Sand Island discharges skew clean water data
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Science Writer
Hawai'i doesn't have many violations of federal Clean Water Act regulations when compared with other states, but when it does, they can be huge, according to a report prepared by a national public interest group.
The report on Clean Water Act compliance from January 2002 through June 2003 ranked Hawai'i highest of the states in the amount by which average excess pollution discharges exceeded permit guidelines.
Detailed data from the report indicates that Hawai'i's bad ranking was almost entirely the result of enterococcus bacteria releases from the Sand Island wastewater treatment plant's deep ocean outfall.
"They are in violation and they have been in violation for some time. We have put them on notice," said Dean Higuchi, press officer for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Honolulu office.
But in citing Honolulu City & County, the EPA conceded the violations are inevitable until the city gets its new disinfection facility online. Construction of the disinfection facility is far behind schedule, with the latest completion date set for the end of this year.
City officials insist the continuing flow of minimally treated sewage into the deep ocean poses no threat to marine life or humans. The outfall line runs two miles out to sea and releases effluent at a depth of 240 feet.
In recent days, Honolulu has suffered the additional headache of ruptures in Honolulu Harbor of a sewer line feeding the treatment plant. The city is working with contractors to repair breaks in the line, but some parts need to be shipped in from the Mainland, and final repairs won't be completed until May at the earliest.
Earthjustice attorney Paul Achitoff said the Sand Island plant is so seriously inadequate that he worries the new facility, which will use ultraviolet light to kill pathogens, may not be able to do what's promised.
"The Sand Island facility has close to the lowest level of treatment of any major plant in the country. It is open to serious question whether the disinfection facility will be adequate given their unwillingness or inability to remove enough solids to make it effective," Achitoff said.
The 1972 Clean Water Act set the goal of making all U.S. waterways safe for fishing and swimming by the mid-1980s — a goal that has not been met. The U.S. Public Interest Research Group used a Freedom of Information Act request to review violations of standards for major permitted facilities. In Hawai'i, those facilities mainly include sewage treatment plants and power plant cooling effluent.
The survey found that of more than 3,700 major facilities nationwide, 60 percent violated their permit limits at least once during the 18-month period. Several exceeded permit limits repeatedly, and there were more than 32,000 violations across the country during the period.
Hawai'i has 22 major facilities, 10 of which exceeded permit limits at least once during the 18-month period.
The state had modest numbers of major permit violations — 98 compared with 2,130 for Ohio, the top offender — and most involved fairly small levels of violation. But the city's 70-million-gallon-per-day Sand Island sewer plant skews the numbers. The Sand Island plant was one of the few nationwide that violated EPA standards in every month studied.
The pollutants listed included bacteria, but also the pest control chemicals chlordane and dieldrin, which are believed to be seeping into the sewer system from the soil around Honolulu, where the banned chemicals once were used as termite treatments.
Hawai'i ranked first — which means worst — in the average size of discharges over the limit set by permits. On average, Hawai'i facilities exceeded permit limits by 4,435 percent, according to the research group.
Following Hawai'i on that list was Rhode Island, Arizona, West Virginia, Michigan, Maine, Connecticut, Nevada, Iowa and Texas.
A copy of the report is available at the Web site, uspirg.org.
Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 245-3074.
