Sewage spills not unusual in U.S.
By Robbie Dingeman
Advertiser Staff Writer
Honolulu isn't alone in its struggle with sewage spills from aging pipes and the need for costly improvements to its wastewater system.
Today, the city is expected to send a detailed report to the federal Environmental Protection Agency about the cause of the March 24 spill that sent 48 million gallons of raw sewage into the Ala Wai Canal.
And while that was a huge single spill by all standards, some cities have experienced thousands of spills, sending billions of gallons of sewage into their communities' waters, according to EPA records.
In other cities, as in Honolulu, the EPA has negotiated settlements putting municipalities on a schedule of mandated spending and improvements to prevent future sewage spills. Some cities also have faced big penalties.
Attorney Christopher Sproul represents the Sierra Club's Hawai'i Chapter, Hawai'i's Thousand Friends and Our Children's Earth, the environmental groups that pushed for federal intervention to improve Honolulu's sewer system as part of a federal consent decree.
Sproul has a broader perspective, however, having worked for the EPA in San Francisco for 15 years. He said the Ala Wai spill was serious because of the large volume — tens of millions of gallons over six days — and its nearness to popular beaches.
"You couldn't have had a worse place for a sewage spill in terms of an area that's heavily used for aquatic recreation, he said. "It ranks way up there in the annals of sewage spill disasters."
Some Mainland cases have been much larger, according to EPA records:
City environmental services director Eric Takamura said municipal governments nationwide have a difficult time finding money to keep up with expensive sewer repairs.
Older systems are especially susceptible to becoming overwhelmed with rainwater seeping into the system and causing spills or bypasses of raw and partially treated wastewater, he said.
"I think we're all in the same ballpark; we all have aging systems," Takamura said. "It's a big financial burden."
Takamura said repairs were made and systems expanded in the 1970s when the federal government provided millions of dollars in grants to improve sewer systems. But that money dried up.
"Now, there's no money," Takamura said. "It all has to come from the residents using the wastewater system."
Sproul noted that a number of the record volume spills on the Mainland are much larger, but he said many of those are the result of rainwater simply overflowing the system and releasing a lot of rain-diluted sewage into the environment.
"Honolulu is in good company or in bad company depending on one's perspective," he said.
"People start paying attention to their plumbing when it backs up," he said. "It's taken this huge spill into the Ala Wai to get this on the radar."
Honolulu officials say they hope to work with the EPA to spend money on improvements.
Sproul said the environmental groups he represents hoped a 1995 EPA consent decree — which included a cash penalty of $1.2 million as well as "elaborate and detailed requirements and mandatory deadlines" — would have steered the city to much-needed improvements.
Looking back, Sproul said,"it wasn't enough."
Over time it became clear that the city wasn't meeting all the specific requirements, he said.
"And EPA was lax in ensuring that the city was doing all of it."
Reach Robbie Dingeman at rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.
