This photo provided by the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources, shows a home after it collapsed onto a beach on Feb. 28, 2022, in Haleiwa, Hawaii. Rising seas and more intense storms are encroaching on coastal properties. Some coastal erosion removes sand surrounding cesspools and pulls sewage out to sea.
“We want proper sanitation as much as anybody wants it. We don’t want our children swimming in an ocean of bacteria,” said Dotty Kelly-Paddock, president of the Hauula Community Association. “It’s got to change.” Cesspools sprang up across Hawaii during years of rapid growth and now are everywhere from old sugar plantation towns to the posh Honolulu enclave Black Point.Most homes with cesspools are in neighborhoods without sewers. In theory, the ground gradually filters bacteria and pathogens in effluent from them.
When researchers placed dye in shoreline cesspools in the town of Puako on the Big Island for a 2021 study, it emerged in coastal springs only nine hours to three days later, said Tracy Wiegner, a University of Hawaii-Hilo marine science professor. Sewage in the ocean — from cesspools and other sources — also harms coral reefs that support marine life and tourism.
Shellie Habel, a coastal geologist with the University of Hawaii’s Climate Resilience Collaborative, said parts of Waikiki in Honolulu could exhibit such flooding in a decade or two. The world-famous beach resort visited by millions of tourists a year was also built on former wetlands. The solution to such problems is not a simple one. The uncertainty created by climate change makes it harder for policymakers to decide where to install sewers, said Juliet Willetts, a professor at the University of Technology Sydney’s Institute for Sustainable Futures.
In March, the state offered $5 million in grants of up to $20,000 each to help property owners. The money ran out in just two weeks.Honolulu’s municipal government, responsible for all of Oahu, plans to eliminate nearly 1,000 of the island’s 7,500 cesspools by spending $50 million to run sewer lines to an Ewa Beach neighborhood. The project mainly will be funded by tax-exempt municipal bonds.