"Sewage is just not a sexy issue," said Wong, the group's executive director. "It's underground, you don't see it, it's easy to ignore."

Today, half-way into the 20-year consent decree, the price of those improvements has doubled to $1.9 billion and the city is playing catch-up.

Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann has made an aggressive sewer improvement program a major priority of his administration. In the upcoming construction budget he proposes spending $241 million — half the budget — on sewer work.

Under pressure from the 1995 court consent decree, the city has already spent more than $604 million on various wastewater improvements. But officials of Hawai'i's Thousand Friends, the Sierra Club and Our Children's Earth worry about the priorities set by the city.

Insituform superintendent Ryan Broyles helped prepare the setup of sewer pipe liner on Thursday for a night installation project on North Kalaheo Avenue in Kailua. Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

Eric Takamura, director of the city's Department of Environmental Services, is a key official charged with turning Hannemann's intentions into actions.

Takamura said the city made improvements but fell behind on key deadlines set by the federal Environmental Protection Agency for work that included:

• Ultraviolet disinfection of wastewater before it is released through the deep-ocean outfall off the Sand Island Wastewater Treatment Plant.

• Plans to recycle treated wastewater at the Honouliuli treatment plant.

• Improvements to 2,100 miles of leaky and aging pipes that overflow during wet weather and cause spills.

Meanwhile, the overall cost of the project has risen as the construction industry has boomed and the city has found more problems that need fixing.

"They should have paid more attention. I think we would be better off," Takamura said. "It's always better to spend money on fixing the system than fighting a legal battle."

Honolulu is under fresh scrutiny from the federal government as a result of the lawsuit filed in July in U.S. District Court by the three environmental groups.

The groups said there have been more than 1,200 sewage spills since 1999, contaminating Poka'i Bay, Ke'ehi Lagoon, Hono-lulu Harbor, Kane'ohe Bay, Kailua Bay and other coastal waters and streams. They said the legal action was needed because the city fell behind on work to upgrade sewage treatment plants to meet federal regulations.

Sierra Club Hawai'i director Jeff Mikulina acknowledged that hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent. But, he said, "We're less interested in expenditures and more interested in outcomes."

He noted that the lawsuit seeks improvements, not monetary damages.

"People want to be comfortable when they flush the toilet that water will be properly treated," he said. That means they shouldn't have to worry that the next big storm will cause the perennial wet-weather spills into coastal waters that put bays and beaches off limits for days, he said.

Mikulina said he is pleased with Hannemann's vow to make the big improvements and his politically unpopular decision to double sewer fees in the next six years. "We certainly hope it translates into action," Mikulina said.

Takamura went with Hannemann to San Francisco last month to assure EPA officials of the city's commitment. Takamura said the officials told them it was the first time a mayor had showed that kind of interest.

The city will spend the next several months assessing what the top priorities are, said Takamura. By fall, he said, he will have a clearer picture of what Hono-lulu can expect over the second half of the consent decree.

One thing that pleases Takamura is the city's increasing use of newer technology for work within the network of sewer pipes that carry wastewater to the city's eight treatment plants.

On Friday, the trouble-plagued Kalaheo Avenue project in Kailua saw a major step forward with workers using a "cured in place" pipe technology to basically build a pipe within a major 54-inch pipe. The crew feeds a socklike tube that's impregnated with resin into the existing pipe and then uses a heat process to activate the resin within the pipe, preventing the need to cut open the entire street in a traditional trench.

Wastewater construction chief Eldon Franklin said the city now does the majority of its pipe work with such so-called trenchless technology, including: slip-lining by building a pipe within a pipe with smaller sections of firm pipes; and using a microtunneling device to bore through underground (kind of like a Pac-man).

"It's much quicker and cheaper," Franklin said. "It saves you time, money and impact to the community."

If the city had to use traditional trenches in the sandy coastal conditions of Kalaheo Avenue, the already involved project would have been much worse, he said. "Nobody could have gotten into their homes or out. It would be a horrendous mess."