After 40 straight days of rain, Honolulu city officials elected in 2006 to dump nearly 50 million gallons of untreated sewage into the Ala Wai Canal. Eventually, after the beaches were cleaned and pipes repaired, the city settled a series
After 40 straight days of rain, Honolulu city officials elected in 2006 to dump nearly 50 million gallons of untreated sewage into the Ala Wai Canal.
Eventually, after the beaches were cleaned and pipes repaired, the city settled a series of lawsuits by signing a global consent decree to upgrade its sewage system over a period of decades.
But earlier this month, amid the second serious rain storm on O‘ahu in the last two winters, the system failed again, with three separate sewer overflows in just two days. An estimated 51,000 gallons of combined storm water and raw wastewater ran into a Windward O‘ahu stream on March 5, then at least 10,000 gallons into Palolo Stream and more than 30,000 gallons into Wailupe Stream the following morning.
Read the whole story at Civil Beat.
• Honolulu Civil Beat is an online news source serving Hawai‘i. Read more at www.civilbeat.com.
