As environmentalists raised questions about the handling of last Sunday’s sewage spill, Kalapaki Beach was closed for the fourth day in a row Wednesday while state and county officials tested the water’s bacteria levels to see if the beach and
As environmentalists raised questions about the handling of last Sunday’s sewage spill, Kalapaki Beach was closed for the fourth day in a row Wednesday while state and county officials tested the water’s bacteria levels to see if the beach and the bay beyond could finally be reopened.
Officials said they would try to reach a decision after reading results of the tests this morning.
Testing is being done at the mouth of Nawiliwili Stream, off the rock formation further down the beach, and at one point in between, officials said.
In addition, officials took samples from the effluent at the Lihu’e wastewater treatment plant, where the sewage leak occurred Sunday.
Cesar Portugal, Kaua’i County’s chief engineer, said the samples from the bay “are inconsistent with the effluent quality coming out of the plant. So we are working with the state to determine the source of the problem.”
Kalapaki Beach has been closed since 8 a.m. Sunday morning, nearly eight hours after 50,000 gallons of treated sewage flowed down Nawiliwili Stream into Kalapaki Bay.
A total of 250,000 gallons escaped after two pumps failed at about 12:30 a.m. Sunday morning, but 80 percent of the spill leaked onto the Kaua’i Lagoons golf courses, according to officials.
An alarm which should have paged an off-site supervisor of the unmanned sewage treatment facility also failed, which accounted for the seven-hour gap between leak and containment, according to county officials.
Portugal said the system failure is being investigated.
The incident is receiving additional scrutiny from environmentalists.
Cheryl Lovell-Obatake, who heads up the Nawiliwili Watershed Council and has been an advocate of cleaning up the stream and bay for years, isn’t satisfied with the county’s explanation of this most recent accidental spill.
Lovell-Obatake said there have been conflicting statements about where pollutants have previously entered the bay.
“From the Native Hawaiian perspective, they (the county) are depleting our natural resources with this type of action,” Lovell-Obatake said.
She said she noticed signs warning people to stay out of the water Sunday and called businesses near her Kalapaki home.
“None of them had been notified. I was the bad-news messenger,” she said.
There is some question as to whether 50,000 gallons of partially treated sewage would remain in the bay for five days, which means that the high bacteria counts may be coming from the polluted Nawiliwili Stream.
Neither state nor county officials wanted to comment on that possibility on the record.
The problems at Kalapaki came less than a week after North Shore environmental activists sought a cleanup in Hanalei Bay.
Two groups asked the Environmental Protection Agency to step in at Black Pot Park, and also asked the EPA to add Black Pot to 111 other sites in Hawai’i that are already listed as having been polluted by bacteria, trash and sediment.
The EPA hasn’t acted on the request.
Sixteen of the polluted sites listed in Hawai’i are on Kaua’i, including Nawiliwili Harbor, which abuts Kalapaki.
Sunday’s spill that ended up in Kalapaki Bay was the second breakdown at the Lihu’e wastewater plant in less than a year.
More than 140,000 gallons of treated sewage leaked from a break in a three-inch line for recycled water last February. That leak was also on a Sunday morning. But the alarm system worked and pumps were shut down immediately after the 1 a.m spill.
In November last year, an estimated 5,000 gallons of raw sewage from a cracked line spilled onto Kaumuali’i Highway in Ele’ele.
In October 2000, a contractor installing guardrails along Kuhio Highway in Wailua broke a sewer main and caused 20,000 gallons of untreated sewage to leak out onto the ground.
Regarding last Sunday’s spill, Lovell-Obatake said she would request that a county wastewater official attend today’s County Council meeting “to give some clear explanation of this so-called accident.”
A council clerk said Lovell-Obatake’s request came after the official meeting agenda had been posted, and as of Wednesday afternoon it hadn’t been added.
County spokeswoman Beth Tokioka said state law requires a formal public notice of a meeting item six days before the meeting date.
Staff writer Dennis Wilken can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) and mailto:dwilken@pulitzer.net
