The job had also attracted the interest of multinational corporations. But the partners of Aqua Engineers of Lawa'i, Kaua'i, nevertheless doubled their staff to 50 employees and invested several hundred thousand dollars into a proposal that included five other Island-based companies and one with strong ties to Hawai'i.

"It was a gamble," said Ian Kagimoto, president and majority owner of Aqua Engineers. "We were definitely competing with the big guys. It was certainly a David and Goliath thing."

U.S. Rep. Ed Case, D-Hawai'i, said on Wednesday that Aqua Engineers has been selected to get the contract worth $435 million over the next 50 years. The award represents what Case calls "a local small-business success story."

The U.S. Army Hawaii public affairs office said yesterday that final approval of the contract rests with the Department of the Army and Congress and is subject to availability of money.

If approved, Aqua Engineers — and the hui of companies it brought together — will take over ownership of the wastewater and treatment operations for Schofield Barracks, Wheeler Army Airfield and Helemano Military Reservation and be responsible for maintaining and operating them for the next half century.

Privatization projects

The process to privatize Schofield's wastewater treatment plant is similar to the massive effort under way to privatize more than 17,000 military housing units on O'ahu. The Army has selected its primary housing contractor; the Navy and Air Force awards are still pending for a total $2.2 billion payout that has local small businesses scrambling to get a piece of the subcontracting work.

Representatives from Aqua Engineers went to an Army briefing on the Schofield project in 1996 and became fixated on the possibilities. The project calls for refurbishing Schofield's treatment plant to produce higher levels of treated water it cannot generate now.

Once the work is finished sometime in 2006, the plant will be able to pump out 4.2 million gallons of treated wastewater per day that can be used to irrigate parks, golf courses and food crops — and relieve the strain on O'ahu's water supply, said Hugh Strom, Aqua Engineers' assistant manager and the project's director.

Aqua Engineers has been around since 1981 when three engineers and managers from the Kaua'i County Water Department set off to form their own company. It grew to operate 23 wastewater treatment facilities on every island except Moloka'i, generating about $5 million in annual revenue.

Counted on local firms

To compete for the Schofield project, the partners knew they needed help. And they wanted it to come from local companies — electrical engineers Morikawa & Associates of Maui, and O'ahu engineering firms Austin Tsutsumi & Associates, Wilson Okamoto & Associates, Brown and Caldwell Consultants and ITC Water Management — and from Utah-based Bodell Construction, which will be the contractor for the initial $8.7 million construction work.

"It was not something we could do on our own," Kagimoto said. "And because we are a Neighbor Island company and we are based on Kaua'i, it was good to have help from the O'ahu companies because of the physical distance."

The other companies also came with experience working with the Army and in dealing with Hawai'i's wastewater issues. Eassie Miller, the office manager from Brown and Caldwell, for instance, ran the Maui Wastewater Department for a quarter of a century.

There was also a local pride factor.

"We've been concerned about these larger companies coming in and sort of taking over the business," Kagimoto said. "That was one of the reasons we felt we had to compete. We didn't want to open the door any further."

Or as Strom said: "There was a conscious effort to keep the project in Hawai'i, keep that money in Hawai'i."

And $435 million is a lot of money. "It is a lot," Strom said. "But 50 years is also a long time."