It’s time to think outside the cesspool
Recently West Hawaii Today published an article about proposals by the Hawaii Department of Health to phase out the use of cesspools in the state. Over the years, I have been openly critical of the lack of initiative by the DOH. However, this time, I am encouraged by the recognition of the obvious. The waste in wastewater eventually finds its way to groundwater and on to the sea. The DOH realizes using the sea, indirectly, as a dump is unlawful and will have a huge impact on people, Hawaii, its oceans and its economic survival.
Cesspools are holes in the earth into which liquid waste from households is dumped. They are more common here than any other state. The reasons are many, but mostly from assumptions about cost avoidance and inattention to the big picture.
Large centralized sewer systems, absent the huge Evironmental Protection Agency grants of the 1980s, are cost prohibitive and do not solve the wastewater disposal problem. Wastewater injection wells can be unlawful discharges to the ocean. Kealakehe treatment plant and its near 2 million gallon per day discharge, is a case in point.
West Hawaii is unique in that where most houses are built there is very little soil. There is an age old blind assumption that soil will filter out the bad things in human wastewater and functionally isolate them. It’s true deep dense soils will slow wastewater infiltration. However, a former colleague, M. Yates, demonstrated that human virus would move thousands of feet through dense soils over time and find its way to groundwater and drinking water wells.
Much of the lower elevations of West Hawaii have very little soil and most regions are fractured rock and lava. Cesspools as well as leach fields from septic systems convey hundreds of gallons of wastewater per household per day and it moves virtually unimpeded through the rock on its way to the water below and ultimately to the sea. Once there, it adds the nutrients from human waste, pathogens and whatever chemicals and drugs to our water supply and ocean. The notion that a septic system is vastly superior to a cesspool has little, if any, scientific support. Septic systems should not become required until we are certain it’s not just a cesspool in another form and the added cost will not provide the desired benefit.
There is a myth circulating and promoted by certain consulting engineers that the rock below will somehow treat wastewater, remove most nutrients and otherwise bring the water to near drinking water quality. Unfortunately, after a thorough review of geochemical research, the myth of high-efficiency processing by rock remains an unsubstantiated justification for the cheapest form of wastewater disposal — a hole in the ground.
It is past time to begin thinking about the unique water resource as a complex system that needs to be managed comprehensively. The case-by-case approval of waste and water use permits fails to address the marginal impacts overall.
Needed are integrated and novel approaches to the reuse of wastewaters, such as not comingling gray water with toilet wastewater and reusing it for on-site irrigation, neighborhood scale biological treatment facilities, waterless toilets and more. Viable solutions will require our collective thinking outside the box, brilliance that examines the costs and benefits to the whole system and not just for the next development.
The quality of our limited groundwater and the quality of the nearshore ocean are fundamental to the social and economic sustainability of our island. Let’s take this this matter on, rather than kick it down the road and mortgage our children’s future.
A small group of us has formed, H20: Healthy Hawaiian Oceans. We are taking this issue on and we welcome others that wish to think and work outside the box.
Rick Bennett
Honaunau
Getting rid of cesspools isn’t simple
Gerald Gruber’s letter in West Hawaii Today’s Sept. 25 edition was spot on and the issues he raised need to be addressed by our state legislators. The state Department of Health wants to end cesspools, which sounds good on the surface, or under the surface as it were, but it is not quite so simple.
In recent years and currently happening, the same department approved and continues to approve individual cesspools to replace gang cesspools, as is the case in the Kilohana neighborhood of Kailua-Kona. So homeowners are spending $5,000 to $10,000 to install individual cesspools. Now the state wants us to spend another $10,000 when we sell our homes to replace the cesspool with a septic system. Oh, and by the way, one reason we have been given permission to put in cesspools, is because our lots are not large enough for septic systems, which require more space. So what do we do if this plan is approved?
When our neighborhood was built, the plan was to hook up to the county sewer system, which is apparently still in the works for the distant future. Estimated cost then per household — $30,000.
Let me review:
• We currently have state and county approval to replace gang cesspools with individual cesspools. Cost: $5,000 to $10,000.
• Under the proposal we would have to replace cesspools with septic systems when we sell our properties. Estimated cost: $10,000.
• In the future to hook up to county sewer system. Cost: $30,000 per household.
This is just one neighborhood’s concerns about the proposal. Mr. Gruber lives in another development and there are many more homes all over this island with similar problems that should be concerned. They estimate at least 50,000 cesspools on the Big Island.
The public should email its concerns to wqpcomments@doh.hawaii.gov.
A public hearing was held Oct. 2 in Honolulu with videoconferencing in Hilo.
Mr. Gruber is also right in requesting a public hearing in Kona. The hearing in Hilo was not well publicized and mostly attended by state and county workers.
We all care about water quality but we also have to consider the costs to individuals.
I object to the plan because there is no consideration of individual homeowners, current approvals by the Department of Health and the hardship this may cause.
Dan Sabo
Kailua-Kona
Alala program still nothing to crow about
The scientific community makes another attempt to paint a successful picture of itself with Monday’s article about the forest bird program at Volcano. Yet there is no track record of success here in Hawaii. A 25 percent partial success record over a four-year period is hardly anything to crow about.
While these scientists promote their work, it comes at the expense of residents. They took 5,300 acres from a Hawaiian family’s Kona lands under the guise of it being the “last remaining habitat for the alala.” Now, their plans do not involve the released the captive-raised birds in that habitat. This is a classic example of them saying what they have to say to get what they want. Later, they say just the opposite if it so suits their needs.
Their activities deny Hawaiians of their culture in the forest environment. They restrict and prohibit access to these areas. The environmental community must realize it is the introduced human species in the Hawaiian ecosystem and must learn how to manage its interests in harmony with that of the local culture, traditions and lifestyle. There are many instances here in Kona where their actions have severely impeded progress as well.
Bill Rosehill
Kailua-Kona
Earth destined to die
With Hawaii and the rest of the world breaking temperature records daily by up to 4 degrees, not eliminating greenhouse emissions will definitely lead to a hotter planet. It is common sense. Planet Earth will heat up rapidly.
Conservative estimates have Earth heating up 12 degrees by the end of the century. Something in my heart and soul says it will be more like at least 20 degrees because science has been proved wrong a lot of times.
All in all, carbon dioxide emissions to our precious atmosphere must decline rapidly or our planet is destined to die.
Dean Nagasako
Honokaa