Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.

Beach may reopen
after sewage spill

---

By Leila Fujimori
Star-Bulletin

The city was hoping to open a quarter-mile section of Waikiki Beach as early as this afternoon following a sewage spill yesterday.

The city Department of Enviornmental Services was conducting contamination tests and needed clearance from the state Health Department before taking down the yellow tape closing off a section of Kuhio Beach near the intersection of Kalakaua Avenue and Liliuokalani Street.

The spill was reported at 8:50 a.m. yesterday. City crews had the situation under control within 30 minutes after arrival.

The affected area was disinfected. Small signs attached to the yellow tape warned of water contamination.

But some swimmers and surfers were unaware.

"Oh my God," said Leilani Brown when she learned of the spill yesterday afternoon.

Brown had just finished surfing. Had she known, she would not have gone into the water.

"It's not healthy," she said.

Brown said signs should have been posted on adjacent beach areas warning people about the spill.

The affected ocean area is walled in with an opening that allows some seawater to flow in and out.

The city's new waterfall facade hid the public restrooms from which sewage backed up a sewer line, causing waste water to flow across the beach.

Toilet paper and hand towels had clogged the sewer line. Part-time Waikiki resident Harvey Pederson said he saw the sewage bubbling up from two manhole covers along the Kalakaua Avenue sidewalk at 7:45 a.m. yesterday.