New Tax for everyone not on sewer

[Seeb]

There is no coral off HPP, it's a 6000ft cliff

Kopoho were there's actually a problem, that you don't need a study to figure out how they have done little to solve

[Radiopeg]

I'd say that request might be fair, if we had a sewer system and some people didn't want to pay to hook-up. But, to pay because this county does not offer sewer is really crooked. At first I was hoping the article was going to address how we were going to get sewage treatment. Jeez, start a fund to build sewer systems, yeah, I'd be half heartedly on that idea. But not this one.

Peace and long life

[ericlp]

Hawaii County Mayor Billy Kenoi opposes the measure, saying it will disproportionally affect the Big Island, with its 58,989 individual cesspools and septic systems.

I find it hard to believe there are only 60K in cesspools/septic on the entire island.

But, I find it troubling that they will charge this tax even tho there is no option to connect for the majority to a public sewer system. I'd love to see the state provide me with a septic line. That would probably break Oahu trying to provide that service for just puna alone.

[Carey]

I dunno....
The state HAS to monitor the waters & septic/cesspools are a point source of pollution (try as I might, the water that goes into mine IS NOT CLEAN!)

Even if all you put in is your human waste (most put far more chemicals than that!) you are creating a waste stream that is not allowed to be released out of a pipe....

and most of us are still on cesspool (which is hoped to do anaerobic slurry digestion...in most residential areas, these have changed over to primary, secondary or even tertiary systems that do Aerobic, anaerobic digestion & filtering) And most residential areas have also modernized BECAUSE IN MOST AREAS CESSPOOL FILL UP WITH NON_DIGESTIBLE/DEGRADABLE Material & have to replace the system....

why not here??? How many cesspools have you known here to fill up??? very few...even those now illegal industrial & gang cesspools didn't fill up...WHY??? Where did that material all go???

When our church modernized to a septic system a few years ago, the cesspool had little in it, even though the that cesspool had been there over 50yrs & even had a daycare.....

Where did their waste go??? into the many cracks & tiny tubes that were in the blasted cesspool hole...and.... well downhill for sure, and most likely the effluent is influencing our surrounding waters.....along with every one of our systems...

For that reason, WE ARE USING AN INFRASTRUCTURE....as the state & county must TEST THE WATERS below all of our effluent.... I am sure that some here would be horrified to learn that most waste water laws have been enacted AFTER populations have consumed waste water byproducts & been sickened....

many also may be surprised to learn that there are private & municipal water wells here that are BELOW the effluent thousands of cesspools... true, so many feet away...but there is no mapping of the underground water here...& if YOUR cesspool is not filling up, that crap is going somewhere!

AS far as hooking up to a sewer line...HAVE ANY OF YOU THAT WANT THIS EVER LIVED IN AN AG AREA THAT HAD TO HOOK UP?

I was raised in one that did (our soils were sooo bad that they could not meet the 1960's perc requirements) & had to upgrade our last mainland house to a tertiary system ... The State/county DOES NOT PROVIDE YOU A SEWER HOOK UP TO YOUR HOUSE... you pay an initial hook up fee (10s of thousands $$$ ) plus a line frontage fee (hundreds of $$/ft) plus the line fee ( a little less than the frontage/ft) to the wastewater commission....20 years ago at our last house, the estimate was almost $30K....just to hook up, then the monthly fees could begin....luckliy we passed the tertiary perc test!

[kalakoa]

Interesting points above.

1. If DoH already has a mandate to preserve water quality, how was that effort being funded until now? What happened to their budget that they suddenly need a new "fee"?

2. Why isn't the new revenue being used to actually address the problem? More "testing" does not create a sewage treatment plant or force exsting "standalone" users into connection to a (non-existant) sewer system.

3. Charging a "fee" to people who have no other option is just begging the "representation" issue to be decided by an expensive lawsuit -- just like the road tax issue we already have (apparently without learning anything).

Good times...

[Jay Bondesen]

I knew when I built and put in a cess pool that it was several generations out of date but, maybe selfishly, chose to do what most others do rather than pay much more to do something better. It's like every other waste stream we have in that sooner or later the population density will pass the point where the old way of doing things will work. Now we have all of these people living where there isn't much chance of sewer treatment. I don't think a tax will help, and what works for Oahu may not work here, but we had better start doing something.

Jay

[Guest]

We need to start taxing the CO2 that people are exhaling. I think there is a big problem and if we send our money to Oahu and Washington they can build highways, trains and bomb the **** out of brown people. I can't wait for the new healthcare law to take effect in Hawaii, its going to be so wonderful. I love what government can do for us!

[Obie]

Preliminary testing at the Kapoho tide pools has shown that the source of the high concentration of nitrogen is not coming from the septic systems of the nearby houses but is coming from somewhere mauka and it could be the papaya fields or some other source.

[kalakoa]

Agriculture would be exempt from the new requirements.

Which causes more pollution: a cesspool, a cattle ranch, or farm runoff?

Something tells me this isn't so much about "water quality"....

[ericlp]

Being on Private water it's great that they built the tanks "ABOVE" the subdivisions where thousands of septic tanks could possibly contaminate the water. But...What about Pahoa and all the building above that. Does Pahoa have a public septic treatment plant? I think BK, Longs are all on septic holding tanks that need to be pumped periodically. Ewww... But I suppose it's much better than just letting all those commercial companies just let the waste flow into the ground contaminating an already growing problem.

Maybe the best thing to do is abolish all the cess pool rules and require new permits to at least have a septic tank. While a tank is not a very good answer...it is better than a hole in the ground.

Carey does have some valid points.