The ponds and canal in Ala Moana Park were created nearly 100 years ago to provide ethereal beauty and recreational benefits, with low maintenance. Today, they are unsightly, filthy, smelly, bacteria-laden, a garbage dump, an open sewer of human and animal waste and are just disgraceful.

The ponds and canal no longer are beautiful and do not provide an environment for recreation, other than the occasional remote-controlled model boats, handful of fishermen collecting bait and a few visiting crested night herons and egrets.

Only cosmetic changes for the ponds and canal are planned in the renovation of Ala Moana Regional Park and Magic Island Improvements study. It says nothing about addressing this awful environmental and health hazard in our midst. The swamp should be drained and the land filled. A drainage pipeline in the canal is needed to capture storm runoff. The park will gain six acres of usable land and we will be safer.

Carol Ching

Ala Moana

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