Aloha Daze

Well, crap.

Literally.

Out of the last month or so, we residents of Hawaii have had more than our fair share of rain. Most residents of Waikiki are telling me that they’ve seen rain before, but not as much as this.

When it rains here this much, bad things happen. Typically, this means that sewage overflows and runs off… into the ocean.

And while that’s bad enough, it usually only happens during serious flooding times. But that’s what we’ve had an over abundance of lately: flooding.

Somewhere amongst all the rain, a major sewage pipe failed. And because Murphy’s Law has a sense of humor, the point of failure was in Waikiki: the gold crown, top of the heap location for the tourism industry here in Hawaii.

To fix the pipe, work crews had to start digging up concrete and a couple of streets. In the meantime, because the entire city of Waikiki can’t jump on one foot all day long, toilets continued to flush.

So what they had to do was funnel the sewage into the Ala Wai Canal. Residents near the canal have raised a stink over the stink. But unfortunately, and residents know this, there isn’t much that can be done. Repairs to the main sewage pipe take time, and crews have been working day and night to fix the problem.

The main on Kaiolu Street broke during heavy rains on Friday, leading to the diversion of untreated sewage into the canal. Officials estimate that more than 10 million gallons of sewage has been pumped into the canal since Friday.

As you might imagine, notices went up to anyone that was considering getting into a boat over at the Ala Wai that the water was not fit to be in.

“Welcome to the 1880s,” Director Jeff Mikulina said of the open sewer running past Waikiki and into the ocean past some of Oahu’s most popular beaches.

Environmentalists worry about damage to the fragile coral reef and other marine life in the area.

“It’s horrible. It’s just not acceptable,” said Melody Heidel of the Sierra Club. “That’s the kind of pressure on an ecosystem that’s hard to recover from.”

Fast forward about 5 days later. The pipe was fixed today. But new tests on the waters at Waikiki Beach have returned some rather unpleasant results.

Currents change. Waters move around the island in sometimes mysterious ways.

It turns out that the surfers and tourists have been enjoying bacteria levels 200 times higher than is acceptable in the waters of Waikiki Beach. Yikes. Notices went out today that it’s a bad idea to be in the water. My heart goes out to all the tourists and locals that have been enjoying the wonderful ocean waters during the last couple of days.

Well that’s bad enough. Over off of Magic Island, an extremely popular tourist location directly across from the Ala Moana Shopping Center, bacteria levels were measured at 10,000 times higher than acceptable levels.

Wow. Talk about swimming with the fishes feces.

Health officials strongly advise the public to stay out of the water in the affected areas.

Gee, now there’s an original idea.

Rest assured, tourists that are looking forward to visiting Hawaii and enjoying the sun and the surf: You can bet that the folks in charge will do whatever it takes to clean the mess up. It just might take a week or two to get totally cleaned up.

Added lifeguard Jeff Kozlovich, “I’ll swim with box jellyfish and sharks. But raw sewage, forget it.”

The Environmental Protection Agency has been notified, and health officials will be investigating how all of this occured. Heads will roll, and changes should be forthcoming.

I guess you could say that it’s hitting the fan.

Except most of it is in the ocean right now.

RLR

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