Water dumping charged

By Johnny Brannon
Advertiser Staff Writer

The city has illegally dumped millions of gallons of recycled water purchased from a private contractor, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

LEE

The problems raise troubling questions about the city's efforts to comply with a 1995 wastewater consent decree and to manage its water supply properly, EPA officials say.

"We need to take a closer look at this, because they're using good irrigation water to flush out a treatment plant," said EPA spokesman Dean Higuchi. "It's going to come up again. It's not going to go away."

The EPA warned that the city could be fined as much as $25,000 per day for each of six problems that must be corrected, and ordered that water-testing results be provided by the end of the month.

In a prepared statement, city managing director Ben Lee said efforts were under way to comply.

"We will work together with EPA and take necessary action to correct any deficiencies that we may have with the wastewater treatment plant," Lee said.

Neither he nor city environmental services director Frank Doyle returned calls.

A spokeswoman said Doyle, who oversees the city's wastewater plants, "prefers to research the compliance concerns, respond to EPA, and then move forward. He does not want to go over issues in the media at this time."

The city pays the United States Filter Corp. $1.17 per 1,000 gallons of reclaimed water that is treated at a facility next to the sewage plant. Several million gallons are used per day to irrigate golf courses and other city projects.

But according to federal and state inspection reports, the sewage plant also has discharged as much as 2.5 million gallons of reclaimed water per day for at least several months.

At that rate, the dumped water has cost the city $2,925 per day, or $87,750 per month. The cost over three months would be $263,250.

The discharge "appeared to be a serious misuse of reclaimed water," according to an inspection report.

Plant officials told inspectors the irrigation water was being used to flush rainwater out of an effluent channel to deter algae.

But "it had not rained for several days preceding the inspection, and the weather at the time of the inspection was sunny with no rain," according to the report. Plant managers later said leaking valves, not rainwater, were the cause of the algae, according to the report.

Board of Water Supply Manager Clifford Jamile said he had been aware of the flushing and thought it was a reasonable use of reclaimed water.

"I thought it would meet the EPA's definition of best use, so I'm kind of surprised that it's not," he said.

The city previously used low-grade "caprock" water — groundwater not suitable for drinking — to flush out the plant, but it has a high salt content that can cause problems, he said.

There are customers who want to buy irrigation water, but the city's infrastructure can deliver it only to certain areas, Jamile said.

Under the 1995 federal consent decree, the city has been required since 2001 to use at least 10 million gallons of reclaimed water per day for approved purposes, such as irrigating parks, golf courses and fields. Flushing the treatment plant doesn't qualify, and buying the reclaimed water without using it properly doesn't meet the consent decree's requirements.

Higuchi said it did not appear the city was in compliance with the water reuse goal, and that the EPA was reviewing the situation closely.

"There are outstanding issues we will be pursuing in the future, and the city knows that," he said.

The Honouliuli plant was built in 1978 and treats an average of 28 million gallons of sewage per day. Flushing irrigation water through the plant changes the composition of treated sewage dumped in the ocean, making it hard to tell how polluted it is, Higuchi said.

That's why it's important that a proper water-testing system be in place at the plant, he said. Three of the six violations are for missing or improperly located monitoring and metering devices. Another violation is for flushing the irrigation water through the plant without authorization, and the remaining issues relate to outdated pollution-control plans.

Reach Johnny Brannon at jbrannon@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070.