Do you know why you can’t trust cesspools? Because they’re full of crap!

Hawaii has more than 88,000 cesspools, and these substandard sanitation systems discharge 53 million gallons of untreated sewage into the ground and our groundwater every single day. Whether you have a cesspool or not, this sewage pollution hurts all of us by posing threats to drinking water, human health, our environment and our economy (including tourism).

Hawaii has more cesspools per capita than any other state, and we were the last state in the country to ban them by almost four decades. With the passage of Act 125 in 2017, all cesspools are mandated to be converted by 2050. As of now, Hawaii’s homeowners are expected to cover the full costs of conversion — which can range from $20,000-$50,000 depending on site conditions. But we have a rare opportunity now to access state and federal funding to help subsidize those costs.

At the state level, House Bill 2195, SD1 would create a pilot project to give grants to low- and moderate-income homeowners to help with the cost of converting their failing cesspools. After passing through both the House and the Senate, the bill is in conference committee meetings now. After the cesspool bribery scandal earlier this year, this bill would be a good way for legislators to show the public they are serious about this issue.

The biggest opportunity to help homeowners is the recent passage of the national Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). “Big BIL,” as we call it, commits the largest amount of federal funding ever to the nation’s deteriorating water and wastewater infrastructure. Also known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), it has the potential to create many new job opportunities in Hawaii, particularly in the wastewater sector.

In anticipation of this opportunity, a group of nonprofits and educators helped create the Work-4-Water (W4W) Initiative in 2020 to do the following: workforce development, infrastructure investment, cesspool replacement and water protection. After two years of planning with our W4W partners and the Pacific International Center for High-Tech Research, we recently helped secure $1 million in congressionally directed spending to do workforce development in Hawaii.

The new W4W program will set up curriculum materials and classes at Hawaii community colleges to train workers in the expanding wastewater sector. Thousands of new green jobs could be created to convert Hawaii’s 88,000 cesspools, especially with federal support, but state and county leaders need to act now.

Over the next five years, Hawaii could receive massive government grants from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help with the costs of cesspool conversions. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the state to access federal funding to assist homeowners with the costs of converting these substandard systems. But the Department of Health (DOH) needs to hire specialists who can apply for these competitive grants and work with the counties to help implement a cesspool conversion program for the state.

The window of opportunity to bring in federal funding from Big BIL will only be open for so long. Kauai County has created a program to access forgivable loans through the EPA’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund program, which could be a model for the rest of the state, but it’s still waiting to be put into place. Will DOH and state leaders be able to collaborate with the counties to apply for these funds and create a cesspool conversion program in time?

All of us need to let our state and county representatives know that Hawaii just can’t afford to miss this rare opportunity. By using government grants to assist homeowners with the cost of converting their cesspools, we will create green new jobs and help protect our most valuable resource: clean water.

Stuart Coleman is executive director of WAI Org Inc. (Wastewater Alternatives & Innovations) and a member of the state’s Cesspool Conversion Working Group.