KAILUA-KONA, Hawaii – During Tuesday’s Hawaii County Council Committee on Environmental Management, local lawmakers advanced a resolution to create and define a Sewer Improvement District for the Lono Kona Subdivision.

From the summary of the draft environmental assessment of the project:

This subdivision was created in 1962. Within the Project Area, the proposed sewer plan would service up to 110 parcels and require an easement over but no service to a parcel that has extinguished its development rights with a conservation easement.

Several landowners within Lono Kona have received violation notices from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for their continued use of large-capacity cesspools. The Project Area is a higher density urbanized area where lot sizes generally do not have sufficient area for onsite disposal systems that require leach fields. The Project offers a cost-effective solution to replace cesspools with a sanitary sewer system.

DEM (Department of Environmental Management) proposes to extend the County sewer system to the subdivision by means of an Improvement District. The “federal action” triggering NEPA is a wastewater loan/grant application to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Utilities Service. The actions triggering HRS chapter 343 are the use of County funds to initiate the Improvement District and use of County lands. The proposed sewer system consists of 6,100 linear feet of 8-inch and 10-inch sewer pipe, 35 sewer manholes, sewer laterals to 110 parcels, and restoration of roadway pavements.Lono Kona Sewer Improvement District draft EA