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Sewage dumping
via manhole
is monitored

Question: Every day and at night, even at midnight, trucks are dumping liquids into a sewer hole on the dirt shoulder, nine feet off the roadway, about 300 feet makai of the intersection of Mailiili and Paakea roads. The cover is removed and then replaced after the dumping. The semi-tractor bulk liquid carrier trucks are predominantly from Unitek. Recently I was told this sewer line goes directly out to the ocean. Is this true? Does anyone monitor the liquids being dumped in or test the ground around this manhole? I see liquid spills around the cover almost every day. As the sewage treatment plant is only about 500 yards away, why do they need to dump in the manhole? Since we have no sidewalks on that street and no walkway on the opposite side, people must walk within a few feet of the spill zone. Would this dumping be acceptable in Kahala or in front of City Hall? I think it should stop and I believe residues in and outside the hole should also be checked by the EPA as some of the fluids dumped smelled of chemicals and other foul matter.

Answer: The discharge into the manhole is being done under city approval and monitoring and is not going directly into the ocean, according to the city Department of Environmental Services.

A recent unannounced check showed nothing hazardous spilled outside the manhole, said Ken Kawahara, the department's acting head of the Regulatory Control Branch, Division of Environmental Quality.

Anyone witnessing a wastewater spill from any pumper truck should call 692-5375 or 692-5308, or the Environmental Concern Line, 24 hours a day, at 692-5656.

The state Department of Health's Wastewater Branch should be notified as well. Call 586-4294.

Unitek, as well as Hawaiian Steam, have Industrial Wastewater Discharge Permits to discharge wastes from the Sand Island Wastewater Treatment Plant into the manhole you cite on Mailiili Road.

Under the permit, the companies are allowed to haul and discharge certain types of waste water in approved locations, Kawahara explained.

In this case, Unitek is under city contract to haul centrate, described as "a type of high-strength wastewater" from the Sand Island plant to the manhole.

It is allowed to haul 24 hours a day, seven days a week, "as necessary," because of plant operations and to avoid traffic during peak hours, he said.

"Their drivers are paid hourly, and it is in the best interest of the community to minimize their time on the road sitting in and contributing to traffic," he said.

Also a consideration is discharging during "low-flow" times, from midnight to 4 a.m., when most people are sleeping, so as not to overload the system.

Kawahara said this is an interim measure, which began about a year ago, while upgrades are made to the Sand Island plant. The hauling is scheduled to end in April 2006.

"Hawaiian Steam is also doing hauling for the city on a temporary basis and is allowed to discharge at the same manhole from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. only," he said.

He said the waste water being hauled by Hawaiian Steam is not as "high strength" as the type Unitek is hauling. "However, it is of a higher temperature and therefore has the potential to inhibit biological activity if discharged at the plant."

Kawahara acknowledged the travel distance between the Sand Island and Waianae Wastewater Treatment plants is far, but the Waianae plant was determined to be "best suited to treat the centrate in the interim."

The centrate previously had been discharged directly into the Waianae plant, but there were safety concerns about the large trucks turning into and out of the narrow gateway on busy Farrington Highway.

It's hard enough for the trucks to make the turn into the facility and even harder for them coming out, Kawahara said. Also a factor is the closing and locking of the gate after dark -- a safety precaution for workers.

A truck making a discharge there at night would have to stop on the highway, then wait for someone to unlock the gate.

"It gets real dangerous," Kawahara said. So, an alternative location -- the manhole -- was picked.

Criteria considered in picking the manhole included pipe-flow capacity, access for the trucks and a "minimal" number of residents in the vicinity, Kawahara said. There are also shoulders on both sides of the road for pedestrians to use, he said.

The waste water discharged into the manhole flows via a series of underground pipes to the Waianae treatment plant for to be treated.

"An added benefit of the current location is that the high-strength centrate is mixed with normal-strength wastewater prior to reaching the treatment plant," Kawahara said. "This minimizes the impact of a shock load to the secondary treatment processes" at the plant.

Meanwhile, Kawahara said it is not unusual for the city to discharge wastewater into manholes, "to protect the public and the environment and to minimize spills, especially in emergency situations."

He pointed to the main breaks earlier this year in Niu Valley, when city pumper trucks had to haul sewage from the Niu Wastewater Pump Station and discharge it into the Kalanianaole sewer main at Wailupe.

Under the Industrial Wastewater Discharge Permit, Unitek is required to comply with all local, state and federal laws, Kawahara said.

For example, wastewater spills from any truck is a violation and unacceptable, he said.

A routine and unannounced inspection by a wastewater service investigator on June 21 revealed the puddles around the manhole were rain water and not waste water.

Kawahara explained that monitoring of the discharge activity is a shared responsibility, involving city, state and federal agencies.

"While the city is the primary front-line agency in this situation, we do have to meet the requirements of the Clean Water Act and other federal and state laws," he said, adding that the state Health Department represents the federal Environmental Protection Agency in a lot of the monitoring.

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