Please sign our petition to support the implementation of an ultraviolet (UV) disinfection treatment step for wastewater discharges flowing into nearshore recreation areas via injection wells and groundwater at the Kihei and Kahului Wastewater Reclamation Facilities in Maui, Hawaii.

As of today, the Kahului Wastewater Reclamation Facility employs chlorine disinfection for injection well discharges, and there is no disinfection treatment step employed by the County of Maui on municipal wastewater discharging into nearshore injection wells Kihei, Hawaii, because it is not required by the State of Hawaii, Department of Health’s Safe Drinking Water Branch Underground Injection Control Program.   Fecal coliform levels tested by the County in non-disinfected municipal effluent flowing into the ocean via groundwater have been measured above the test detection limit of 2419.6 MPN CFU / 100 mL wastewater [1]. 

Fecal coliform is generally harmless, but it is routinely measured because it provides an indication of the potential for the presence of other biological entities that can be pathogenic, or illness-causing, in persons and marine life who engage in recreation within nearshore waters inside the injection well plume, such as Cove Park in Kihei.  And please remember, every visitor who poops and pees into the Kihei municipal system has just internally transported an actual zoo of viruses and bacteria from their place of origin, rendering the global jet travel system an extended physical mass transport system that routes disease-forming life forms inside visitors' bodies from all around the world, into the toilet and shower, through the sewer mains, through the wastewater reclamation facility where no disinfection is employed on discharge into injection wells, then transiting groundwater, and finally into nearshore human recreation environments and reefs.

Without disinfection of injected wastewater, it may not be very long before an infected person on the other side of the world leads to a sick local resident in Maui via non-disinfected municipal injection well discharges.

Why is this important?

Each year, tens of thousands of whales travel thousands of miles from their summer feeding grounds to winter breeding grounds. Hawaii, and most abundantly the shallow waters between Moloka‘i, Lānaʻi, Kaho'olawe and Maui, is the largest breeding ground for North Pacific whales, most of whom are coming from the northwest coast of North America [2]

Kihei, Maui, has been called a "ground zero" for fibropapillomatosis, the disease that is caused by a herpes virus and manifests as tumors in turtles. The virus is discharged into the environment, and the ingestion by green sea turtles of invasive ocean algae, fed by excess nitrogen found in high concentrations in injected wastewater in Kihei, causes the unchecked growth of the tumors, a leading cause of death of the endangered species [3].

Coral reefs are in decline worldwide, and land-derived sources of pollution, including sewage, are a major force driving that deterioration [4].  Infectious fish ulcers are a global phenomenon that can be traced to pollution sources such as non-disinfected wastewater [5].  A case-control study was conducted to identify risk factors for CA-S. aureus skin infections in children of Maui, Hawai'i, as a foundation for reducing the transmission of these infections, because the prevalence of community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) infection, and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) infection overall, has dramatically increased in the past 10 years [as of 2012]. Children and Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NHPI) are disproportionately affected by CA-MRSA infection [6].

With the implementation of UV disinfection and 100% reuse, we can begin to heal our waters.

Please support our effort to realize capital upgrades and operations to implement UV disinfection of injected municipal wastewater in in Kahului and Kihei.

UPDATE:  The County of Maui Department of Environmental Management has completed installing Ultraviolet Disinfection for effluent discharging into injection wells at the Kihei Wastewater Reclamation Facility, and is awaiting certification of the new system by Hawai'i DOH.  100% disinfection in Kihei is anticipated by January 2024.  Only the Kahului WWRF has no plans for UV, but they recently restarted chlorine disinfection there.  Lahaina has enjoyed UV disinfection since 2015.

info@reefpowermaui.com

[1] KIHEI UIC Permit, UM-1396 Type I - IV Testing Results - January 5, 2021

tinyurl.com/Kihei-DATA

[2] Humpback Migration to Hawaiian Breeding Grounds

tinyurl.com/Whale-Calving

[3] Eutrophication and the dietary promotion of sea turtle tumors

peerj.com/articles/602/

[4] Coral pollution articles

tinyurl.com/coral-pollution-1

tinyurl.com/coral-pollution-2

tinyurl.com/coral-pollution-3

[5] Fish ulcers articles

tinyurl.com/fish-ulcers

tinyurl.com/fish-health-pollution

[6] Risk factors for community-associated Staphylococcus aureus skin infection in children of Maui

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22900237/