The cost to connect homes in the Lono Kona Subdvision to a county sewer line project is estimated to be just under $10,000 per single family equivalent unit.
That’s according to an estimate Hawaii County’s Department of Environmental Management has provided to the public prior to a hearing, set for 6 p.m. Tuesday at the West Hawaii Civic Center’s council chambers.
Funding for the project is split between a $4 million grant and a $2.4 million loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Subdivision residents — in homes and condos on parts of Kalani, Ala Onaona, Alahou, Lamaokeola and Alakai streets — will pick up the cost of repaying the loan. Environmental management officials estimated the cost per single-family equivalent to be $9,868. DEM Director Bobby Jean Leithead Todd said the amount may vary a bit per home and condo, with a studio unit paying less than a multibedroom, multibathroom home.
She said she doesn’t anticipate significant resistance to the project.
“It was a project that was supported by the community,” she added.
For many of the property owners in the area, particularly those with condo complexes or homes with ohana units, there is no land available to easily install septic systems to replace the large capacity cesspools currently being used. The Environmental Protection Agency ruled in 1999 that all large capacity cesspools — essentially any cesspool serving more than one housing unit — be closed by April 2005.
County officials reached a consent agreement with the EPA in November 2005 to close county owned cesspools by 2010. Cesspools were more common in Hawaii than any other state.
Operating under that mandate, Hawaii County took on two major large capacity cesspool closure projects in the last few years, including one in the private Queen Liliuokalani subdivision in which nearly 20 such cesspools were closed in 2010. The county owned those cesspools.
In 2010, South Kona Councilwoman Brenda Ford proposed extending sewer lines mauka of Alii Drive. She sent that project, and about two dozen more, to federal agencies to see if any funding existed for them. At the time, no agencies were interested, she said.
That same year, the EPA began a disciplinary proceeding against one condo complex owner, Jose Jazmin, for failing to replace his cesspool. Jazmin told West Hawaii Today in 2011 that he had attempted to get the county to extend sewer lines to the subdivision, without success. He also questioned why his buildings were being cited for cesspool violations, but his neighbors were not.
In 2012, Jazmin signed a consent agreement with the EPA to pay $60,000 in fines and close his cesspools by this year.
The time line for the county project, being done as a sewer system improvement district to allow the county to pass some of the costs on to property owners, is to complete the final environmental assessment and pass a County Council resolution next month, complete specifications by October and determine the bid price by November. The council will need to pass an ordinance to fix the assessment per unit or property owner, in January on the county’s time frame, followed by a notice to proceed in June 2015. The project is expected to be substantially complete by June 2016.