A lifelong problem with an elemental feature of the state Capitol — reflecting pools symbolizing the ocean surrounding Hawaii — may be cured by permanently drying up the chronic watery mess.

Two pools bracketing most of the building have been the source of leaks, foul odors and costly cleaning for decades.

But now the state Department of Accounting and General Services has more than $40 million in legislative appropriations to perhaps vanquish all the trouble by fixing leaks, along with structural damage and electrical problems they have caused, and possibly convert the water features into waterless platforms resembling pools.

An initial phase on the more damaged Diamond Head pool, where foul water has infiltrated basement offices, hallways, the parking garage and even the Senate Chamber, began May 15 under a contract with Kawika’s Painting and should be finished in December.

Fixing the Ewa pool is planned for a similar period in 2024.

The work follows several years of unsuccessful attempts by DAGS to obtain funding for long-deferred maintenance of the pools, which for the past three years have been drained and concealed behind wooden construction barriers but remain a conduit for leaks during and after rain.

Keith Regan, who has been DAGS director since December, said in a statement that the agency deeply appreciates and acknowledges invaluable support from lawmakers for the improvement work.

“This endeavor will not only restore the pools’ exquisite beauty but also preserve their essential role in defining the character of our esteemed facility,” he said. “By undertaking these renovations, we aim to safeguard the historical significance and cultural importance of this remarkable feature.”

To create a waterless alternative, however, will require approval from the State Historic Preservation Division of the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

SHPD is considering the proposal, which could alter the character of a building that DLNR has described as “the single most dominant work of public architecture in the state.”

Mucked-up design

The Capitol was built in 1969 and is on the Hawaii and National Registers of Historic Places, symbolizing a volcanic island with palm trees (columns) rising out of the ocean into the sky.

The pools not only represent the ocean, but were an innovative component of the building’s air-conditioning system. Cold brackish well water filled the pools and got pumped through air-conditioning chillers that returned warmed water to the pools for temperature acclimation before discharge into storm drains.

Yet the pool feature, despite its aesthetic quality and engineering tool, has been a scourge to public finances and health.

Pool maintenance challenges, according to DLNR, have existed since the Capitol opened. And in response, government leaders have tried or contemplated myriad corrective plans without effective or lasting results, including use of chemicals, fish, fountains and prisoner labor.

The Capitol was designed by a predecessor to local architecture firm AHL and San Francisco-based John Carl Warnecke and Associates. The two pools totaling 80,000 square feet were lined with a waterproof membrane topped with stones, and had a plumbing sys­- tem that included the air- conditioning connections as well as circulation jets ringing pool sides where water spurted from openings shaped like hibiscus flowers.

Fix-it flops

Complaints about unpleasant odors from dying algae in the pools arose soon after the building opened, and were met with an early effort by DAGS to treat the water with copper sulfate, which didn’t help.

According to a Honolulu Star-Bulletin report in 1971, adding enough chlorine prevent algae growth would be prohibitively expensive, while using fresh water also would be more costly.

The air-conditioning aspect of the pool design worked only briefly, according to DAGS, and was disconnected because of corrosion issues.

By 1976 it was costing taxpayers $30,000 a year to manually clean the pools after use of a nitric oxide compound to kill algae was discontinued because it ended up in the ocean.

A rogue attempted fix also was made in 1976 when then-Sen. Anson Chong and others dumped tilapia into the pools despite concern that waste from the fish, which can live in brackish water and feed on algae, might give rise to more algae.

Bad smells, leaks and corrosion persisted over the next decade along with vast multiplication of tilapia in the pools, one of which served as the site of the Aloha United Way keiki fishing derby in 1988 where then-Gov. John Waihee caught the first fish out of the Ewa pool.

A year later, lawmakers approved funding to turn the smelly pools into a freshwater garden where taro, giant lilies, water grass, koi, snails and mosquitoes would become a “living filter” to maintain the pools fed by rainwater channeled from Capitol grounds.

Architects Hawaii Ltd., now known as AHL, produced this plan with local engineering firm RM Towill.

“People will come from all over to see this thing,” Joe Farrell, AHL’s late senior principal, said at the time.

The freshwater garden plan never bloomed.

In 1993, workers rid the pools of tilapia, around 16,000 fish, that were making pool conditions worse, and transferred them to Paradise Park in Manoa after fines were threatened for initial removal work where fish were being left to die.

Then DAGS in 1998 tried to reduce algae using machines producing chlorine dioxide, ozone and radical oxygen. But this also proved not too effective. A couple of years later, $90,000 was spent on an ozone treatment system, but pumps couldn’t distribute the ozone enough to sufficiently combat the algae.

In 2004, DAGS hired Architects Hawaii to produce a study on controlling the algae and improving the appearance of the pools.

The study was to explore a reverse-osmosis system that would use a membrane to convert brackish water to fresh water, and relieve the need for state workers to scrub and siphon away algae, a weekly task that also involved applying an enzyme spray and was assisted by Oahu Community Correctional Center prisoners.

“Whatever we end up implementing, we want it to be a long-term solution,” Russ Saito, then-director of DAGS, said at the time. “We don’t want to come back in five years and say, ‘That didn’t work.’”

It’s unclear what became of the study, but by 2007 the annual pool-cleaning cost had risen to $72,000 including supplemental prisoner labor.

More stagnation

After DAGS requested money from the Legislature to fix the pools every year from 2005 to 2008 without success, another self- cleaning proposal was floated in 2016.

Nine lawmakers proposed adding fountains that would boost water circulation and also feature light displays choreographed with Hawaiian music, making the pools a visitor attraction.

“The construction of water fountains in the reflecting pools would make the pools essentially self- cleaning by circulating the now-stagnant water,” read the bill, which didn’t receive a hearing.

In 2017 a bill proposed $100,000 for DAGS to study alternatives to rehabilitating the pools, but this measure also didn’t get a hearing.

In years since then, DAGS delayed its own efforts to improve the pools because it had higher-priority projects at the Capitol, and only more recently has the agency pressed the Legislature for urgent funding as leaks got worse and annual maintenance costs hit $120,000.

DAGS requested $30 million in 2021 to repair and renovate both pools, saying the situation required immediate attention because occupants in offices beneath the pools were being exposed to leaks and noxious fumes.

“DAGS understands the current budgetary constraints that the State is facing over the next five years but the health and safety of the Hawaii State Capitol tenants and employees is our top priority,” Curt Otaguro, then-director of the agency, said in written testimony to the Legislature. “This situation requires immediate action.”

Otaguro’s plea wasn’t well embraced. Seven House members introduced a resolution asking DAGS to defer its pool improvement plan, and the Legislature in 2021 fulfilled only $9.8 million of the $30 million DAGS request, effectively setting back improvement work.

Meanwhile, the pools had been drained and surrounded by construction barriers in 2020 so a contractor could work on soffit panels overhanging the pools.

The barriers have stayed up since then, according to DAGS, because the shallow, empty pools pose a hazard for people who might fall or jump in.

Still, leaks persist. In the Senate data systems office, sometimes smelly water that once dripped down onto a conference room table has been diverted in the false ceiling to a small trash can in the hallway.

In one basement hallway Friday, a dozen containers were positioned to catch water from the ceiling, including a 50-gallon recycling bin about half full with water.

Lawmakers got on board with a request by DAGS this year for $33.5 million to repair and renovate the pools, which the agency said has a disproportionate cost given the extent of leak damage that includes electrical conduits and circuits along with the air-conditioning duct system. There have even been power outages at the Capitol reported due to water infiltration.

The current repair plan includes installation of new water circulation and treatment systems, though Regan told lawmakers that an alternative without water in the pool basins would be a better long-term solution.

“Ultimately, when you have water, water will find eventually its way through,” he said during a House Finance Committee briefing in January.

State Rep. Betrand Koba­yashi (D, Kahala-Kaimuki- Kapahulu) replied to Regan that he appreciated the waterless concept.

“The money we have put into this building has been frankly embarrassing,” Kobayashi said.

Regan explained to the committee that an alternative to water could be something similar to what was done at the Hawai‘i State Art Museum, where a swimming pool in the historic former downtown YMCA building was partially filled in to create a sunken seating area with a pool-like look in 2010.

“It still kind of keeps with the original theme and the intent, but it will help us to ensure that we won’t have water issues like what we’ve experienced here lately,” Regan told a pair of Senate committees at a January briefing.

Regan told the Senate committees that his sense is that SHPD will be amenable to such a change based on discussions.

Alan Downer, SHPD administrator, said no decision has been made on the desired change, and that discussion is continuing.

”The reflecting pools are an integral feature of the Capitol building,” Downer said in a statement. “They symbolize the volcanic island (the building) in the ocean. They are a critical (element to the) defining historic character of the building.”