Posted on: Friday, May 3, 2002
City scraps financing for Kualoa Park plan
By Eloise Aguiar
Advertiser Windward O'ahu Writer
Kahalu'u — The city administration has eliminated money from the 2002-03 budget for a new above-ground wastewater system designed to protect what Native Hawaiians consider one of O'ahu's most sacred sites and culturally sensitive areas — Kualoa Regional Park.
Residents said they were surprised to learn about the change of plans and suspect that the city might
be balking because of the cost and looking for a way to force the community to accept a cheaper project that would require digging in the area, which is known to have numerous burial sites.
But city Managing Director Ben Lee said the $700,000 project was removed from the budget because contrary to what was previously believed, the above-ground project would have required some digging at Kualoa, which was the main objection raised by Native Hawaiians to an initial plan for a treatment system at the park.
"We're not convinced that the above-ground technology will not hurt the historic sites or the iwi kupuna (bones) on the site," Lee said. "It still requires a foundation and some disturbance of the soil."
The wastewater system for the five restrooms at Kualoa Beach Park has not operated efficiently since at least 2000, when the state cited the city for a sewage spill there.
The sewage, which is supposed to percolate into the ground, is not filtering away, requiring the city to pump the restrooms at least once a week.
The city had announced it would build a new
system, but Native Hawaiians said digging or building at Kualoa would desecrate the sacred burial grounds.
Wayne Panoke, a Kahalu'u Neighborhood Board member, questioned the city's motives for removing the project from
the budget especially since everyone involved had agreed that an above-ground system would serve the needs of park users and allay the concerns of Native Hawaiians.
"We were informed by people who put in above-ground systems that there is no digging," Panoke
said. "Who do we believe? The specialists or the
bureaucratic officials who are looking for a loophole because they really don't want the above-ground system?"
Panoke said money has always been an issue and that he would not relent and agree to any digging in the area.
"You can not place any money value on our culture," said Panoke, who is first vice president of the Kualoa-He'eia Hawaiian Civic Club and secretary
of the board for the Ilio'ulaokalani Coalition. "You cannot place any money value on sacred land."
Victoria Holt-Takamine, president of the Ilio'ulaokalani Coalition made up of cultural practitioners, said the practitioners were willing to allow an above-ground system as a compromise and could never agree to any digging.
"It's like putting a wastewater system at (National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific) Punchbowl or at the Chinese cemetery in Manoa," Holt-Takamine said.
The Kahalu'u Neighborhood Board also opposed the underground system, said Daniel Bender, board chairman.
"The fact is Hawaiians think it's not just a sacred place, but it's the World
Series, Yankee Stadium of sacred places in terms
of Hawaiian culture," Bender said. "We shouldn't
be building anything there."
Adding to the city's problem is that the beach is eroding and exposing sewer lines, he said.
"All of the stuff is running into the ocean and for that the city was fined by the state government," Bender said, adding that portable restrooms have helped to eliminate some of the pressure on the old system.
Managing Director Lee said the system isn't deteriorating, it's only plugged and the city is working on the problem.
"There's nothing broken about it," he said. "It's just not draining."
In the meantime pumping will continue as needed and the city will continue to explore less intrusive options to treat the sewage, Lee said.
Reach Eloise Aguiar at eaguiar@honoluluadvertiser.com or 234-5266.
