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By Ronen Zilberman Star-Bulletin
Ameron-Hawaii operations manager George N. West indicates
a water pump intended to help control runoff at the
company's Kapaa Quarry location.

Ameron facing fine
for quarry runoff

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By Pat Gee
Star-Bulletin

The state Department of Health is planning to fine Ameron-Hawaii for allowing runoff from its new Kapaa Quarry operation to enter Kapaa Stream and Kawainui Marsh, said Dennis Lau, chief of the department's Clean Water Branch.

The fines are in response to a formal complaint from the Kailua Neighborhood Board.

In a strongly worded letter, dated Nov.30, the board expressed concern that runoff from a storm could cause landslides and result in damage to Kapaa Stream, the Access Road, Kawainui Marsh and possibly to Kailua Bay. The board is also afraid Coconut Grove or other inhabited areas could be affected by flooding.

Lau said the consequences of heavy rain are "not as severe" as feared by the neighborhood board. He said the amount of the fine has not yet been decided and his branch hasn't issued the formal enforcement order yet, "but it will be sometime this year."

Linda Goldstein, manager of Ameron-Hawaii's Environmental Health and Safety Department, said yesterday the company had not yet been notified of the fine, but was not surprised, given the number of complaints expressed by the board and other agencies.

By Ronen Zilberman Star-Bulletin
The Ameron-Hawaii Kapaa Quarry operation.

"We don't have a direct line to God -- we can't control the weather," she said. Two heavy rainfalls on Aug. 20 and Oct. 29 occurred before water containment systems were in place at the company's quarry site south of the H-3. Ameron earlier this month completed a "massive effort" costing $1 million that started in September to control the runoff problem, Goldstein said.

Ameron's operations manager George N. West said, "If a storm occurred now of similar intensity to the one in August, we definitely would be able to contain it. We would lose no water (from the quarry site)."

Federal requirements make Ameron responsible if any water escapes its quarry site. But if there was a heavy rain when Ameron wasn't finished digging sediment ponds to contain the rainwater, it was impossible to contain millions of gallons of water on the property, West said.

It took two to three years to put the pond system into place, he said. For the past six months, all of Ameron's construction has been related to containment ponds, not actual mining operations, he said.

The health department should consider how "tremendously difficult an engineering feat it is to install a system to control such a high magnitude of water in such a short period of time." It would be more "appropriate for the department to give us deadlines for phases (of work) to be completed," he said.

In its letter of complaint, also addressed to the Environmental Protection Agency, the Kailua board said "a torrent of muddy brown water" was the result of two rainfalls that were "not severe" over a four-hour period, amounting to less than an inch per hour.

But Lau said that rainfall at that rate of "an inch per hour" was what Hilo had for 24 hours that caused its Oct. 29 flooding.

West said Ameron will spend about $3 million in 2001 on its water system.