Kauai Water Department phone service down Monday for system upgrade

Anyone who needs water help during Kauai Department of Water’s four-hour phone outage should use the backup lines, not the main number, while the department upgrades its telephone system on Monday, June 29, from 8 a.m. to noon. DOW said regular phone service will resume once the work is complete.

For water-service outages or leaks, residents can call the operations office at 808-855-8209. Billing, service-account and other administrative questions go to 808-755-5824. The department also said customers can use its website for online services and send questions by email to billing at kauaiwater dot org or publicrelations at kauaiwater dot org.

The interruption is brief, but it could still affect people who normally call to pay bills, check service accounts or report a leak before the workday starts. DOW said all other services will continue as usual during the outage window, so the disruption is limited to phone access rather than a broader shutdown of county water operations.

The timing comes as the county keeps pressing ahead with broader water-system work. DOW has been telling residents about its Water Systems Investment Plan, a long-range strategy for upgrades, maintenance priorities and capital improvement projects tied to aging infrastructure, climate-change impacts, water-supply resilience and projected growth. The county has said DOW operates and maintains 425 miles of waterlines, 50 wells, 60 tanks and more than 3,000 hydrants, and that many parts of the system are more than 100 years old.

This is not the first time phone service has gone down. In March, county officials said DOW phone lines and voicemails were out, with the Kauai County Information Technology Division monitoring the problem and working to restore service. The county later said phone service had been restored, a recent reminder to keep the alternate numbers handy when the main line fails.

Joe Tait, identified by the county as DOW manager and chief engineer, oversees a department that says its mission is to provide safe, affordable and sufficient drinking water through wise resource management and customer service. The county has also been testing new ways to reach residents, including a June test of the Kauai Emergency Management Agency’s Everbridge mass-notification system. Once the upgrade is finished, the normal DOW phone line is expected to come back online.