A March of Feces, Then April Fools
Posted on February 05, 2007 @ 11:04 AM
WHEN THE TORRENTS OF SPRING WREAKED HAVOC ON THE BIRTHPLACE OF MODERN SURFING
By Guy Ragosta
Welcome to March madness 2006 in Hawaii, where 40 days and 40 nights of continuous rainfall spurred more flashfloods than Whirlwind Menehunes charging down landslides. The initial floodwaters hit worst on windward Oahu from Crouching Lion to Kamehameha warriors’ burial grounds, submerging roads and stranding locals. Waikiki beaches: closed. Kailua beach: closed. Ala Moana Bowls: closed. Then the Kaneohe Bay sewage plant burst, sweeping thousands of gallons of sewage into currents moving towards the North Shore.
Flood zone estimates show Lake Wilson’s high-risk dam could inundate Haleiwa and Waialua towns on the North Shore of Oahu if it breaks and water rushes down over the old plantation landscape. Those towns are slated for evacuation if the water level in the lake reaches 84 feet.
On March 9, 2006, early morning, I logged on to the US Geological Survey’s real-time gage to find Lake Wilson’s water level was at 83.4 feet. I immediately sent email warnings to the Sierra Club, Governor Lingle of Hawaii, and other officials about the potential pollution problems. Sierra Club responded, thanking me for alerting the public, followed by blaring sirens on local radio alerting North Shore residents to seek higher ground.
On March 14, 2006 a dam burst on Kauai and sent a torrent of rushing water down the mountain, killing seven people en route to the ocean. Old-school Hawaiians predicted an event like this, as the sustainable ahupua‘a days (the old land division system of Hawaii where islanders were stewards of property stretching from the mountains to the sea) faded into condos and large-scale farms. Dams and reservoirs, built throughout the islands to irrigate the cane in plantation eras, now serve as antiquated catchment systems for polluted runoff. Water behind many of these dams reached dangerously high levels during the March rains.
On March 24, 2006 City of Honolulu officials ordered the discharge of approximately 48 million gallons (that’s about five times the amount of oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez on March 24, 1989 in Alaska) of raw sewage into the Ala Wai canal after a 42-inch sewer main burst, threatening to flood Waikiki streets and buildings with waste. The Ala Wai (the major surface water outlet in Waikiki) drained toward Ala Moana’s famous “Bowls” surf spot, and carried water via currents and kona winds toward Diamond Head. Fecal bacteria (enterococci) levels reached over 100,000 Colony Forming Units (CFU)/100 ml, greatly exceeding the single-sample safety advisory limit of 100CFU/100ml in surrounding marine waters. Meanwhile, pathogens settling to the bottom of the canal and harbor could thrive or mutate and re-enter the water column whenever disturbed in the future.
On April 1, 2006 after over 40 days of rainfall, sunshine peeked from behind clouds as Steve Miller played “The Joker” inside a newly lush Diamond Head crater, now teeming with waterfalls. The rays drew hardcore tube-seekers out of their caves, where many hibernated during the deluge, cranking out push-ups, watching Big Wednesday, training on humpballs (updown, up-down), and sandbagging driveways – whatever it took to keep fit for the day the sea turned from sewage brown back to Hawaiian blue.
“I couldn’t wait, I had to surf,” said a friend, a doctoral student in genetically modified plants. “Diamond Head waves looked good, but the water looked shitty.” He got an infection in his leg and had to treat it with antibiotics. April fools!
Right about then, Honolulu mortgage broker and surfer Oliver Johnson hit up Waikiki and, while strolling home, stumbled into a brawl and fell into the Ala Wai boat harbor at the mouth of the canal. Soon thereafter, doctors amputated Oliver’s leg when an infection necrotized his swollen limbs, followed by fatal organ failure on April 6. Scientists, media, and politicians emblazoned the public relations debate, spinning and investigating whether or not the 48 million gallons of sewage pumped into the canal contributed to Oliver’s death, or if his alcoholic tendencies heavily influenced his condition.
When animal and human waste reach unsafe levels in recreational waters, bathers (especially the ill or those with open wounds) often see increased incidence of rashes, fever, gastrointestinal and respiratory illnesses, leptospirosis, ear and nasal infections, dysentery, and so on. An evaluation of users of marine waters in the United Kingdom showed that risk of illness increased with the degree of exposure; with the non-exposed population given a risk value of 1, waders got a value of 1.25, swimmers 1.31, and surfers 1.81. The implications were clear in Hawaii, where wave riders dominate the near-shore marine waters, where the Ala Wai canal pulses around the apex of Hawaiian tourism, the economic golden goose of the Islands, the hotel-packed resort, Babylon of Waikiki.
THE ALA WAI
The Ala Wai canal was built in the 1920s to drain wetland water from the swampy environs of Waikiki. Constructing a 30-storey, high-class high-rise hotel on this famous beach would be virtually impossible unless a man-made canal funneled the wetland water and sucked the taro farms dry, thereby displacing Native Hawaiians from their land. Now, a heavily-paved Waikiki and a unidirectional Ala Wai receive non-point source drainage from the most densely populated city in the USA and human and animal waste represent only part of the pollution potential in this urban watershed.
Chlordane was a compound used extensively to kill termites in Hawaii until about the 1970s, when public health concerns arose about its toxicity. An endocrine disruptor and potential carcinogen, chlordane has an ability to stay in soil for a very long time. A recent study showed that fi sh tissue of urban Oahu streams contained total chlordane values that greatly exceed the recommended limits established for birds and mammals that consume fish in New York, and urban Oahu streambed sediment total chlordane values exceed the levels above which deleterious effects are likely under Canadian Sediment Quality Guidelines.
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