LIHU‘E — Approximately 20 residents who attended a community meeting at Wailua Houselots Park Tuesday night were pleased to learn from Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. that the county has come up with a solution for a foul smell that has
LIHU‘E — Approximately 20 residents who attended a community meeting at Wailua Houselots Park Tuesday night were pleased to learn from Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. that the county has come up with a solution for a foul smell that has been haunting them for years.
But what they were not so pleased to hear was that the administration’s best case scenario to put an end to the smell coming from the manhole by the county’s Coco Palms Sewage Pump Station is almost two years away; by the spring of 2014.
“What can you do between now and then,” asked former Mayor Maryanne Kusaka, who lives in Wailua Houselots. “We cannot wait until 2014.”
Kusaka said that besides affecting the residents, the foul smell is “really hard” on the businesses in the area.
Anyone who drives by the entrance of Wailua Houselots may have smelled the foul odor coming from the sewage pump station perched on a tiny piece of state land by the intersection of Kuhio Highway and Halelio Street.
Now, imagine the area residents and surrounding businesses that have to deal with the smell all day, although the problem seems to worsen during the daylight hours, when the county’s sewer system receives the bulk of its wastewater from homes and businesses in the Wailua Houselots and Kapa‘a.
Ed Tschup, chief of Wastewater Division at the county Public Works Department, said at the meeting that a private company conducted experimental tests in April, using a relatively new technology, and has achieved significantly positive results.
The smell comes from the sewer system’s manholes — concrete vents capped with metal lids.
One of the manholes is directly in front of the Coco Palms Sewage Pump Station. Another manhole is on Kuhio Highway, in front of the nearby Shell gas station. There are a few more manholes in the system, all on Papaloa Street, which is behind Shell station and the adjacent Kinipopo Shopping Village.
Tschup said that when the sewer lines fill up, the sewage level rises inside the manholes, triggering the pump station to pump the wastewater and send it through pipes under Wailua Bridge to the Wailua Wastewater Treatment Plan near Lydgate Park. It’s when the wastewater level rises and drops inside the manholes that the foul smell, which is hydrogen sulfide, is mostly released into the air, Tschup said.
A piece of equipment called the OHxyPhogg utilizes a nozzle to create an oxygenated fog inside the manhole, according to Tschup. The fog oxidizes the hydrogen sulfide, which is then washed down in the sewer system.
Officials from Parkson Corp., a Mainland-based company, came to Kaua‘i in April and spent almost two weeks testing that specific manhole at Halelio Street, where apparently most of the foul smell comes from.
From April 9 to 12, the company measured the levels of Hydrogen Sulfide inside the manhole, and without using any devices to contain the problem.
On most days the concentration of hydrogen sulfide was between 150 to 200 parts-per-million, and on one particular day it reached 350 ppm.
The company returned to the testing site two weeks later, this time armed with the OHxyPhogg on a trailer. From April 25 to May 1, the company tested different combinations, gradually reading less concentrations of hydrogen sulfide. In the last three days of testing there was nearly no hydrogen sulfide in the air inside the manhole.
Residents at the Wailua Houselots meeting said they could not smell any foul odor in the week the OHxyPhogg was up and running.
But that was just during the time the company conducted the testing, and the smell is now back in the air daily.
Some residents asked if the county could just buy a unit and place it by the pump station rather than waiting until all red tape is cut and the area is prepared to receive the equipment. The demonstration unit had none of that, and yet it was up and running in April.
“We have to go through a procurement process, we cannot just go (to a hardware store) and buy it off the shelf,” Deputy County Engineer Lyle Tabata said.
The entire project consists of providing water (about 4 to 6 gallons per hour) to run the equipment, a generator to power it and a few extra retrofits in the area. All this, including the purchase of the equipment, will have to go through a procurement process, Tschup said.
Still, Councilman Mel Rapozo, who lives in the area, wanted to find out if the county would be willing to lease the equipment or sign a lease-to-own agreement on the equipment, to address the foul smell now rather than wait until 2014.
Tschup said he would “explore” that possibility with the county director of finance.
Last year, the Kaua‘i County Council allocated $350,000 for the administration to initiate the project. Rapozo said the council would support an alternative to mitigate the problem until the final solution is reached in 2014.
Carvalho said the administration can commit to follow through with the current project and expedite it.
“We have a plan and let’s follow it,” said Carvalho, adding that the administration could also have an interim plan.
In the meantime, the project does not include addressing the smell from the other manholes on Papaloa Street.
“My two cents would be, ‘Start working on Papaloa (Street) right now,’” said Councilman Tim Bynum, who lived in Wailua Houselots for 13 years before moving to Wailua Homesteads.
Council meeting
Tschup took the same presentation to the council meeting on Wednesday.
“There are no inexpensive solutions to the this kind of problem,” he said.
The problem, Tschup said, started in the 1970s, when the sewage system was extended to the coastal resort area, but it got worse when the system was extended to Kapa‘a in the 1990s.
Tschup called the OHxyPhogg a “very promising technology,” which alone costs $150,000.
Once the area where the equipment will be placed is retrofitted to accommodate it, the administration may need a “little bit more funding” beyond the $350,000 already allocated, he said. Additionally, it would cost about $10,000 to $20,000 per year in maintenance costs.
Tschup also said that, based on concerns he heard from the community, the county will probably need to put another unit, and possibly two of them, on Papaloa Street to address the foul odor in the entire area.
But if that would be the case, it wouldn’t happen until the first unit would be up and running and deemed successful, according to Tschup. And the county would probably have to work on acquiring a small easement on Papaloa Street to place the OHxyPhogg.
Backyard monster
Bynum said at the council meeting that the administration has made several attempts in the last few years to address the foul odor, and he was happy to learn the problem will be addressed and the manholes on Papaloa Street will be also looked at.
But if Tschup is right, the administration will not take any action on Papaloa Street until 2014. Councilman Dickie Chang also praised the administration.
“I’m happy to be moving in that direction, because 2014 is right around the corner,” Chang said.
Michael Fernandez said he lives in Wailua Houselots for 61 years.
He attended the community meeting Tuesday night, and on Wednesday he was at the council meeting to provide additional input.
“This is the worst problem that has affected the Wailua Houselots since Hurricane ‘Iniki (in 1992),” he said at the council meeting Wednesday.
The Kekaha community has been compensated by the county with almost $1 million as an environmental justice for dealing with the island’s landfill in their backyard, and those funds grow about $80,000 per year. The money is to be used in community projects in Kekaha.
Fernandez mentioned the funding that Kekaha receives and called on Rapozo to introduce legislation at the council to compensate the community at Wailua Houselots.
“Wailua Houselots should be compensated for this monster in our backyard,” Fernandez said.
Visit www.kauai.gov/publicworks/wastewater or call the division at 241-4082 for more information.
