ハワイ旅行･ホテル･ショッピング･グルメ･求人

This kind of incident happens so often, us local residents are beginning to doubt our government's ability to do anything right these days. This has been a major issue for the state of Hawaii for the past two years, so why hasn't anything been done in regards to flood control, and why isn't there a bigger budget to improve our sewage system?

Last year, sewage had to be dumped into the Ala Wai canal because of heavy rains. A few days ago, sewage had to be dumped into Kaneohe Bay. This time, sewage was dumped into Pearl Harbor. When is enough going to be enough? There's definitely something wrong here, if we're constantly forced to dump sewage into our waters so often.

Of course, the waters surrounding Pearl Harbor are strictly off-limits for the time being. This kind of regulation is something particularly painful for locals here, because we absolutely love our ocean. This kind of incident completely goes against all that the we've done to care for and keep the ocean beautiful, and most importantly, clean.

The Hawaii State Department of Health announced in a conference yesterday that about 21,000 gallons of untreated sewage had spilled into the Hickam Yacht Harbor, which is located inside Pearl Harbor itself. This is obviously a health concern, so people were warned to stay away from nearby beaches.

Watson Okubo, chief of the monitoring and analysis section of the Health Department's Clean Water Branch, said that people should not come into contact with the contaminated waters until after four days, which is how long it takes for the contamination to be neutralized. The main cause of this incident was an electrical failure at the processing facility itself.

When the electricity failed at the processing plant, the machines that sterilize the sewage with UV rays stopped working. By the time workers realized the problem, gallons of the untreated sewage had already been discharged into the ocean. It's unbelievable that this kind of untreated sewage can be spilled into the oceans this easily, especially in a place like Hawaii.

The sewage from the facility was discharged from a 700 meter long pipe that is 45 meters below the surface of the ocean. Because the sewage was spilled this deep under the ocean, the sun's UV rays will have a difficult time reaching it, making the natural sterilization process take longer than it might have had the spill been at the surface.

Fortunately, the ocean can naturally disperse the sewage on its own, so it shouldn't be a longterm problem.

Even still, we need to get a better handle on our sewage processing procedures. We should not forget that no matter how much effort we put into keeping our ocean clean, it could all change in an instant if the government doesn't get their act together soon.

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