HILO — The county Department of Environmental Management isn’t exactly flush with cash, thanks to hundreds of people seriously behind on their sewer bills.
In fact, the department is carrying $935,782 in payments that are at least 90 days past due, according to information the department supplied to Naalehu resident Jerry Warren, whose own bill is $1,355 in arrears.
The county is currently working on new rules to be able to shut off water service for those not paying sewer bills. The rules probably won’t be implemented until the end of the summer, said Environmental Management Director Bobby Jean Leithead Todd.
Warren’s not paying his bill because he’s protesting what he sees as a failure of the county to follow through on long-promised sewer improvements. He said he and his neighbors had been promised they wouldn’t have to pay a sewer bill until the new system came on line.
“We will get a sewer bill after we get a sewer,” Warren said he was told. “Now we’ve got a sewer bill but we’re still on that rickety old Rube Goldberg contraption.”
He told the Environmental Management Commission on Wednesday he had been paying the $30 bimonthly bill, but he stopped when the department refused to give him updates on the progress of sewer improvements in his neighborhood.
“I would have kept paying my bill had they not been so imperialistic,” Warren said about the department’s attitude toward him.
“Nevertheless, when you flush your toilet, the sewage goes away,” said Commission Chairman James Fritz. “You’re still getting water, you’re still flushing your toilet, you just want the county to build the new system.”
Warren and his former plantation housing neighbors share a gang cesspool the county took over decades ago.
“We’re trying to get a municipal sewer system for your neighborhood,” Fritz said. “But it’s going to take some time.”
Environmental Management Business Manager Robin Bauman said the county has hired billing agents and is slowly chipping away at the past due amounts.
Five years ago, 61 percent of billing was more than 90 days past due. Now, it’s 56 percent, she said.
The County Council passed an ordinance two years ago to allow the Department of Environmental Management, working with the county Department of Water Supply, to shut off water for the serious sewer scofflaws. Mayor Billy Kenoi signed the measure in December 2014. The new law went into effect Dec. 31, 2015.
The county will give a homeowner notice that the water will be shut off. The affected person has the right to appeal before the Environmental Management Commission, under the measure.
“Nobody likes being the bad guy,” Leithead Todd said.
Some people are charged a monthly sewer fee even if they are not hooked up to the sewer system. The county charges homeowners once a sewer line is installed to their property, even if they don’t hook it up.
Many council members had first voted against the bill during committee but held their noses and approved it after being told the county had few options to collect money from people who just refused to pay. Shutting off sewer service just isn’t an option because of the potential health hazards, officials said.
“They have to have some incentive to come in and negotiate a payment plan,” Hamakua Councilwoman Valerie Poindexter said at the time.
