Kealakehe wastewater upgrade delayed, Hawaii County faces daily fines
Hawaii County’s stalled Kealakehe wastewater upgrade was costing about $1,000 a day by Thursday, with penalties already at $89,750.
Hawaii County’s delay in upgrading the Kealakehe Wastewater Treatment Plant was costing taxpayers about $1,000 a day by Thursday, and the penalty tab had climbed to $89,750 under a federal settlement tied to pollution at Honokōhau Harbor.
The project will move the plant from sending treated sewage into a disposal percolation basin in a permeable lava field upslope from the harbor to producing R-1 recycled water, the highest treatment standard set by the Hawaii Department of Health. The plant now handles about 1.7 million gallons of treated wastewater a day, and that water is treated to secondary standards before it is routed into the basin.
The remedy-phase settlement was filed in federal court in April 2025 in case CV 23-00393 JMS-KJM after a 2023 Clean Water Act lawsuit by Hui Mālama Honokōhau, represented by Earthjustice. It required the county to issue a request for proposals by Sept. 1, 2025, begin construction by March 1, 2026, and finish the R-1 upgrade no later than June 30, 2029. The fine schedule starts at $250 for the first 15 days of delay, rises to $500 a day for days 16 through 60, and reaches $1,000 a day after that.
County officials initially awarded the work to Goodfellow Brothers, then a protest from Hensel Phelps in late February blocked progress and forced a restart. Hui Mālama Honokōhau disputed that explanation and pushed the county into an informal dispute before Hawaii County dropped the approach and issued a new request for proposals. County communications director Tom Callis: The new process will be transparent and open to all qualified contractors who meet the facility’s technical and engineering requirements.
Earthjustice attorney Elena Bryant: the county should not be wasting more taxpayer dollars fighting its obligations. Hui president Mike Nakachi: local families have suffered too long from pollution that threatens both health and the marine environment.
County Environmental Management Director Wes Segawa: R-1 recycled water could support new reuse projects on the leeward side, including irrigation at Old Airport Park, green-waste conversion and possibly Kealakehe Regional Park. The earlier partial settlement was reached on July 5, 2024, and approved by the court on Aug. 22, 2024, after review by the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
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