Hawaii is many things, but airtight is not one of them. If you can hear constant dripping sounds, it must be because you have just arrived in Honolulu. It is a leaky place.

I bring this up because Hawaii leaks are not cheap.

For instance, when the Hawai‘i Convention Center’s roof and top deck started leaking, officials grabbed the buckets and started asking for help to pay for repairs.

News reports say it has been leaking for 20 years, sometimes so bad that it caused flooding. The leaks, first noticed in 1999, have caused $64 million in damage and resulted in major repairs to the roof, sports court surface and tile, according to reports.

No state building, however, can compare to the state’s sodden mess of a state Capitol in downtown Honolulu. The building, dedicated in 1969, has been described as a series of architectural symbols.

The cone-shaped Senate and House of Representatives chambers resemble the volcanoes that form Hawaii’s islands. The Hawaii Historic Foundation notes that the eight pillars fronting the Capitol’s entrances represent the eight main Hawaiian Islands and are shaped like coconut palm trunks.

And the two reflecting ponds totaling 78,000 square feet surround the legislative chambers just like the Pacific Ocean embracing the Hawaiian Islands.

The metaphysics marvel works great — but the ponds from design and implementation, to construction and maintenance, were the definition of dysfunctional disaster.

The original purpose was to have the ponds serve a dual purpose. First they marry a beautiful setting with a sense of an important building surrounded by a vast water element, plus in practice, they would be the retention pond for a water-cooled air conditioning system. As an added benefit the pond’s water would come from an underground spring right below the Capitol.

The reality was that the spring water was too brackish; it corroded the beautifully cast bronze water fountains and lights that were to set off the building’s columns. During the day the tradewinds carried all the splashing water to the soon-to-be-corroded bronze feature and the equally soon-to-be-soaked pedestrians.

And the ponds rested not on volcanic soil, but on the Capitol’s soon-to-be-always-dripping basement offices.

The state’s solution was to change the water metaphor into some sort of vision of what a pond would be if it just didn’t have water in it. Remember, this is the state Capitol, so the definition in words can get a tad sketchy there.

The orders, according to a state report, were to “explore ways to replace the pools with something dry that resembled water and would uphold the symbolic representation of the ocean.”

The thinking may have been all wet, but this new plan asks only that you think about water, not actually splash around in it.

Star-Advertiser writer Andrew Gomes said reports came back that the “environmental assessment for the conversion project said a waterless representation of the ocean holds true to the original design intent.”

Apparently in state Capital-speak, an architectural metaphor means whatever you think it should mean. “The proposed pool treatment would symbolize the ocean without using water,” the report said.

Gomes asked local art experts about the plans for a just-imagine waterless Capitol pond. Most of the reaction was that it was an absurd idea.

William Chapman, University of Hawaii Architecture School dean, said in comments on the environmental report that the new plan will alter the character of the Capitol.

Then there is the idea by the artist in charge of the project, Solomon Enos, that the public would be asked to help paint the new virtual watery landscape around the state Capitol.

When Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling, he didn’t pass out paint brushes to random Italians to help with the fresco — but then, it also wasn’t done with a state of Hawaii contract.

The best part of this plan is that it is still in the “conceptual stage” — so with some leadership, the bureaucrats can be told to “think again.”

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Reach him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com.