County to post warning at Puna pond

By Christie Wilson
Advertiser Neighbor Island Editor

Hawai'i County officials decided yesterday to post warning signs at a beach park in Puna and to ask the state Health Department to expedite testing for potentially deadly bacteria.

County Managing Director Dixie Kaetsu said the signs will be posted at the saltwater pool at Ahalanui Park within the next week or two, once county attorneys have settled on the wording. The signs will advise swimmers that the water is not disinfected and that people with open wounds should not swim there.

Kaetsu said county lifeguards also will be warning parkgoers with open cuts about risk from Vibrio vulnificus, a bacterium that lives in warm seawater and can cause disease in those who eat contaminated shellfish or swim in seawater with an open wound.

Eleanor Weber of Carmel, Calif., whose husband died of a bacterial infection after swimming at Ahalanui last year, said yesterday she still plans to file a lawsuit against the county to ensure that the signs are permanent.

"That's what I was asking for a year ago," she said.

Weber's husband, Herbert Wiesenfeld, 72, died of a V. vulnificus infection Feb. 26, 2001, less than three days after swimming in the popular pool at the county park. A 77-year-old man who swam in the pool was hospitalized with the same infection last month but he has recovered.

V. vulnificus is a rare cause of disease in Hawai'i, health officials said. Most cases reported in the United States occur along the Gulf Coast.

The state Department of Health last month sent a letter to Big Island Mayor Harry Kim advising the county to post warning signs at Ahalanui. DOH hopes to conduct tests to assess whether the pond has an elevated level of bacteria.