One word sums it up: pilau.

Salt Lake residents are again raising concerns about a foul odor emanating from Honolulu Country Club’s water features, but just who is responsible for fixing the problem remains unresolved nearly two decades since efforts began to clear the air.

Longtime resident Dennis Egge describes the smell as rotting vegetation — “kind of like compost.”

State Sen. Glenn Wakai, who has lived at the Country Club Village condominiums for eight years, said the situation has gotten worse. He said he has tried to help resolve the problem with residents and the country club for the past 12 years.

Country Club Village is near the stream that connects ponds on the country club grounds, including the largest, Salt Lake.

But right now it includes “an unsightly green lagoon,” said Wakai (D, Kalihi-Salt Lake-Aliamanu). “There’s smell. There’s mosquitoes.”

Egge, a member of Lakeshore Tower’s board, said part of the water is covered in algae.

“It’s become a real irritant and an annoyance for those in the condos in that area,” he said.

Ancient Hawaiians had called the area aliapaakai, or “salt-encrusted,” because a spring deposited extremely fine salt on the shore. Scooped up and sold by Hawaiian alii, the salt was soon gone.

Until the early 1960s people still fished in Salt Lake, which was owned by Damon Estate. In the mid-1960s the lake and the surrounding land were sold to a developer, who had permission to build a golf course.

Residents had asked since the 1970s for the waterway to be dredged, but it was not until 1997 that the Health Department directed the city to dredge a section. The department at that time had blamed the odor on an ammonia-based liquid that was illegally dumped into a connecting storm drain.

Yet the odor has persisted.

Egge said the smell has come and gone and is most pungent during the summer.

The waterway had been dredged by HCC through the mid-1990s — until federal wildlife officials warned that the dredging was encroaching on the habitats of endangered species. When restrictions were relaxed, the dredging equipment was no longer operable, and the club’s budget constraints reduced its ability to tackle regular maintenance.

Before long, thick vegetation sprouted and debris from storm drains accumulated. At one point the Army was cited by the Health Department when raw sewage from Aliamanu Military Reservation spilled into the waterway.

So the waterway was cleared as part of a city-led effort completed in 2005 at a cost of more than $1 million. After that the city and HCC signed an agreement stating that the country club “shall be responsible for maintenance of the stream banks and waterways.”

Honolulu Country Club Executive Vice President Gary Brown did not respond to multiple requests from the Honolulu Star-Advertiser for comment on the matter.

But in a November letter to the Health Department, Brown said the country club is open to working with the state and the city.

“We continue to work hard to maintain these waterways, but the task has become increasingly difficult over the years,” Brown said in the letter. “Although the lakes and drainage channels are entirely contained within the perimeter of HCC property, the City and County has greatly assisted in the past by taking responsibility for dredging these waterways to remove the silt that washes into the lakes and channels from the surrounding areas and builds up year by year.”

After receiving a complaint, the state Department of Health took readings from the waterway near the Country Club Village condominiums in November and found elevated levels of hydrogen sulfide, which smells like rotten eggs. It recommended that the country club work with the city to remedy the problem.

The readings were “not at levels that would cause any health concerns,” said Janice Okubo, Health Department spokeswoman, in an email. The department has not received any additional complaints since late last year, she said.

Ross Sasamura, director of the city Department of Facility Maintenance, said the city is continuing to monitor the situation but that its options for addressing the matter are “very limited” because the country club owns most of the water features.

The waterway is not clogged, Sasamura said, noting that the department cleared out a portion that is under the city’s jurisdiction in February. He said he cannot pinpoint what’s causing the odor, and does not know whether dredging the entire waterway would resolve the problem.

The city has not taken recent enforcement action against the country club, he said.

Sasamura said a city ordinance would need to be amended to allow his department to address issues in private streams because the current ordinance mainly focuses on flooding risks, not health issues.

The city plans to build two basins and make other improvements that would capture some of the sediment, debris and rocks that come from the edges of Aliamanu Crater before it enters the waterway, Sasamura said. The project is estimated to cost about $2.5 million, and construction is anticipated to begin in 2018.

“We don’t have the authority to do much more than we already have,” Sasamura said. “I’m not sure of any other solution right now.”

City Councilman Joey Manahan, who represents the area, said he has held a few community meetings with residents and one with HCC in December but has been unable to bring the two parties together. City Council Public Works, Infrastructure and Sustainability Committee members also discussed the issue at a meeting last month, where some residents testified about the ongoing maintenance problems.

“I think the (city) administration does need to sit down with the country club to see who’s responsible to do the maintenance,” Manahan said. “My biggest concern is maybe the water is not stagnant but there’s mosquitoes there. That’s also dangerous.”