After 32 years, Sometime after the $24.5 million state Capitol was completed in 1969, the roof started leaking. Now 32 years, one $69 million massive renovation and countless patch jobs later, the roof still leaks.
state hopes to plug
Capitol roof leaks
Workers seal planters
on the fifth floor seeking
water sourcesBy Richard Borreca
rborreca@starbulletin.com
Over the years, the state has removed the skylights that ringed the fifth-floor lanais, patched the blue tile open roof, scored the concrete ribs that soar to the roof's opening and repeatedly scraped away and reinstalled the fifth-floor decking.
The roof still leaks.
The latest state comptroller to inherit the problem is Wayne Kimura, who ordered a special "moisture scan" to look for hidden puddles of water lurking below the surface of the roof.
"Because it is a flat roof, it is very difficult to locate the leak," Kimura said.
Kimura explained that the plan is to reseal the entire fifth floor roof to halt the seepage.
The moisture scans showed that one of the spots collecting water was around the 40 huge concrete flower pots bordering the outside lanais.
Most of the pots are seven feet in diameter.
To prevent any more water from collecting, state workers made sculpted wooden tops for the round pots and covered each pot with a off-white stucco.
The result is dozens of mammoth alien eggs lined up along the Capitol perimeter.
"To me they look like giant mushrooms ... this is just ridiculous," Rep. Cynthia Thielen (R, Kailua) said.
Kimura insists the sealed pots will not stay.
"They are going to change," he said. "The plan is to put them back, but first we are trying to find all the sources of the moisture," he said.
Kimura added that the state is first concerned about the leaking roof before it can worry over the aesthetics of the odd-shaped concrete objects.
But Kimura promises the flower pots, which once held plumeria trees, will return. He estimates that so far the state has spent only about $50,000 on the current roof repair job.
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