Hawai'i Kai wins war against water tank
By Suzanne Roig
Advertiser East Honolulu Bureau
HAWAI'I KAI — An unused water tank that residents have been anxious to see erased from their view will cost the city $80,000 to remove.
Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser
No one knows who built the water tank, or exactly when, but it has been an eyesore for some residents for many years.
The city will spend $80,000 to remove this unused water tank from a mountainside overlooking Hawai'i Kai Drive. A city official says the tank may have to be airlifted off the mountainside.
Emogene Yoshimura, owner of Koko Crater Stables, remembers riding her horse up to the empty water tank in 1963. There were trails all around the area, she said.
"I remember riding my horse up to the top of a steep trail and then we'd look down," Yoshimura said. "It was so steep, the saddle would slide down and I'd have to readjust it when we got to the bottom of the hill."
As the years went by and Henry J. Kaiser turned the swamp land into housing tracts, the trails became impassable.
Removal of the tank was identified early on in the vision team process as something the community wanted to spend its money on.
Residents thought it was a good idea, and money was appropriated this year and next, said Cynthia Bond, city vision team coordinator.
The city will begin soliciting bids on the project on Monday.
The tank is on the mauka reaches of Koko Head District Park, overlooking Hawai'i Kai Drive on the way to Kalama Valley.
There is no access road leading to the silver tank, which has an estimated holding capacity of about 500,000 gallons, so it may have to be airlifted off the mountainside, Bond said at a vision team meeting.
The project includes demolishing and removing the tank, leveling the ground and capping any water lines leading to the tank, said Carol Costa, city spokeswoman.
Work is expected to begin in February.
