“My name is Alan Arakawa. I am a grade 4 Wastewater Operator currently employed by the County of Maui at the Kahului Wastewater Reclamation Facility. For several years now I have felt that several of the practices performed by the county at this facility are illegal and should be stopped.”
Those were the opening words in a letter written by Arakawa to John Lewin, director of the state Department of Health. Arakawa’s letter and attachments might be regarded as the opening volley in a battle of wits and endurance that has pitted the state’s Health Department against Maui County’s Department of Public Works’ Division of Wastewater Reclamation.
Arakawa told Lewin that for more than two years, his supervisor, Jerry Morgan, superintendent of county wastewater operations, had assured Arakawa that the practices he was questioning were legal. The first of the questionable practices concerned what was done with effluent when the plant’s injection wells were plugged or other problems arose. The effluent — hundreds of thousands of gallons at a time — were diverted onto the sand within the plant boundary but still just about 100 feet from the shore of Kahului Bay. “Is this practice legal?” Arakawa asked Lewin.
The second aspect of plant operations that bothered Arakawa involved the flow of run-off from the asphalt pad around the plant buildings to Amala Place, which, Arakawa stated, “has a fair amount of joggers, bicyclists, and vehicular traffic.” Although Arakawa did not mention it, across Amala Street from the plant is the Kanaha Pond Wildlife Refuge, home to the endangered Hawaiian stilt and other waterbirds. (The county has acknowledged that the facility “was designed to drain to Amala Place.”)
Arakawa continued: “During a normal day-to-day operation of our plant we contaminate this asphalt with spillage of dewatered sludge off of our solids handling. We weekly wash and clean our sludge feed pumps onto this asphalt pad. Whenever our mechanics take apart pumps and other mechanical devices, oils, greases, etc., are cleaned onto this pad. Whenever we have an in-plant mishap like a digester overflowing or a holding tank overflowing, it spills on this pad.”
“My question to you,” Arakawa continued, “is that when it rains or whenever water is applied to this pad in any significant quantity the plant is designed to deposit all of this debris and water out of the plant onto the public roadway Amala Street — is this legal?”
Arakawa’s letter bears no date, but it appears to have been sent in late 1991. Attached to it was a memorandum dated June 20, 1990 from Al Souza, superintendent of wastewater for the county, from Steve Parabicoli, plant supervisor. Parabicoli informed Souza that, for Souza’s request, he — Parabicoli — had prepared “a list of effluent overflows which have occurred this year at the Kahului” plant. The list indicated that on 46 different dates in 1989, effluent had spilled. Quantities involved ranged from 10,000 gallons to 420,000, with a total for the year of 7.2 million gallons spilled. The list for 1990 was completed only through May 22. Even at that, 1990 seemed headed for the record books: 32 spills had occurred already, involving nearly 4 million gallons.
No Spills?
The Kahului wastewater plant uses injection wells to get rid of effluent — as do all the two other Maui Island sewage treatment plants, at Kihei and Lahaina. Kahului’s wells were getting old and clogged, however, and their ability to take on the 5 million gallons a day average flow from the plant was diminishing. State Health Department rules for wastewater plant operation require that plants using injection wells have full back-up holding capacity to allow for precisely those occasions when the wells, for whatever reason, are not able to accept all of the flow. In no case is it acceptable for the effluent to be dumped onto the ground or elsewhere, according to the rules. This point is quite clear in §11-52-05(g) of Hawai`i Administrative Rules: “Whenever the director [of the Health Department] finds that any treatment works … overflows onto the ground or into surface waters or contaminates or pollutes any state waters, the director shall initiate enforcement action against the owner of the treatment works or individual wastewater system to have such conditions removed or corrected.”
Nonetheless, it was the position of Eassie Miller, the head of the county’s division of wastewater reclamation, that none of the on-site spills counted. Indeed, when The Maui News, in the summer of 1991, published an article on possible links between the sewage effluent and algae blooms in Kahului Bay, it reported that both Miller and Jerry Morgan, supervisor of wastewater operations, denied that “there has ever been effluent spilling on the ground” at the Kahului plant.
Expanding Wells
The county was aware that the capacity of the injection wells was insufficient to handle the daily flow. When the plant was designed and built back in the 1970s, the wells were never intended to be more than back-up; by their having been used as the primary — indeed, virtually the only — means of getting rid of effluent, the wells’ capacity had been gradually diminishing even as the load on the plant was increasing. In 1989, Maui County started to design for an expansion of the plant, including the drilling of four new wells in addition to the four originally permitted.
Before the wells could be drilled, however, an inspector from the state Department of Health visited the plant. His report stated that despite the consistently high quality of effluent produced by the plant, “the injection wells over the years have had a history of mediocre performance.” Well casings extended to a depth of about 180 feet, the report noted, “but well soundings have found little depth past that. Over the years, multiple attempts to clean the wells with compressed air and occasionally caustic soda have kept the wells functioning. But their capacity has been gradually decreasing over the years… The department [of health] has received reports that overflows are still occurring as a result of the inadequacy of the wells.”
The inspection was conducted September 3, 1991. The plant was given a “conditional acceptance” rating — better than “unacceptable,” but short of the department’s highest rating of “acceptable.”
Less than three months later came the deluge.
Out of Control
Starting on November 28, and lasting through December 2, a total of about 6 million gallons of effluent spilled onto the plant grounds and surrounding area. The county estimated that 10,000 gallons reached the ocean, although there is no way of knowing the accuracy of that figure. Nor does that figure count the number of gallons of effluent that percolated through the sand at the plant and ended up in the ocean. With the plant so close to the shore, and with the water table just a few feet below the ground surface at the plant site, it is reasonable to suppose that many thousands of the gallons spilled onto the plant grounds also found their way to the sea.
Charles Jencks, deputy director of the county Department of Public Works, was reported in The Maui News to have attributed the spill to someone having dumped some kind of petroleum product into the sewers. This, he was reported to have said, killed the bacteria that are used in the plant’s treatment processes. Sludge could not be separated from the water nor could it be contained within the system. Workers tried to confine the flow to plant grounds by erecting berms of sand at the base of the plant’s fencing.
The Maui News account of December 1, 1991, indicated that Jencks said workers at the plant began to notice something wrong on November 24 or 25, when oxygen levels in the holding tanks began to drop. Jencks “said officials were investigating how the petroleum substance made its way into the plant.”
Maui residents never did learn who or what the culprit was. As it turned out, the story about petroleum dumping was not based in fact. Indeed, as reports would show, far from it being an accident, the spill was the predictable outcome of a month of plant mismanagement.
In a letter December 20, 1991, to Bruce Anderson, deputy director of the Health Department, Public Works Director George Kaya wrote: “Initially, it was thought that the solids carryover” — that is, the spill — “was caused by the illegal dumping of a petroleum product. However, after an indepth evaluation, it was concluded that the solids carryover was caused by several issues that when combined, created an unstable facility operation.”
The four aging permitted wells, barely able to handle flows with extremely dilute solids content, were overwhelmed by the “heavy load of solids.” Plant operators diverted the effluent to an unpermitted test well. According to Kaya, 10 million gallons were discharged into the test well.
A Third Account
Kaya’s report to Anderson was not a word longer than it had to be. A fuller report, however, had been prepared by the plant chemist, John Oka. Oka examined plant logs for the entire month and found that there had been “a progressive increase in solids in the system.”
“According to the supervisor plant log, problems with high blanket” — referring to the foamy mix of solids and water floating on top of the clarifier tanks — “had been occurring for approximately four weeks prior to the 29th washout of blankets.” In fact, one clarifier in particular — No. 4 — had been noted to have had a high blanket 11 times before the spill.
Trouble was afoot also in the digester and sludge removal systems, Oka noted. Sludge was not removed from the tanks as frequently as it should have been because, according to Oka, “plant staff indicated that no room was available in the digesters.”
Starting November 26, no sludge at all was sent to the digesters. “The trend graphs indicate a dramatic increase in MLSS” — mixed liquor suspended solids, or sludge in the effluent — and in the time required for solids to settle out.
Compounded Errors
Plant operators began to try to deal with the problem of rising solids on November 23. To make room for more sludge in the digester, plant personnel began to dewater the sludge already in the digester, but those efforts were in turn hampered by the fact that the recirculating effluent used in the dewatering process itself had such high levels of solids. To get around that problem, potable water was substituted for effluent in the dewatering process.
Oka’s analysis of the plant failure attributed it “to a number of factors.” Lack of space in the digester for sludge that needed to be removed from the effluent led to “a gradual build-up of solids in the system.” “Waste rates were not increased to handle the increased solids,” leading to yet another problem: how to keep levels of dissolved oxygen high enough to support the biological processes vital to the plant’s efficient operation. Measurements of dissolved oxygen in the last week of November showed alarmingly low levels. Nonetheless, Oka wrote, “an adjustment to increase the D.O. level was not done at this time. The operator who was in charge of this area felt that this was adequate D.O.”
Ultimately, after three days of no solids being shipped to the digester, the system was “pushed to the limit.”
Oka raised two questions. First, he noted that the plant is equipped with four pumps to remove sludge from the clarifier tanks, but two were inoperable. “Wouldn’t running four … pumps allow for more even suction from the clarifiers?” he asked.
Second, Oka wanted to know why the three weirs at the effluent channel were open, causing the overflow to spill immediately to the ground, “if it is illegal to overflow wastewater effluent from system to the ground.”
The Spill’s Aftermath
The out-of-control plant, combined with Arakawa’s disclosures that had been made to the Department of Health at about the same time, attracted to the plant the attention of both the Health Department and the Environmental Protection Agency. A team of three EPA inspectors and two from the Department of Health visited the plant on January 14 and 15.
From the county’s perspective, their visit must have been an nightmare.
The inspectors found that the pilot test well — the same one in use during the November-December spill — continued to be used. “No one could tell us the depth of this well or whether it is cased. It does not have a state UIC permit” — underground injection control — “nor is it inventoried with the EPA UIC program….
“The westernmost injection well was spewing effluent … The flow was estimated to be 20 gallons per minute…
“On the seaward side of the chlorine contact chamber, sand was being excavated to facilitate the installation of a digester. Groundwater could be seen flowing rapidly through the excavation towards the ocean… Since the leaking wellhead and its pool of effluent are approximately 20 feet from the excavation, the discharged groundwater may contain effluent…
“From the chlorine contact chamber, effluent was observed to be spilling over a weir into a channel dug into the sand. During the first inspection, Parabicoli said that the plant overflows daily from the weir into the channel, where it percolates into the sand. He said that [the plant] must discharge to the ground every day because it cannot get enough water down the wells (measuring the quantity of the overflows has been difficult). [Plant operator Bill] Carroll said that the plant has spilled an estimated 500,000 gallons daily. After observing the rapid flow of groundwater towards the ocean and the close proximity of the facility to the ocean, it appears that discharges from the chlorine contact chamber and leaking wellhead probably reach the ocean.
“According to Parabicoli, on the night of January 14/15, 1992, the flow into the system due to infiltration from the heavy rain was 15 million gallons… Parabicoli said that they had a 500,000 gallon spill that night that overflowed from the chlorine contact chamber and sank into the sand. If the plant can inject 4 to 5 mgd and the pond could hold an additional 1 million gallons… then there are least 3 to 4 million gallons unaccounted for. Both Morgan and Parabicoli said that none of the effluent went through the [sand] berm into the ocean…
“We have a copy of a December 2, 1991 letter from Bruce Anderson in which it is stated that [the plant] does not have to report spills under 1,000 gallons to Hawai`i Department of Health, but still must record such an occurrence…. On January 17, 1992, Tom Arizumi, Denis Lau and Charlie Oumi [with the Department of Health] said that under Hawai`i Chapter 11-62 [administrative rules], all spills must be reported.
“Parabicoli said that when a spill over 1,000 gallons occurs, a ‘wastewater reclamation division overflow report’ is filled out and sent to HDOH. When asked for the spill reports for the past year, however, he could not produce any….
“Parabicoli said that they would fill out a report for the spill that occurred while we were there.” (Environment Hawai`i has been unable to find any sign that the county reported this spill.)
“Morgan [county supervisor of wastewater operations] said there had been no overflows between December 2, 1991 and January 14, 1992 except for one on December 23, 1991. When … informed … that one injection well was spilling at a rate of about 20 gallons per minute, and that that is more than 1,000 gallons per day, Morgan said that there may have been other spills that he did not know about.
“The air bar screen was also out of use while we were there. Carroll said that in the first eight months of its use, it was only operable 89 days (about 3 months). A second screen was installed, but it broke and had not been fixed for 60 days… Despite the screen’s poor track record, the county has purchased more of them for other plants…
“The plant was built to reclaim effluent, none of which, it seems, has ever been reclaimed.”
Notice of Violation
Beginning sometime in February, the Department of Health and the Department of Attorney General began preparing an enforcement action against Maui County for the November-December spill, for several ones subsequent, and for other problems with respect to the Kahului plant’s operations.
Usually, such notices are prepared under strictest secrecy. No one outside the department, most especially the target of the enforcement action, is supposed to know even that they are being contemplated, much less the specific language employed.
Yet in this case, deputy Health Director Bruce Anderson provided Maui County’s Department of Public Works with a copy of the “statement of facts incorporated in a draft notice and finding of violation.” Anderson’s letter, dated February 11, 1992, states that he is complying with a request from “the mayor of the County of Maui,” Linda Lingle. (Anderson may have sent more than just the statement of facts: Kaya’s response to Anderson a month later thanks him for “providing the County of Maui with a copy of the draft Notice and Finding of Violation.”)
In any case, the county’s response to the draft statement of facts appears not to have had much of an effect on the final notice and finding of violation, which was issued in late April. That notice determined that the county had violated state regulations on at least 87 separate dates. The state ordered the county to pay fines totaling $870,000; to take “corrective action to prevent further violations” within 30 days of the notice; to provide the state monthly reports notifying the Department of Health of corrective actions taken in each 30-day period; and to “develop a viable wastewater reuse program for the facility’s effluent” within 60 days of receiving the notice.
It is impossible to determine if the county has complied with any of the actions ordered by the Health Department. As happens frequently following issuance of a notice of violation, the county and the state have begun a long — and, for all practical purposes, interminable — process of negotiation. Until this is concluded, no one from the Health Department or the county will discuss the matter.
Volume 3, Number 4 October 1992