products go to the Hamakua Springs packing house and Hamakua Springs distributes them, which speaks to Richard’s goal of providing a place for local farmers to farm, wherethere is water and packing and distribution already in place.

As we drove, we saw a lot of the water that passes through his farm. There are three streams and three springs. It’s an enormous amount of water, and it’s because of all this water that he was able to develop his brand new hydroelectric system, where they are getting ready to throw the switch.

The water wasn’t running through there the day we were there because they’d had to temporarily “turn it off” – divert the water – in order to fix something, but we could see how the water from an old plantation flume now runs through the headworks and through a pipe and into the turbine, which is housed in a blue shipping container.

This is where the electricity is generated, and I was interested to see a lone electric pole standing there next to the system. End of the line! Or start of the line, really, as that’s where the electricity from the turbine is carried to. And from there, it works its way across the electric lines stretched between new poles reaching across the land.

He asked the children who were along with us for their ideas
about how to landscape around the hydroelectric area, and also where the water leaves the turbine to run out and rejoin the stream.

“We could do anything here,” he said, asking for thoughts, and
we all came up with numerous ideas, some fanciful. Trees and grass? A taro lo‘i? Maybe a picnic area, or a water flume ride or a demonstration garden or fishponds?

There are interesting plans for once the hydro system is operating, including a certified kitchen where local area producers can bring their products and create value-added goods.

Other plans include having some sort of demo of sustainable
farming, and perhaps ag-tourism ativities like walking trails going through the farm, and maybe even a B&B. “The basis of all tourism,” he said, “is sustainability.”

Hamakua Springs is also experimenting with growing mushrooms
now, and looking into several other possibilities for using its free
electricity.

As we stopped and looked at the streams we kept coming
across, which ran under the old plantation roads we drove upon, Richard made an observation that I found interesting. In the Hawaiian way, the land is thought of as following the streams down from mountain to sea. In traditional ways, paths generally ran up-and-down the hill, following the shape of the ahupua‘a.

“But look at the plantation roads,” he said, and he pointed
out how they run across the land, from stream to stream. The plantation way was the opposite. Not “wrong” – just different.

Richard has plans to plant bamboo on the south sides of the
streams, which will keep the water cool and keep out invasive species.

At the farm, they continue to experiment with raising
tilapia, which are in four blue pools next to the reservoir.

June with a full net

The pools are at different heights because they are using gravity to flow the water from one pool to the next, rather than a pump. Besides it being free, this oxygenates the water as it falls into the next pool. They are not raising the fish commercially at present, but give them to their workers.

Everything that Richard does is geared toward achieving the same goal, and that is to keep his farm economically viable and sustainable.

If farmers make money, farmers will farm.

Continuing to farm means continuing to provide food for the local community, employing people locally and making it possible for local people to stay in Hawai‘i: This as opposed to people having to leave the islands, or their children having to leave the islands, in order to make a decent life for themselves.

The hydroelectric system means saving thousands per month in
electric bills, and being able to expand into other products and activities. It means the farm stays in business and provides for the surrounding community. It means people have jobs.

This is the same reason why, on a bigger scale, Richard is working to bring more geothermal into the mix on the Big Island: to decrease the stranglehold that high electricity costs have over us, so the rubbah slippah folk have breathing room, so that we all have more disposable income – which will, in turn, drive our local economy and make our islands more competitive with the rest of the world, and our standard of living higher, comparably.

When he says “rubbah slippah folk,” Richard told me, he’s always thinking first about the farm’s workers.

This, by the way, is really a great overview of how Richard describes the “big picture.” It’s a TEDx talk he did awhile back (17 minutes). Really worth a look.

It was so interesting to see firsthand what is going on at the farm right now, and hear about the plans and the wheres and whyfors. Thank you, Richard, for a really interesting and insightful afternoon.

Hydroelectric, Lowering Electric Rates, Sustainability, Water

Visitors To The Farm

June 3, 2013 Richard Ha 3 Comments

Richard Ha writes:

We had a lot of visitors one day last week. All, like us, were very excited about the possibilities surrounding ag and energy at the farm. Agriculture and energy are inextricably intertwined.

The visit was arranged by Matt Hamabata, Chief Executive Officer of the Kohala Center, of which I am a board member. He brought researchers from Cornell University, as well as representatives from UH Hilo and Kamehameha Schools.

From UH Hilo, Cam Muir and consultant Greg Chun. From Cornell, Max Zhang and Robert J. Thomas. Matt Hamabata from Kohala Center. From Kamehameha Schools, Mahealani Matsuzaki, Neil Hannahs, Giorgio Caldarone, Sydney Keliipuleole, Llewelyn Yee and Marissa Harman.

This reservoir supplies all the irrigation water for our vegetables. The water comes down from an intermittent stream. Soon, the water pumps that move the water and pressurize the lines will be electrified from the old plantation flume.

See the blue tanks in the distance? That’s a tilapia experiment, where we oxygenate the water by using falling water rather than electricity. This is another way to leverage the abundant water that falls on the farm: We get 2.3 billion gallons annually on our 600-acre farm.

Construction of the head works: connecting up the old part of the flume with the new part. (Left) James Channels, produce buyer for Foodland Supermarkets and (right) Kimo Pa, farm manager at Hamakua Springs.

We took them up to the head works, where the old part of the flume system joins up with the new. As we looked downslope, someone mentioned how amazing it is to think that the sugar people moved the sugar cane to the mill by portable wooden
flume structures that they moved from field to field. We were standing about three miles upstream of the sugar mill.

Next we went to the hydro turbine shack to see where the water we borrowed 150 feet upslope is returned to the flume after energy is extracted. From there, overhead lines take the electricity to our packing house.

The turbine before

The turbine after

We have a vision of lining the south side of the flume with native trees. Their shadows would fall across the flume and suppress invasive species at the same time.

Back at the packing house, I told them about diversifying our produce mix. A papaya farmer wants to work with us, producing and labeling non-GMO papayas. Also, I visited an organic farmer in Opihikao yesterday. He is interested in getting heat-sterilized coconut coir to use as media for his certified clean ginger seed business. I told him I will keep him in the loop.

Later, Laverne Omori, the new Research and Development Director, came by with County Energy Coordinator Will Rolston. Vincent Kimura, of the INNOVI group, was at the farm helping us install an ozone food sanitation system. The beauty of this system is that we won’t have to use chemicals for sanitation treatment.
The only thing left over will be plain water.

Here’s a “before” picture with some previous visitors, Claire Sullivan and Steve Carey from Whole Foods.

And this short video shows “after.”

We want to use the electricity we get from the river to help area farmers produce more food. The bottom-line, inescapable fact is that if the farmers make money, the farmers will farm.

Lowering Electric Rates, Renewable Energy Sources, Water

Our New Hydroelectric System Is Almost Online

April 10, 2013 Richard Ha 1 Comment

Richard Ha writes:

Our new hydroelectric system is almost ready to go.

We received a County permit to put a power line under the single lane County road, and that was finished several weeks ago. All the overhead lines are in place now.

All we need to do is hook up the ends and we will be generating electricity from the river.

Our vision is to use the electricity to help area farmers consolidate and ship their produce to market along with ours.

Our hydro project is an attempt to stabilize farmers’ costs. Farmers and food manufacturers here in Hawai‘i – where we use oil for more than 70 percent of our electricity generation, compared to the Mainland where they use oil to generate only 2 percent of their electricity – are at a disadvantage when it comes to importing food products.

Lots of veteran Big Island farmers are considering selling, instead of passing their farm on to the next generation. The quadrupling of energy costs in the last 10 years had been just too hard for them to adjust to.

Our farm uses approximately 30 kilowatts of electricity, and we will generate more than 70 kilowatts.

We’re asking people for ideas about what to do with the excess electricity. One idea is to cold treat temperate fruit and fool it to think it’s growing in Washington, sort of like what they did at NELHA. I that case, they ran cold water by temperate crops and gave them the cold treatment that way.

Any ideas?

Geothermal, Iceland, Travel, Water

Geothermal Spas Around The World

April 3, 2013 Richard Ha

By Leslie Lang

Years ago I worked for United Airlines, and the story of that portion of my life is told through travel tales.

For instance, when the airline started flying to New Zealand, I packed my bag. Two highlights of that trip were:

The Auckland Museum. I purposely, and delightedly, went to New Zealand by myself, which was delicious because it meant I got to go where I wanted, and do what I wanted, without compromise. It meant I could spend hours and hours at this museum with its fascinating Polynesian collection. I was so interested that a man who is a guide there, but was off for the day, gave me a tour of part of the museum. Also, I met a really nice older, grandmother-type woman in the museum’s café and we chatted for a long time; eventually she invited me to her house for tea and we had a fun visit that I have always remembered. (Lesson: When you travel by yourself, you often have experiences you would not otherwise have.)
Visiting Rotorua, specifically for the geothermally heated mineral spas that the North Island town is known for. That was great.

What a cool place, first of all. The whole town smells slightly sulfur-y, which gives it an otherworldly feel (smell?). I liked that.

People love soaking in those geothermally heated pools such as Rotorua’s Polynesian Spa (recognized by Conde Nast Traveller magazine as one of the Top 10 natural/thermal/medical spas in the world), I tell you. Including me.

Here are more than 500 TripAdvisor reviews of the Polynesian Spa at Rotorua, most very positive.

Another big spa in Rotorua is interestingly called Hell’s Gate, with the subtitle, “The Beast Of All Geothermal Parks.”

From the website (which explains how it got that name):

Hells Gate geothermal attraction is Rotorua’s most active geothermal park and is known as the “AWESOME BEAST” of New Zealand Geothermal attractions. Hells Gate geothermal attraction features boiling hot pools and erupting waters with temperatures in excess of 100 degrees Celsius; steaming fumaroles; hot water lakes; sulphur crystals and deposits; New Zealand’s largest active mud volcano; Southern Hemisphere’s largest hot water fall and even examples of land coral. See, feel and understand the awe of Irish Playwright George Bernard Shaw as he gazed upon the land and gave it the English name “Hellsgate” as he believed he had arrived at the gates to Hell. A primeval setting displaying the awesome RAW POWER of the earth and its geothermal nature.

And here’s how they advertise their “unique geothermal muds,” and what they are helpful for:

See, touch and be amazed with the unique geothermal muds of the Hells Gate geothermal park – the black geothermal mud used for more than a century in the treatment of arthritics and rheumatism, our ice cold white geothermal mud that changes its form from solid to liquid and back again, that is used for the relief of burns; and the warm silky grey geothermal mud that gently exfoliates the skin. Hells Gate geothermal park is the only geothermal attraction in New Zealand that produces these three types of geothermal muds making Hells Gate geothermal attraction in Rotorua a unique geothermal mud experience.

And a little history:

Follow the footsteps of warriors old, through the swirling clouds of steam, past the pool where the Maori Princess, “Hurutini” lost her life for her people; see the violent geothermal activity of the “Inferno” with two erupting pools aptly named “Soddam” and “Gomorra” by George Bernard Shaw and then on to the “Kakahi Hot Water Fall, where warriors would return after battle to remove the “Tapu” of war and heal their wounds at the only Maori-owned area of geothermal in New Zealand.

I am such a huge fan of the whole hot spa soaking thing, as people have been, of course, throughout time.

From the UK Energy Research Centre: Geothermal energy was discovered in its simplest form many centuries ago. During Roman times water percolating through fissures in hot rocks produced hot springs in the ground around which civilizations were built (e.g. Bath Spa, UK; Pompeii, Italy).

This past summer I took my daughter to see the ancient geothermal Roman baths at Bath. Check out this neat video look at the elegant and historic town of Bath. The section on the baths themselves starts at about 4:09.

I would like to visit the ancient Roman baths at Pompeii one day, too.

There are geothermally heated springs for soaking in all over the place. I truly got lost in this article, 20 Great Hot Springs Around Europe, for quite awhile.

Then there’s the amazingly beautiful Blue Lagoon in Reykjavik, Iceland, which Richard has visited and which I would love to see (especially between November and April, which is the season of the Northern Lights – how great would that combination be!).

There are some really stunning photos of the Blue Lagoon at the Anthology blog.

And now I have worked myself all up into wanting to take a world tour: Visiting hot spas, soaking in geothermal mud, relieving aches and possibly medical conditions, who knows, while at the same time completely relaxing and rejuvenating. What a life that would be! Shall we have Richard send me on such a fact-finding mission?

I could go check out all these geothermally heated spas, first-hand, ask people why they flock to them, and then post reports on the blog telling you how great it is.

I would revisit Rotorua and soak right at Hell’s Gate.

I would go to Japan, where I was a teenage exchange student not once but twice, and still somehow completely missed the onsens.

It’s possible I would even try an “onsen tomago.”

Onsen tamago (温泉卵 or 温泉玉子?) is a traditional Japanese boiled egg which is originally slow cooked in the water of onsen hot springs in Japan. The traditional way of cooking onsen tamago is to place eggs into rope nets and leave them in a hot spring, with water that is approximately 70°C (158ºF) for 30 to 40 minutes. Crack open the shell and serve the egg in seasoned bonito dashi (Japanese stock) for breakfast, or in a light sauce made with mirin, dashi and soy sauce with chopped spring onions sprinkled over the top.

To heck with the eggs; I would soak myself in Japan’s onsen, snow all around, and possibly even with these macaques. Lucky devils.

On my international fact-finding mission, I would be forced to stay in Reykjavik and soak in the Blue Lagoon night after night after night, until I had marveled at the Northern Lights to my complete satisfaction.

But in the meantime, it’s not all bad here, either. There is, for instance, our geothermally heated pond at Alahanui County Park in Kapoho. Did you know that before the 1960 Kapoho eruption, the waters there weren’t hot? I didn’t know that.

Another interesting site within the Puna district are the heated tide pools at Ahalanui Beach Park (aka Puʻalaʻa County Park), where spring water has been naturally heated through geothermal energy and this mixes with ocean water along the shoreline.

Maybe I’ll see you there!

Community, Food Safety Certification, Lowering Electric Rates, Our Story, Water

Master Gardeners Visit Hamakua Springs

September 21, 2012 Richard Ha

Richard Ha writes:

The master gardeners came to visit Hamakua Springs yesterday. I told them their entry fee was that they had to listen to my pitch about the Big Island Community Coalition, through which we advocate for lowest electricity rates in the state.

We all laughed, and then I handed them flyers to post everywhere they can.

The Master Gardeners, solely as volunteers, help staff the University Extension Service. Somone pointed out that when they are not there, the Extension Service office is empty.

It was great to talk with people who grow things and have hands-on experience with insect and disease issues. They peered under leaves and asked lots of questions. Many of them grow tomatoes, so we had a lot in common. We feel a special closeness to them.

Master Gardeners decided to do their vegetable shopping while on their tour.

My daughter Tracy
explained our Food Safety program, which involves nearly 60 line items for the field operation and 60 more for the packing operation. Everything is documented.

I pointed out that
smaller growers have a very difficult time both farming and maintaining the
detailed paperwork necessary to become Food Safety-certified. The Food Safety program evolved as large retailers pushed the liability down the chain. It is neither good nor bad – It just is.

Someone asked how long we have been at Pepe‘ekeo and why we chose this location, and I explained that we started looking at different possible locations 20 years ago. Plantations were closing down, the market was on O‘ahu – there were many factors in play.

What it came down to were the physical resources. At Pepe‘ekeo, which is located close to a deep water port, there is deep soil, and most of all, there is an abundance of water. Our average annual rainfall here is close to 140 inches per year. More than 1/4 of the volume of water that goes to the Ewa plains on O‘ahu flows downhill through our farm alone. And there is a 150-foot elevation difference in the water flow.

That water was free, and would be free for as long as we could imagine. We made our decision based on free water.

Aquaponics, Bananas, Hamakua Coast, Hydroponics, Lettuce, Peak Oil, Sustainability, Taro/Poi, Water, Where We Live

Conversations With My Mom

June 11, 2012 Richard Ha 4 Comments

Richard Ha writes:

I took Mom to Hamakua Springs to get a few tilapia for her dinner.

While we were there, we looked at some of the things we have going on.

Corn

Hamakua Springs bananas

Hydroponic lettuce, with special procedures to control slugs

Sweet potatoes

Zucchini

One thing that strikes me is how much water we have running through our 600-acre farm. We must maximize its usage.

Water Supply will build a new reservoir adjacent to this one and bring electricity right through the farm to the new well, which is right behind this reservoir

I really want to raise tilapia when the price of oil goes so high that bringing it in from Asia is prohibitive.

Tilapia for Mom. These are the small ones, to fry crispy.

And, while doing that, we want to demonstrate how Hawaiians were self-sufficient in ancient days.

Then while we are at it, we want to reforest the streams with ‘ohi‘a, koa, bamboo, kukui, hapu‘u, etc.

Also, how about aquaponics with tilapia and taro?
How about a certified kitchen to make lomi salmon, poi and other things where we and other farmers can add value?
What about classes for at-risk students?
Maybe a permanent imu.
Events set around food?
How about showing how food was produced then and now – ancient and modern?

Mom and I always have these kinds of conversations. I like it.

Renewable Energy Sources, Sustainability, Water

Hydroelectric Project at Farm is Full Steam Ahead

November 29, 2011 Richard Ha

Somebody asked me the other day about Richard’s hydroelectric project at the farm. I hadn’t even gotten around to asking him about it yet when I saw this Pacific Business News article.

Hydroelectric energy will power Big Island farm

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2011 AT 10:24AM

(Pacific Business News) Hamakua Springs Country Farms plans to use the streams along the Hamakua Coast to generate electricity as early as next year and has hired a system developer to move the process forward.

The idea has been in the works since last year, and Richard Ha, president of Hamakua Springs, said development of the hydropower system is likely to begin in 2012. The farm has received the proper permits, he said, but the cost and design analysis has not yet begun. He expects the evaluation and building process to take about seven months to a year. Read the rest

Richard told me, “We cannot wait to make our electric bill predictable and stable.”

Water

Water, Water, Everywhere…

November 21, 2011 Richard Ha

How is it that, after drilling through fresh water and then through 9000 feet of salt water, they hit cold fresh water under pressure? That wasn’t supposed to happen.

Last year, Don Thomas gave a talk to the Keaukaha Community Association about this project I wrote about last time.

This is what it looks like when water under 160 pounds of pressure shoots up out of the ground.

New Info About Hawaii’s Water

November 18, 2011 Richard Ha

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.

Using magnetotelluric surveys — they detect radio waves in the earth, and, depending on the conductivity of the rocks, can give a hint at what is there (i.e., hot/cold rocks, salt/fresh water, or combinations thereof), and then he gets in there with his drill — he has found what looks like perched fresh water on the dry side of the island. And it was higher than expected. Hmmm!

Biofuel, Geothermal, Iceland, Travel, Water

Still in Iceland, Still in Shorts

August 3, 2011 Richard Ha 5 Comments

We landed in Iceland, where the temperature is mild – it’s in the mid 50s. My shorts and a jacket are working very well, so far. I’m going to stay in shorts as long as it makes sense.

We took a cab into Reykjavik. My first observations were that there are hardly any trees, and that the lava base is very familiar to those of us who live on the east side of the Big Island.

My most significant observation was that there are no overhead electric lines. Everything is underground.

We passed an aluminum manufacturing company on our way in.

I expected it to be belching black smoke, but there wasn’t even a wisp of steam. It looked very benign. We have to visit those folks.

We checked into the hotel. Here’s the view from the hotel.

Then we got a car and went down to the Blue Lagoon. We went in the water and stayed in for maybe two hours; I’m not sure, because I lost track of time. It felt good to relax and get the kinks out after that long trip.

It was sea water with a very slight smell of sulfur, and you could open your eyes under water. People had silica mud spread all over their faces for its therapeutic value. I imagine the silica had the consistency of the stuff women put on their faces at a spa. It was very fine and actually felt kind of good. But I bet it would raise all kinds of problem in the geothermal pipes when it hardens and coats the surfaces.

That’s a geothermal well in the background.

There is a live webcam at the Blue Lagoon!

After that, we explored downtown Reykjavik.

We walked up and down the old city, which has a European feel.

It’s very nice and clean, and things were hopping on a Sunday night. We had to wait more than an hour on our third attempt to get a seafood dinner.

David Stefansson (the project manager at Reykjavik Geothermal) and his wife Olga Fedorova (an international trade lawyer and Russian translator) took us for coffee. They are very nice, friendly and fascinating people and we had a wide-ranging conversation. They told us a lot about the history of Iceland and its people in the context of moving from coal to geothermal many years ago. And in that conversation, we learned that the island’s trees had been cut down many years ago for fuel.

Of course, this all makes a lot of sense. It kind of makes me think of what can happen with biomass.

I want to learn more about the leaders who forced the change that has made the Icelandic people one of the most prosperous people in the world (notwithstanding the disaster that the banking industry recently placed upon the people. They apparently confused capital with energy.)

People here reserve Sundays for family time. It’s kind of like the old plantation days in Hawai‘i. Monday was a national holiday and so we went exploring.

One of many waterfalls in Iceland.