City lacked consent to dump sewage

State and federal officials say the city never asked approval

The city did not have federal approval to dump 48 million gallons of raw sewage into the Ala Wai Canal last month, an Environmental Protection Agency official said.

"The city didn't ask for our permission to discharge to the Ala Wai, and we could not have given them permission to do so," Alexis Strauss, EPA water division director for the region that includes Hawaii, said yesterday.

Strauss' comment came after Eric Takamura, director of city Department of Environmental Services, said Wednesday that the EPA knew, and approved, of the city's contingency plan to dump sewage into the canal in the event of a sewer main break.

Whether the city will face any penalties for discharging 48 million gallons of sewage into the canal -- which led to unprecedented closures of Waikiki beaches for several days -- will not be known until city officials explain their actions to the state Department of Health and the EPA in a report due in three weeks.

Mike Tsuji, head of enforcement for the state Health Department's Clean Water Branch, said the state, likewise, did not give prior approval to the dump sewage into the canal.

"They didn't come to us with that question. To my knowledge, they didn't ask us," Tsuji said.

Mayor Mufi Hannemann has said numerous times since the six-day spill that the city "had no other option" but to divert sewage to the Ala Wai Canal.

Takamura said creating a bypass around the broken line would have taken three weeks to set up, so it was never considered for the March 24 break.

"The fastest way was to fix the pipe" while putting sewage into the Ala Wai, he said.

Takamura insisted yesterday that the EPA would have seen city planning documents that told of its plan to divert sewage to the canal in the case of a spill.

But he said he is not surprised that Strauss said that does not imply EPA approval.

"Their contention is any spill is a violation," Takamura said.

Strauss said, "Sewage spills are prohibited by the Clean Water Act.

"The EPA's goal is for the city to attain full compliance with its permits and federal law, and to eliminate the significant threats to human health and the environment that are posed by these spills."

Strauss emphasized that an April 2004 state administrative order directed the city to come up with a plan to repair, replace and maintain sewer force mains.

"Had the city fully complied with the order, the city would have identified problems and prioritized repair and replacement work on force mains and pump stations to prevent future spills, including the Beach Walk spill," Strauss said.

The order came in the wake of a March 4, 2004, spill of 2 million gallons of raw sewage onto Sand Island State Recreation Area and into the ocean. That break was in a 78-inch force main -- the city's largest -- that carries about 53 million gallons of sewage a day.

In that break, sewage was routed through an older, backup force main for five months while repairs were completed.

Having "redundant" lines for seven major force mains was a key recommendation of consulting engineers Fukunaga & Associates in their October 2004 study. That report has only partially been acted on, Takamura said yesterday.

Even with Hannemann's scheduled increases in sewer fees, the city cannot fix everything wrong with its sewer system at once, Takamura said. Of the seven force mains the Fukunaga report says need backup lines, three are in the city's current plans, he said:

Because the others on the Fukunaga list are newer and less likely to fail, the city ranks building backups for them as less urgent than some other sewer-line matters, Takamura said.

"It all has to work financially," Takamura said, within the rates charged city sewer customers.

As to the quantity of Honolulu's 48-million-gallon spill, Strauss called it "significant on a national scale. ... I can't think of the last time there was something like this."