Op-ed by Dr. Martina Kamaka
2024 CHEF Fellow
Published in Ka Wai Ola News | August 1, 2024
Saturday, June 8, 2024, was a beautiful day at Kualoa Beach Park. Dozens of single- and double-hulled canoes gathered to celebrate the legacy of voyaging as part of the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture (FestPAC). Locals and visitors swam in the waters and clambered onto waʻa (canoes) for rides in Kāneʻohe Bay.
Just a few days later, on June 13, those festivities would have been impossible. On that day, the Department of Health (DOH) issued yet another brown water advisory for Kāneʻohe Bay.
“Brown water” fouls the coastline when heavy rain or floodwaters flush pollutants from the land, contaminating the ocean with toxic chemicals, flood debris, and sewage from overflowing cesspools.
Brown water advisories are becoming more frequent. That’s because severe weather events are increasing as our climate heats up. In addition, the seas are rising, contributing to long term and chronic contamination of our waters and ocean. We already know heavy rains overwhelm sewage treatment facilities, but many Hawaiʻi residents arenʻt aware of the huge role played by our islands’ 83,000+ cesspools.
Most of these cesspools service homes that are located in rural and in low-lying areas which are particularly susceptible to flooding.
On Oʻahu, about 4,800 cesspools at highest risk for contaminating our waters (and designated priority 1 for conversion), are located along the northeast, north and west coasts stretching from Waikāne to Nānākuli with a few pockets in Waimānalo, Kailua, Waikīkī and ʻEwa.
These are communities where large numbers of Native Hawaiians live (for example, in the 2010 census, Native Hawaiians made up about 55%-80% of the population on the west side, 20-50% along the north shore and 80% in Waimānalo homestead).
Cesspools do not treat wastewater; they do not remove human pathogens from feces, or neutralize toxins or contaminants that are being flushed down the drain. Cesspools are simply collection receptacles buried 1-3 feet underground where wastewater from homes is collected. This waste slowly percolates out of the walls into the surrounding earth.
Cesspools are especially vulnerable to…READ THE FULL ARTICLE>
Martina Leialoha Kamaka, MD, FAAFP is a Native Hawaiian Family Physician from Kāneohe, Hawaiʻi and an Associate Professor in the Department of Native Hawaiian Health at the University of Hawai`i at Mānoa, John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM). She graduated from JABSOM and completed her Family Medicine residency in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She is passionate about Native Hawaiian and Indigenous health equity which includes environmental health.
The views of the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health or its members.
