Hawaii First Water

UH research essential in federal Clean Water Act ruling

June, Cindy Knapman/UH: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in April that the federal Clean Water Act, which regulates the discharge of pollutants into the nation’s surface waters, including lakes, rivers, streams, wetlands and coastal areas, must also consider pollutant inputs to those waters by groundwater. This ruling was based on scientific findings from researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST).

Over the last decade, Maui coral reefs have experienced a decline in health and overgrowth by invasive algae. Concerns arose that submarine groundwater discharge was carrying nutrients from wastewater infrastructure to nearby coral reefs, contributing to this decline. However, the quantity and locations of submarine groundwater discharge along Maui’s coasts were poorly known. It was also unclear whether the groundwater carried high concentrations of nutrient or other pollution.

SOEST researchers from the Department of Earth Sciences were awarded grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center to investigate the hydrological connections between deep injected effluent from a municipal wastewater treatment plant on Maui and nearby coastal waters.

The researchers applied novel techniques including using aircraft to collect thermal infrared imagery to map oceanic inputs and the extent of effluent discharge, deployed scuba seafloor mapping, analyzed groundwater and algae samples to look for isotopic signatures unique to wastewater, used radioisotopes to help establish flow rates, and deployed tracer dyes to track rates and paths of the injected wastewater effluent to Maui’s coastal waters. The tracer dye test provided unequivocal evidence that the injected wastewater travels through groundwater to the coastal ocean.

Lahaina, Maui map
Lahaina map showing groundwater seeps, heat signature of effluent plume. Credit: Glenn, et al., 2013

“This was a very impactful scientific study with regard to protecting the environment, and with far-reaching socio-economic and sustainability implications for the State of Hawaiʻi and the nation as a whole. Our high-caliber UH team was glad that we could make it happen,” said Craig Glenn, lead author of the study and professor of Earth Sciences at SOEST.

The research team conclusively demonstrated that millions of gallons per day of deeply injected treated sewage effluent from the West Maui wastewater reclamation facility are being added to Maui’s adjacent ocean waters.

for the rest of the article see here

US Supreme Court Rules Against Maui In Major Clean Water Case

April 2020, Civil Beat, Gruber. WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Maui County can’t skirt the Clean Water Act by merely pumping its sewage into groundwater before discharging it into the ocean.

In a 6-3 opinion written by Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, the majority ruled that Maui County, like other municipalities and businesses dumping pollutants into the nation’s rivers, lakes and oceans, must have a permit to do so.

The ruling is both a rebuke of Maui County and the Trump administration, which had joined the county in arguing that the Clean Water Act should only cover waste that was discharged directly into navigable waters, and not pollutants that were first filtered through groundwater before reaching their final destination.

To See the rest of the article in the Civil Beat, click here…

Mayor: Maui Will Not Withdraw Supreme Court Appeal in Lahaina Injection Well Case

(Editor Comment:  Environmentalists would like to settle this case out of court fearing that a more conservative Supreme Court will weaken the Federal Clean Water Act.)

October 2019: Maui Now: Wendy Osher: Maui Mayor Michael Victorino says the County of Maui will not withdraw its appeal of the Lahaina injection well case from consideration by the US Supreme Court.

He is now seeking clarification from the high court saying, “I want Maui County taxpayers and ratepayers to have their day before the US Supreme Court and get clarity on this important question on the application of the Clean Water Act.”

In a statement issued on Friday, Mayor Victorino said:

“To allow this to go unanswered leaves us vulnerable to more lawsuits, to uncertain regulatory requirements and staggering costs – all for what would be a negligible environmental benefit. The legal exposure is immense, not only for the County but for private property owners as well. It goes far beyond injection wells. The Ninth Circuit’s decision means that many County facilities – including Parks, Public Works, Environmental Management are likely in violation of the federal law as it’s interpreted by this court. Penalties can be imposed of nearly $55,000 per day per source. The effect on private property values, and the associated property taxes which fund the majority of County operations, cannot be ignored.”

Attached is Mayor Victorino’s letter to Maui County residents and a Corporation Counsel opinion on settlement authority. Letters, memorandums and other documents connected with the case can be found online.

Four community groups, represented by Earthjustice (Sierra Club and the Surfrider Foundation, with support from Hawai‘i Wildlife Fund and West Maui Preservation Association) filed a complaint with in Hawai‘i Federal District Court in 2012, alleging that Maui County was in violation of the Clean Water Act for its injection well discharges of municipal wastewater into the Pacific Ocean just offshore of Kahekili Beach Park in West Maui.

The groups claim that pollutants from the Lahaina Wastewater Reclamation Facility are flowing to the ocean and harming coral reefs.  Environmental groups who brought the lawsuit say they’re asking the County to fix nearshore deadzones and give Maui’s reefs a chance to recover.

The rest of the Maui Now article is here….

Maui County committee agrees to settle injection well case

September 2019; WAILUKU, Maui (AP) — County officials have recommended settling with environmental groups that sued over the use of injection wells.

Members of the Maui County Committee on Governance, Ethics, and Transparency voted 5-3 to recommend that the full council settle and remove the case ahead of U.S. Supreme Court consideration in November.

See the rest of the article here...

Maui County Running Out Of Time To Settle Clean Water Act Case

Aug 2019: Civil Beat: Author: Nathan Eagle; Maui County Council members are expected to decide Tuesday (3 Sept 2019)  if they want to go against Mayor Michael Victorino and settle a major Clean Water Act case instead of letting a conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court decide it in November.

The four environmental groups that brought the lawsuit delivered petitions this week with more than 15,000 signatures to Council Chair Kelly King. They are urging the council to step in now so it can spare the county — and the country — from an unfavorable judgment.

The Hawaii Wildlife Fund, Sierra Club-Maui Group, Surfrider Foundation and West Maui Preservation Association sued in 2012 after trying for years to reach an agreement with the county over its Lahaina wastewater reclamation facility, which has been releasing treated water into the ground that ends up entering the ocean and harming coral reefs.

The conflict revolves around the adverse effect of the effluent discharge on the coral reefs and marine ecosystem at Kahekili on Maui.

District and appeals courts have ruled that the county needs a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit for the facility, which handles about 3 million to 5 million gallons of sewage a day. It serves about 40,000 people. 

But Victorino is fighting that decision and has succeeded in getting the case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Environmentalists are concerned that the court’s decision would gut the Clean Water Act, a situation that would have implications far beyond Hawaii.

For the rest of the Civil Beat article click here…

Supreme Court to decide if Clean Water Act limits Hawaii’s underground wastewater dumping

By David Savage, Feb 2019, LA TIMES:

The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to decide whether the Clean Water Act can prevent sewage plants from putting waste water into the ground if it flows from there into a river, bay or the ocean.

The case from Hawaii is an important test of the reach of the federal government’s anti-pollution authority.

Environmentalists sued alleging a sewage plant in Maui was discharging treated waste water into the ground and it was flowing underground from there into the Pacific Ocean.

They won before a federal judge and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which held that the pollution was subject to federal control because it was the “functional equivalent of a discharge into the navigable water.”

But the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal from Hawaii that was backed by the Assn. of California Water Agencies. Their lawyers called the 9th Circuit’s ruling a “radical expansion” of federal authority. If upheld, its approach would extend new federal regulation to water treatment plants across the country, they said.

The Clean Water Act calls for preventing discharge of pollutants into the “navigable waters of the United States.” Water agencies say the law refers only to polluted water flowing directly into streams, rivers and bays, not groundwater.

For more than a decade, the justices have been split over how far the federal government can go to regulate water inside the United States, whether it be wetlands, or, as in this case, groundwater. The court’s conservatives have argued the federal government can only regulate polluted water that flows directly into a river, bay or the ocean. The law forbids discharges of pollutants into “the waters of the United States.”

But environmentalists as well as the court’s liberal justices have said this authority can extend farther inland to prevent pollution that will eventually flow into rivers and bays.

The case, County of Maui vs. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, is scheduled to be heard in the fall.

For the full article in the LA Times see:

Does Sunscreen Damage Freshwater Lakes??

July, Canadian Broadcasting Company.

My question is: I hear a sunscreen is killing the coral in the oceans and I’m wondering what it’s doing to our lakes? Does anyone know?

Britt Wray:  

And for answer we go to Dr. Linda Campbell of St. Mary’s University, and because Dr. Campbell is deaf, the voice you’re hearing is that of SMU staff interpreter Ashley Campbell.

Linda Campbell:

My name is Dr. Linda Campbell and I’m here in lovely Halifax Nova Scotia and I’m a professor here at St. Mary’s University and an environmental scientist.

I’m here to answer the question from our listener “does sunscreen cause damage to freshwater lakes similar to the damage done in coral reefs?”

So the short answer yes, but it does look different. The impacts unfortunately of many types of UV filters found in common sunscreen brands really are known to kill the organisms that form coral reefs. And as you know, Hawaii just recently actually banned many types of sunscreen.

Now freshwater lakes are not immune to the impacts from these UV filters similar to coral reefs. And there are two kinds that we are worried about: One is the carbon based UV filters and the other is nano-particulate UV filters, and that’s using zinc and titanium. Both of these types of filters negatively impact algae and fish in lakes.

The damage isn’t as obvious and as visible as the bleaching to coral reefs, but they’re still there and the damages for example include DNA damage, bio-accumulation of harmful chemicals, and lower quality and quantity of food sources at the base of the food web.

It’s easy to find sunscreen brands that contain less harmful components for the ecosystem and they don’t have those nano particulates, or have less harmful UV filters within them.

You can do some research online and look for coral reef friendly sunscreen and then you can find those brands online quite easily and it’s less harmful to the ecosystem.

Britt Wray:

Dr Linda Campbell is an environmental scientist at St Mary’s University in Halifax.

Officials to discuss elevated risk cesspools pose…

West Hawaii Today; Max Dible, 25 June 2018:  Every day cesspools throughout Hawaii send an excess of harmful nutrients pouring into nearshore ocean water and threatening to infiltrate the freshwater drinking supply.  Hawaii island is home to tens of thousands of them representing nearly half of the known cesspools used throughout the state.  With the deadline of 2050 to shut down every one of them, the State Department of Health has scheduled informational community meetings in both Kailua Kona and Hilo…

…When cesspool seepage intermingles with ground water, it can find its way into aquifer drawn on by the county.  This is generally less of a concern at the deep well sites, which can range between 1,000 and 2,000 feet in depth and supply Hawaii island with most of its drinking water…

For the rest of the article see…

 

New State of Hawaii Brown Water Beach Website

December:  (Kobayashi Comment: This new State of Hawaii website is an excellent example of the fusion of GIS mapping capabilities with water data.  I strongly support such efforts and commend the DOH and Clean Water Branch for taking this first step)

HONOLULU — The Hawaii State Department of Health (DOH) Clean Water Branch has developed a newly upgraded website that gives the public access to up-to-date information — integrated with aerial photos from Google maps — to check on the status of the water quality of beaches that may have a surge in bacteria levels or are being impacted by sewage spills. This website is part of a revised statewide beach monitoring and notification system.

The new features and functions of the website, developed in part from a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), were based on feedback from those within the health department as well as external stakeholders. The website is part of an integrated notification system that includes warning signs posted at selected beaches throughout the state.

This is the link to the new website…

More Cesspools in Hawaii Required to Close

HONOLULU, AUG 25, 2017 — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced an agreement with the owner of two Big Island hardware stores and a commercial property to close four large-capacity cesspools (LCCs) at properties in Naalehu, Kamuela and Hilo, Hawaii. Cesspools can contaminate groundwater, and LCCs have been banned since 2005.

“Replacing these harmful cesspools with modern wastewater treatment systems will protect the Big Island’s drinking water and coastal resources,” said Alexis Strauss, EPA’s Acting Regional Administrator for the Pacific Southwest. “Our goal is to protect Hawaii’s waters by closing all large-capacity cesspools.”

In 2016, EPA found three cesspools during inspections at the Naalehu and Kamuela Housemart Ace Hardware stores, owned by Maui Varieties Investments, Inc. (MVI). MVI also voluntarily disclosed a fourth LCC at a separate commercial property that houses a farm supply store in Hilo.

MVI will be closing the two LCCs serving the Naalehu store and neighboring buildings and replacing the LCCs with wastewater treatment systems approved by the Hawaii Department of Health. The company will be closing the LCC at the Kamuela store and connecting it to a private sewer system. Finally, MVI will close the LCC at the commercial property in Hilo and connect it to the County of Hawaii’s sewer system. MVI will also pay a civil penalty of $134,000.

An LCC is a cesspool that serves multiple residential dwellings or a commercial facility with the capacity to serve 20 or more people per day. Cesspools collect and discharge waterborne pollutants like untreated raw sewage into the ground, where disease-causing pathogens can contaminate groundwater, streams and the ocean. LCCs were banned under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act in April 2005.

Cesspools are used more widely in Hawaii than in any other state, despite the fact that 95 percent of all drinking water in Hawaii comes from groundwater sources. Since the federal LCC ban took effect in 2005, over 3,400 large-capacity cesspools have been closed state-wide, many through voluntary compliance.