Plans are being laid to bring in mobile food concessionaires and expand docent programs, and the Hawai'i Tourism Authority has provided grants for trail upgrades, Young said.

But the immediate focus of money and labor will be on comfort stations and wastewater, Young said.

Upgrades will be made at dozens of parks across the state, and run the gamut from replacing toilets, sinks and urinals to widening stalls and replacing cesspools. Facilities will be updated to accommodate people with disabilities, and sidewalks will be improved.

Diamond Head is slated for more than $500,000 in upgrades, including new drinking fountains, sidewalks, a vending machine and a new restroom building equipped with more stalls.

"Good idea," said Linda Terburgh, a visitor from Michigan who waited in a long line at the toilets yesterday. "I was a little put off."

Terburgh said she thought the park was beautiful — Diamond Head had called to her from her hotel window and didn't disappoint — but the toilets were too few, too small and too old-fashioned.

"Time to update," she said.

Other state park visitors agree, according to a survey released this year by the Hawai'i Tourism Authority. Nearly all of the 11,658 park users surveyed in the report were impressed with the natural beauty of the parks, but most thought more and better toilets were needed.

Young said the current batch of lawmakers, as well as the Hawai'i Tourism Authority, are determined to correct the problems.

Most of the upgrade money will come from state capital improvement funds, he said. In addition, more than $1.7 million was set aside by the Hawai'i Tourism Authority — windfall from a good year of hotel tax collections. State law mandates that part of hotel tax revenues above $62,292,000 go toward the state's natural environment and visitor areas.

"Last fiscal year was a very good year," said Marsha Wienert, Gov. Linda Lingle's tourism liaison. "Tourists were up. Room rates were up. Collections rose."

Comfort station improvements required by the Americans With Disabilities Act, including ramps and wider stalls to accommodate wheelchairs, will be part of the upgrades, Young said, for which the Legislature set aside $5 million.

Underground improvements necessitated by federal regulations passed in December 1999 also are among the planned projects, he said, and come with a hard deadline. The regulations mandate the closing of all large cesspools nationwide by April 2005. Cesspools, according to an Environmental Protection Agency fact sheet, percolate raw sewage through the soil and into groundwater, causing public health and environmental problems.

The regulations do not apply to cesspools at single-family homes.

The EPA is authorized to fine violators up to $32,500 for each day after April 5 that an unauthorized cesspool operates.

With 49 cesspools in more than 20 state parks, motivation to comply is high, Young said. "The fines are horrendous," he said.

DLNR requested $9 million to fix the cesspools in the last legislative session, and the governor and legislators came through with the money, he said.

Connection to municipal wastewater systems will replace the cesspools where possible, he said. Some parks will require septic systems.

The most remote comfort stations will be equipped with composting toilets, he said, in which waste is mixed with other organic products to create fertilizer.

When possible, cesspool replacements and ADA projects will be combined with other comfort station upgrades.

"We tried to be smart and tie in with other projects," Young said.