Chronic spills spur
scrutiny of sewers

Years of work and millions spent
on improvements fail to cut
spill amounts

Despite spending $726 million on sewer improvement projects in the past 12 years, the city continues to struggle with a high number of sewage spills.

At least 2.2 million gallons of raw sewage spilled between Jan. 1 and last Monday, a rate that closely mirrors the situation a year ago, when 2.4 million gallons had been spilled by mid-March.

Last year, the main pressurized line leading to the Sand Island Wastewater Treatment Plant spewed 2 million gallons into Mamala Bay in just a few hours on March 4.

Proposed sewer projects Major sewer construction projects proposed for fiscal year 2006, which begins in July: » $30 million to replace Beach Walk force main, the main pipe serving Waikiki » $15 million for completion of the Kalaheo Avenue sewer lines in Kailua, from Wanaao Road to the intersection of Mokapu Road and Kalaheo » $10 million to replace the Niu Valley force main that broke three times in February » $21 million to rehabilitate sewer lines in St. Louis Heights » $72 million to complete the upgrade and expansion of the Sand Island treatment plant, adding a disinfection step and increasing capacity to 90 million gallons a day from 82 million gallons a day » $17 million for Waimalu sewer rehabilitation in Pearl City » $18 million to reconstruct Wanaao Road and Keolu Drive sewers in Kailua and Enchanted Lake SOURCE: CITY AND COUNTY OF HONOLULU

This year's monster spill of 2 million gallons was at the Pearl City Pump Station on Jan. 21.

With no change in the quantity of sewage spilled during the winter storm season over a year's time and after so many years of attempts to fix the system, "something is either clearly wrong, or the problem is so extensive -- with deteriorating sewers and overburden of system -- that maybe they can never catch up," said Donna Wong, executive director of Hawaii's Thousand Friends, an environmental group that, along with the Sierra Club and Our Children's Earth, is suing the city for the second time over its sewage spills.

"This just highlights the need for better management, and that's why we brought the lawsuit," Wong said.

"The long neglect has finally caught up with the city and the citizens," she said. "If you neglect repairing your house, it'll fall down around you."

Mayor Mufi Hannemann made sewer improvements a key point in his State of the City speech last month. He accused Mayor Jeremy Harris' administration of not putting enough resources into sewer work and bluntly told Oahu sewage customers that rates will double in the next six years as the city plays catch-up.

Hannemann is asking to spend $231 million on sewer upgrades in the fiscal year that begins July 1 and a total of $661 million in the next four years.

Hannemann's proposal would average $165 million a year -- more than doubling the average annual spending between 1994 and this year.

On Friday, Hannemann, city Acting Director of Environmental Services Eric Takamura and Acting Corporation Counsel Carrie Okinaga visited the regional offices of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in San Francisco.

"I think the mayor wanted to have an introductory meeting, a courtesy meeting to find out who the players are (at the EPA) and kind of discuss what happened in the past and where we need to go in the future," Takamura said Friday after the meeting.

"(The) mayor restated what he said in the State of City address," he said. "He reinforced his commitment to them that he'd like the relationship (between the city and EPA) to be more open and that he's more approachable.

"They were very happy that the mayor himself showed up at the meeting," Takamura said.

The city faces potential fines of well more than $1 billion from the EPA and state Department of Health's Clean Water Branch, Takamura said.

Hannemann hopes to avoid that quantity of fine "by doing exactly what we are doing: meeting with regulators, keeping the dialogue open and putting our money where our mouth is and spending the money on the sewers," Takamura said.

The city is under a 1995 judicial consent decree to improve its sewer system over a 20-year period. In addition to a continuing pattern of sewage spills, the city has failed to meet a number of deadlines for new facilities.

Takamura said progress has been made in spill reduction: In 2003 the city sewage system had a total of 183 sewage spills of any size, down from 465 spills in 1994.

But the volume of spills has been at least 2 million gallons a year for five of the last seven years, including every year since 2002.

"We are hopeful that the new mayor will be taking our sewage problem seriously and working towards a remedy," said Jeff Mikulina, executive director of the Hawaii chapter of the Sierra Club. "By all appearances so far, it looks like they are interested in working with us."

Wong and Mikulina said their groups seek no money with their lawsuits.

"Obviously what we're looking for is a system where spills are prevented in the future and it's managed in a way to prevent sewage getting into our nearshore waters," Mikulina said.

Spills of 1,000 gallons or more resulted in contamination postings for a total of 158 days in 2004 and 54 days so far this year. The postings have been at locations that include Nuuanu, Kalihi, Kailua, Waimalu, Ewa Beach, Iwilei, Makakilo, Aliamanu, Palolo, Pearl City and Niu Valley.

Niu Valley residents saw the pressurized sewer line that runs along Kalanianaole Highway break three times in February, prompting the city to propose replacing the entire line at a cost of $10 million.

"It seems like no one's immune on the island; everybody seems to be getting something," Mikulina said.

Despite continuing spills and other violations, the state and EPA will not decide what to do with the city until a consultant's audit of the system is complete this summer, said Libby Stoddard, an engineer with the state Department of Health's Clean Water Branch.

SAIC (Science Applications International Corp.), a San Diego-based research and engineering firm, started the audit in October and will complete it this spring, Stoddard said.

The audit will be a comprehensive, third-party assessment "of how the city is managing this asset," Stoddard said.

It will look at treatment plant operations, pump stations, system maintenance and pre-treatment of difficult wastes like grease. It will analyze spills according to where they are on the island and what caused them.

It will examine how the city addresses its problems and if "there other municipalities that handle these things in a better way," Stoddard said. "If you don't spend money on maintenance, you have to pay money on replacement. You've got to pay sooner or later."

Takamura said he welcomes the audit results to help the city get the most bang for its buck.

"I think it's a good move, rather than proceed with enforcement action based just on the spills, to take a whole look at are they complying with the consent decree and are they managing their asset -- the collection system -- as it should be," Stoddard said.

"And we want to work with the new administration. You don't want to kick them for what the previous guys did," Stoddard said. "But if they keep the same people in the same places doing the same things ..."

As soon as this week, Hannemann will announce more specific plans for the city's sewer system, Takamura and Okinaga said.

"To have fewer spills, we need to really rely on improving our overall program," Takamura said. "We cannot replace all sewer lines."

"We will be doing more maintenance activity, re-prioritizing workers, assigning more crew in areas with more problems," he said.

"We need to train and put into practice better techniques to clean out sewers, do root control, reduce inflow and infiltration (from rainwater) and reduce grease coming into the sewers," Takamura said.

Meanwhile, pending motions in the Sierra Club-Hawaii's Thousand Friends lawsuit are set for hearings in early April, and a mediation session is tentatively scheduled for mid-May.

In addition to the city's corporation counsel, the national law firm Bingham McCutchen was hired in September to do legal work of up to $175,000, city spokesman Bill Brennan said.

Bingham McCutchen partner James Dragna's biography on the firm's Web site says he was formerly a senior trial counsel for the U.S. Department of Justice who handled EPA environmental litigation, and that he now "specializes in counseling and litigation matters in all environmental media, with a particular emphasis in waste, waste-water and water rights matters."

Tim Houghton, executive assistant to Takamura, said Hannemann's directive to the waste-water department "is to do everything we can to accelerate the work and make sure the system is operating as it should, that we meet our permits, that we get these outstanding work items done and continue to move to providing a quality system to the community."

Said the Sierra Club's Mikulina: "There are some basic federal clean-water issues that need to be resolved. Hundreds of sewage spills are unacceptable. We realize it might entail a fee hike and better prioritization, better management -- not just throwing a lot of money at it."

Hawaii's Thousand Friends' Wong said: "The city appears to be more willing to talk under the present administration than in the past. But in the past the city has called for meetings, or there have been meetings between the city and the parties, and they've not led anywhere."