EDITORIAL
Third World spills, every time it rains

It happens every time it rains hard, so we usually don't give it a second thought.

The rainwater sluices into the city's sewers, overwhelming the system and resulting in spills — occasionally massive — of untreated or partially treated sewage into our streams and favorite swimming beaches.

It happened again Saturday — six times — on O'ahu, with more than 160,000 gallons of sewage spilled in all.

Pollution warning signs were posted at Salt Lake and Kawaiku'i Beach Park in East Honolulu.

The city, under court order to reduce the number of spills, has spent millions of dollars in recent years to help prevent rainwater from getting into the sewage system. But why should it take a court to tell a jurisdiction utterly reliant on tourism that it needs to keep sewage away from its beaches?

In a new wrinkle on this old story, city crews found that one of the six spills, on Kalaniana'ole Highway near Hawai'i Loa Ridge, was caused or at least exacerbated by construction debris that someone had stuffed into the sewer.

Crews pulled plywood, plastic bags and 4x4 wooden posts out of the 12-inch-diameter sewer main.

Honolulu police need to treat this as a crime, launching a serious investigation to find out who did the dumping, and prosecuting the perpetrator for restitution and to deter similar misbehavior.