Near the end of his final term on the Honolulu City Council, Calvin Say offered a piece of legislation with one stated purpose: to relieve Oahu taxpayers from having to pay for one major economic burden that’s been in place here for nearly 15 years.

Say’s plan under Resolution 24-287, which he introduced in December, would postpone or terminate the City and County of Honolulu’s federally mandated 2010 consent decree with regard to its wastewater collection system in order to reduce billions of dollars in city spending.

But to make any change to that consent decree — meant to prevent untreated sewage from entering Oahu’s marine and shoreline environments — is difficult to accomplish, city officials say.

That’s because the legally binding agreement — entered into by the city, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Health on Dec. 17, 2010 — also mandates extensive improvements, upgrades and preventive maintenance to the city’s waste collection system.

The work is currently centered on an estimated $2.5 billion “full secondary treatment” upgrade to the Sand Island Wastewater Treatment Plant at 1350 Sand Island Parkway.

The project, which turns contaminated water into recycled water that can be used for things like landscaping, must be completed by 2035, the city said.

A similar $536 million upgrade to the city’s 45-year-old Honouliuli Wastewater Treatment Plant in Ewa Beach was completed in May.

Still, Say believed deferring or delaying work at the Sand Island plant could help taxpayers as they face the city’s newly proposed sewer fee hike this year.

If approved under Bill 60, the city Department of Environmental Services says the planned sewer fee increases — which amount to a total increase of 115% across all rate-paying classes over a decade — would take effect July 1.

Overall, the city’s proposed sewer rate hikes will start with a 9% annual adjustment for the first six years, followed by smaller increases of 8%, 7%, 6% and 5% in the final four years, officials said.

Currently, the city says, an average single-family residential sewer bill totals approximately $110.89 a month. By July 1 that bill would rise to $122.05 a month.

And by July 2034, the city predicts, the average monthly sewer bill will be $248.53 — a 124.1% increase from the current average sewer bill. Rate hikes for commercial or nonresidential customers mirror the increase to residents, city officials say.

The city said these rate increases are necessary to address rising operational costs and fund critical projects within ENV’s $10.1 billion capital improvement program, scheduled from 2025 to 2040.

According to Resolution 24-287, “the costs of upgrading the city’s wastewater system are borne by the city’s ratepayers.”

“(The) increases in sewer rates proposed by the city administration would impose a significant economic hardship on the city’s residents, many of whom are already facing such hardship due to the rising costs of housing, goods, and services, among other things,” the resolution states.

“The Council believes that in view of the serious economic hardship on the city’s ratepayers that completion of the projects mandated under the 2010 Consent Decree would entail, the city administration should make efforts to seek relief from the strict and economically burdensome terms of the 2010 Consent Decree, particularly with respect to the requirement to upgrade the Sand Island WWTP to full secondary treatment by 2035,” the resolution states.

Say’s legislation urges the city administration “to initiate discussions with the (EPA and DOH), and other pertinent parties to terminate or modify the 2010 Consent Decree, particularly with respect to the requirement to upgrade the Sand Island WWTP to full secondary treatment, or at least to extend the compliance deadlines of the 2010 Consent Decree relating to the City and County of Honolulu wastewater system.”

During the Council’s Dec. 11 meeting, ENV Director Roger Babcock testified in support of Say’s resolution and said the city “administration will commit to seeking relief … from the consent decree … from the U.S. EPA and the Hawaii Department of Health.”

However, he cautioned that the city could “not support the delay in our need for our sewer fee increase that we’ve proposed because this effort may end up not being successful,” Babcock said. “This effort, if received well initially from the EPA and the Department of Health, will take several additional steps that will take a significant amount of time.”

He noted that effort would “need to have federal legislation to modify the Clean Water Act in order for a waiver to be received (and) to necessitate this project not happening.”

“In addition, it would require going back into federal court, reopening the settlement and having that modified,” Babcock said. “And the parties would have to agree to that; there’d be all kinds of filings and procedures that would occur.”

“In reality, relief from this would probably take on the order of years to happen,” he said.

“Separately, we have a very tight schedule to meet the terms of the consent decree,” Babcock added. “So therefore, we need to insist that this effort is not tied to our sewer fee increase proposal; we can’t delay that effort.”

“There would be very serious consequences if we do not receive relief and also then did not meet the deadlines,” he said. “There will be fines. We will not be able to meet our bond coverage that we are committed to for our existing sewer bonds that we have out, and it would also directly impact our sewer bond rating.”

Later, Babcock said an attempt in 2021 to postpone a portion of the consent decree proved unsuccessful.

Still, Council Chair Tommy Waters believed the city’s request to raise sewer fees in 2025 might not receive approval in a city where the cost of living is already deemed much higher than in other parts of the country.

“I’m not sure you’ll get the votes to increase the sewer fee,” Waters said, alluding to Bill 60’s future. “I’m just not sure, it may fail. So this (resolution) … might be necessary.”

At his final Council meeting, Say said his resolution was basically “to say that the City Council is ready, willing and able to do whatever it can to control the costs of the secondary treatment plant.”

“The total cost to the taxpayers of Oahu will be tremendous,” he added, “on top of other fee increases that are still pending.”

Ultimately, the Council adopted Resolution 24-287.