Bill would task landowners with waterway upkeep

A bill making property owners of stream beds and other waterways responsible for unsanitary conditions and public nuisances is one vote away from reaching the mayor’s desk.

The City Council Public Works, Infrastructure and Sustainability Committee moved out Bill 43 last week, and the measure now goes for a final vote of the full Council, likely later this month.

The bill was spurred by long-running complaints by the Country Club Village condominium complex and others in the Salt Lake neighborhood that Honolulu Country Club management has not properly maintained the waterways on its golf course property, leading to health concerns and a persistent stench.

The current law says property owners must maintain, dredge and clear their waterways and remove debris, vegetation, silt or other items for flood-control purposes. The bill, introduced by Councilman Joey Manahan, adds that owners need to remove anything that makes the waterways unsanitary or to become a public nuisance.

The bill also makes it clear that the city Department of Facility Maintenance is the responsible regulatory agency at the city level.

HCC Vice President Gary Brown told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Monday that the club purchased a machine earlier this year designed specifically to clean vegetation from the waters within the golf course grounds. Every day since about March, a worker has been assigned to use the machine to clean different parts of the waterways, he said.

“It’s working quite well. … It’s addressing the problem,” Brown said, adding that he doesn’t expect complaints from neighbors will ever go away entirely.

Manahan said he has received no complaints since the HCC cleaning machine began its work.

“So far, so good,” he said.

But even with the machine in place, Salt Lake residents testified for the bill and insisted HCC has not done enough to ease the situation.

Country Club Village resident Stephen Kabei, in written testimony, said the golf club’s previous owners did a better of job of maintaining the waterways than the current group. “The present ownership has willfully disregarded and failed to do its legal and good-will responsibility,” Kabei wrote.

The bill “should include the right and responsibility for the city’s Facility Maintenance (Department) to do periodic, annual inspections of compliance by HCC in keeping its waterways clean to an acceptable standard,” Kabei said. Failure by the club to meet its responsibilities should result in “appropriate fines and other pecuniary actions.”

Gary Griffiths, vice president of the association of apartment owners for the Plaza Landmark condominium, called the waterways deplorable and a health concern. “We are entering another summer of strong odors, decaying algae and more trash accumulating along the banks.”

Manahan said the bill would apply not just at HCC, but other trouble spots around Oahu, including Mapunapuna, where privately owned waterways can be a challenge.

Bob Bourke, an environmental scientist and scientific adviser to the Enchanted Lake Resident Association, had a different perspective. In written testimony, Bourke said “it is not reasonable for the city to demand that a waterway be kept clear, and then to continually dump trash from its storm drains directly in the waterway.”

Ross Sasamura, city Department of Facility Maintenance director, said in April that the bill needs to be approved if the city chooses to ever take enforcement action against HCC.

The ordinance would also allow his agency to address issues in private streams. In 2018 the city is scheduled to start a $2.5 million project to build two basins and make other improvements that would capture sediment, debris and rocks that come from the edge of Aliamanu Crater.

Bourke said the project does not address the much bigger problem of storm drains.