The Environmental Protection Agency has ordered the owner of two hardware stores on Hawaii island to shut down four illegal cesspools and pay a $134,000 fine.
Maui Varieties Investments Inc. must close large-capacity cesspools at the Naalehu and Kamuela HouseMart Ace Hardware stores, and at a Hilo commercial property where a farm supply store is located.
The EPA said it found three large cesspools at the Naalehu and Kamuela stores during inspections in 2016. The owner informed inspectors of a fourth cesspool at the Hilo property.
Maui Varieties is slated to replace two cesspools that serve the Naalehu store with a wastewater treatment system approved by the state Health Department. The Kamuela store will be connected to a private sewer system, and the Hilo property will be connected to the county’s sewer system.
Large-capacity cesspools that serve multiple residential dwellings or a commercial facility have been banned since April 2005 under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. They discharge waterborne pollutants like untreated raw sewage into the ground where harmful bacteria can contaminate groundwater, streams and the ocean.
Truck flees crash, is found
A 40-year-old motorcyclist was killed Thursday when a pickup truck struck him in Pahoa, Hawaii County authorities said.
Police were looking for the driver of a white older-model pickup truck that fled the scene of the collision, and located the truck sometime before 6:28 p.m.
The Fire Department got the call at 2:51 p.m., and firefighters found the man lying dead on the roadway.
The crash happened on Highway 130 at the intersection with Highway 132.
Police closed a Hilo-bound lane of Highway 130, and rerouted traffic through Pahoa Village Road, while they investigated the crash.
