West Hawaii residents tore into a proposed state water quality plan in Kailua-Kona Thursday night.
Frustrations boiled to the surface, with people firing questions and not being satisfied with the answers they received from a state Department of Health official leading an informational meeting at the West Hawaii Civic Center.
Under the 115-page draft water quality plan, new cesspool construction would be banned and the island’s 50,000 existing cesspools would have to be replaced with septic systems within 180 days after the sale of a property.
None of the 60 people attending the meeting had good things to say about the plan.
Mark and Joyce Lintner of Kilohana said the proposed rules would leave them without recourse.
“We are on a gang cesspool. We can’t put in a septic system,” Mark Lintner said. “Every house in our neighborhood is in this situation.”
Residents questioned the cost of converting to septic systems, wondered what to do with lots comprised of hard, blue rock, and asked whether variances would be granted for homes on lots too small to accommodate the upgrades.
Kailua-Kona resident Jacky Rogers asked the DOH not to take it out on homeowners because the island lacks the infrastructure necessary for the number of residents it has.
“We don’t have the treatment plants. We don’t have the sewer lines,” Rogers said. “You can’t address a problem if you don’t put in the infrastructure you need for change.”
Residents said they didn’t oppose the ban on new cesspools, but they wanted existing ones to be grandfathered.
Tony Noonis, CEO of Envirocycle Group Hawaii, said that advanced systems don’t require leach fields, and while these alternatives may not be cheap, there is generally a way to meet the proposed requirements.
Meetings are being held around the state in response to massive public interest in the rule changes. The Hilo meeting will be held at 5 p.m. Thursday at the Aupuni Center. The DOH is accepting written comments at the meetings.
“It’s not set in stone, that’s why we are out here holding these meetings, to see what your concerns are,” said Sina Pruder, program manager for the DOH Wastewater Branch.
Pruder said the proposed rules could make their way to the governor as early as December. Or, they may not be adopted at all, she said.
“A lot of the comments we have been receiving is that we should focus on cesspools in sensitive areas, and we are looking into that,” she said.
Under the proposed plan, subdivisions with more than 15 lots would not be able to install individual wastewater systems. The proposed rules also delete an exception that currently allows developments to install individual wastewater treatment systems on units that are 1 acre or larger.
“We have 100-acre lots. What this tells me is that we have to put in a wastewater treatment plant for 20 lots. That would be impossible,” one landowner said.
There are 90,000 cesspools statewide, and 87,000 of those pose a risk to water resources, according to the DOH. Hawaii is the only state that still allows cesspool construction, and about 800 new ones are approved each year, most of them on Hawaii Island.
DOH officials say the requirement to upgrade at sale is comparable to plans implemented in states such as Iowa, New Jersey and Massachusetts. But West Hawaii residents said the Big Island’s steep, rocky terrain can’t be compared to the mainland.
“Sewers and septic systems treat wastewater before discharging it to the environment, but cesspools usually do not,” states a DOH rationale for the rule changes. “Cesspools are little more than holes in the ground, an outmoded 15th century technology that discharges raw, untreated human waste directly into the subsoil, where it can spread and contaminate groundwater, drinking water sources, streams and ocean by releasing disease-causing pathogens and other harmful substances.”
Vivian Landrum, president of the Kona-Kohala Chamber of Commerce, asked the DOH to look at the consequences of what it is proposing. Kona Heights resident William Kiewel said that neither he nor his neighbors could get excavators into the backyard to install a septic system.
“If you do this, you have stolen all of our homes,” South Kona resident Cindy Whitehawk said. “I can’t build a septic tank without tearing my house down. You’re going to have 90,000 people in a class action suit against the state for stealing our homes.”
The DOH has extended the written comment period through Oct. 17. Comments can be sent to Wastewater Branch, Environmental Management Division, Hawaii Department of Health, 919 Ala Moana Blvd., Room 309, Honolulu, HI 96814-4920.
Details on the proposal are available online at health.hawaii.gov/wastewater.