07/13/2024
***UPDATE: THIS EXCEEDANCE WAS LIFTED 07/19***
We’ve been seeing an uptick in bacterial exceedances from the Kailua Wastewater Treatment Plant over the past few months:
July 12, 2024 - Present
Cause: Still under investigation
June 21 - June 24, 2024
Cause: putting additional equipment into service in the Secondary Clarifier disrupted the processes, resulting in a temporary 1-day exceedance
June 1 - June 4, 2024 Cause: the previous heavy rainfall used up a lot of the plant’s treatment inventory, and they weren’t able to keep up with the high volume afterward
May 15 - May 23, 2024 Cause: heavy rainfall
In my view, these frequent bacterial exceedances are an inevitable byproduct of our outdated municipal system that is designed to dump treated wastewater into the ocean. The plant operators and city administrators are doing the best they can with the system that was designed decades ago, but machines will always eventually break, and humans can always make errors.
If we want to be able to swim in our ocean without fear of life-threatening infections, we must start making a difficult transition toward more sustainable methods of wastewater disposal, like wastewater gardens, incineration toilets, in-home grey water reuse, and creative new technologies that don't hook up to our sewer system.
I'll continue to work on creating a more sustainable municipal system, but I'll need your support in order to make these big changes a funding priority.
