Sugar firms’ waste-dumping plea rejected

May 20, 1967

The Federal Government turned thumbs down yesterday on sugar industry efforts to continue dumping soil-laden waste waters into the ocean and streams.

The industry had worked for months to exclude its own pollution of coastal waters from the water quality standards now being drawn up by the State Department of Health.

Charles To. Bourns, a representative of the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration, told industry officials gathered at a Board of Health meeting yesterday that the government "could not tolerate the use of any stream for the sole purpose of transporting industrial or agricultural wastes."

The sugar companies have testified that it is "economically impossible" for their mills to comply with the exacting federal and proposed State standards.

"The permitted use of agricultural wastes in public waters is against the intent of Congress, law and the Department of the Interior," Bourns testified. "It will not be tolerated or protected."

"Frankly, I think you have more serious pollution problems than sending sediments in cane-wash water. I honestly believe we can handle this one, once we set our minds, engineers and economists to do the job."

Most of the industry’s problems could be solved with simple, unsophisticated and inexpensive techniques, he said.

Robert L. Cushing, vice president and director of the H.S.P.A. (Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association) Experiment Station, said that the delegation of the classification for mills was a "harmful interpretation" of the economic needs of the State.

"The economic needs of the community are just as important, if not more, than the conservation and recreation needs," he said.

Every Sunday, "Back in the Day" looks at an article that ran on this date in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. The items are verbatim, so don’t blame us today for yesteryear’s bad grammar.