Step by excruciatingly slow step, the City and County of Honolulu inches toward a cleaner future for the ocean waters affected by the Kailua Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant, which it owns and operates. The end of the journey is visible, but one wishes it wasn’t so far away.
Because the health and safety of residents are at stake, along with the quality and cleanliness of Oahu’s shorelines and ocean waters, it’s not acceptable to set timetables for maintenance and rehabilitation of wastewater facilities based on repeated incidents of contamination, state action or federal consent decrees. Instead, a proactive schedule of preventive measures and analysis must be established by the city, so that repairs, replacements and improvements are made before contaminated wastewater is released into Oahu’s waters.
The Kailua wastewater plant has been operating under consent orders issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) since September 2022. The first order was issued after one of two biotower treatment units at the plant failed — nearly two years previously, in January 2021. With inadequate treatment capability, the broken plant risked releasing effluent into the ocean that contained fecal material and possible pathogens that can sicken swimmers and ocean users.
That EPA order required the city to assess the biotowers for needed repair and to conduct more frequent monitoring for enterococcus — a bacteria that signals the presence of fecal material — in the plant’s releases. In April, plant operators submitted the assessment, identifying needed repairs and maintenance.
The EPA issued a new order last month, giving the city two years to contract for the work — by January 2026 — and an additional three years, until January 2029, to complete the biotower rehabilitation. That’s a lenient timeline.
While it’s reassuring — to an extent — that the EPA is on top of the issue, it’s important to note that these consent orders are in place because Kailua’s sewage treatment plant has repeatedly exceeded legal limits for releasing tainted, potentially illness-causing effluent containing unacceptable levels of bacteria into marine waters.
The problem and risks have existed since at least 2021, but need not be fully corrected until 2029 — and that’s troubling.
In April and May the plant exceeded limits for enterococcus bacteria in its effluent on 13 different days.
In June, the state Department of Health (DOH) fined the city $434,350 for violating its state-issued National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit, which requires limiting bacteria levels to those required by the federal Clean Water Act, and for missing its deadline to submit a report documenting the wastewater plant’s compliance with permit rules.
These are no small concerns. DOH said the wastewater had four to six times the permitted level of bacteria on some days.
To prevent further contamination, EPA has ordered the plant to install and treat all releases with new disinfection treatment technology. The city’s Department of Environmental Services plans to have an ultraviolet disinfection system operational by December 2025. Good. This should serve to significantly lower enterococcus levels, and will ease clean-water concerns while the plant’s biotowers are rehabbed.
The city has budgeted $45 million for upgrades to the Kailua facility, including $11 million for the ultraviolet disinfection system, it reports, and is now “actively advancing” implementation of the new disinfection system. Biotower repairs are still in the planning stage.
With money already allocated in the budget, the city must act with all possible speed to complete these needed upgrades — and end the practice of allowing subpar function of its wastewater facilities until ordered to do otherwise.
