Wastewater gushes
into Pearl Harbor

By Gregg K. Kakesako
Star-Bulletin

The Navy early this morning placed a temporary patch on a broken 27-inch sewage line that spewed an estimated 1.2 million gallons of sewage into the channel leading into Pearl Harbor.

A 10-foot section of the sewer line was removed and replaced with a larger temporary pipe this morning.

The Navy said that couplings will be manufactured on the mainland and final work will be completed on Monday.

Fifteen monitoring stations are located in the channel to determine if any health hazards exist.

Signs warning people to stay out of the water were posted along Hickam Air Force Base shoreline near the break.

The broken line is five feet underground.

Some sewage also overflowed into one of the parking lots of the Hickam Officers Club and adjacent lawns.

The sewer line was closed from from midnight to 5 a.m. while the temporary patch was installed.

Both the Navy Public Works Center and Air Force civil engineers responded shortly before 5 p.m. Monday when the break was discovered at Bishop Point, which is on Navy property at Hickam.

The force main, or pressurized line, linked a wastewater lift station at Pearl Harbor to the Navy's Fort Kamehameha Wastewater Treatment Plant at Hickam.

Wastewater flow was collected with vacuum and tanker trucks.

The trucks transported the reclaimed sewer water to the treatment facility located nearby.

Sandbags and vacuum trucks also were used to help contain spillage in the water to prevent it from spreading over land.

The Navy said efforts are under way to limit wastewater production until line repairs are completed.