Both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the nonprofit environmental law organization that successfully sued Maui County are watching how Hawaii County plans to handle similar wastewater discharge issues.
A delegation led by EPA Region 9 Administrator Martha Guzman on April 6 visited the Hilo Wastewater Treatment Plant, had a working lunch meeting with Mayor Mitch Roth and certain Cabinet members, and then visited the Kealakehe Wastewater Treatment Plant.
During this meeting, the county Department of Environmental Management and EPA discussed, among other topics, the need to regulate the functional equivalent of discharges into navigable waters, said county Environmental Management Director Ramzi Mansour in an April 27 report to the Environmental Management Commission.
A functional equivalent test is part of the standard laid out by the U.S. Supreme Court in the successful lawsuit filed by the Hawaii Wildlife Fund against Maui County over its use of injection wells.
The court upheld the need for National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits for discharges that ultimately make their way into U.S. waters, even when they’re not discharged directly there. Senior U.S. District Judge Susan Mollway clarified that definition when the case was remanded to her.
“Kealakehe, Ulu Wini, Honokaa and a couple of small facilities on the Hamakua Coast owned by the county will have to address this legal responsibility and that was what Martha Guzman of EPA was referring to,” said Stephen Holmes, a former councilman for the City and County of Honolulu and state conservation chairman for the Sierra Club who lives in Kona.
“Another lawsuit isn’t required as EPA has the regulatory authority to take enforcement action. Every day, each of these facilities is breaking federal law and subject to significant fines for non-compliance.”
The Hilo Wastewater Treatment Plant isn’t covered by the Maui decision because it’s designed to discharge into deep waters using an outfall pipe designed for dispersion. The aging plant has its own rash of problems, however, and is in dire need of repair after years of neglect.
The EPA visit followed an April 1 consultation on the current EPA consent order for closure of large capacity cesspools in Pahala and Naalehu and a January Zoom meeting between Earthjustice senior attorney David Henkin, who led the successful Maui lawsuit, and Guzman along with other EPA Region 9 representatives.
“I raised concerns about the State of Hawaii Department of Health’s failure to use its Clean Water Act authority to regulate discharges that pollute the ocean via groundwater,” Henkin said Monday. “This is an issue throughout the state, including on Hawaii Island.”
An EPA spokesman said Tuesday the sessions on the Big Island were primarily to offer support to the county. County leaders have estimated that bringing the long-neglected wastewater management systems up to par will take hundreds of millions of dollars. In addition to the consent order on the Pahala and Naalehu systems, a current consent order revolves around the county’s level of pretreatment of wastewater going into the wastewater treatment plants countywide.
“The U.S. EPA Regional Administrator for the nation’s Pacific Southwest visited the Big Island of Hawaii to discuss opportunities presented by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to address the Big Island’s pressing wastewater infrastructure needs, including cesspool conversions. This topic was a major discussion point when she met with Mayor Roth and his staff to offer EPA’s assistance in taking advantage of the generational opportunity provided by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law,” said EPA spokesman Alejandro Díaz.
“The Regional Administrator was able to visit the Hilo and Kealakehe Wastewater Treatment plants and learned about the County’s plan to address its wastewater challenges,” he said. “In addition, the Regional Administrator met with local community groups to learn about challenges they face in accessing resources and addressing pollution.”
Homes said the county needs to take advantage of every opportunity to get into compliance.
“The county needs an all hands on deck response. Decades of neglect have finally caught up to them,” he said. “While not Mayor Roth’s fault, he now owns it.”