Drinking in water in Hawaii was contaminated with pee and poop for 20 years.

A toxic problem was festering beneath the Instagrammy-perfect green landscapes of Lihue, Kauai. For nearly two decades, a major state utility, Hawaii Gas, owned a property that was acting as a slow-motion poison pill for the island’s precious groundwater.

The culprit here was a large, illegal cesspool; basically a covered pit that leaches raw, untreated human waste directly into the earth. Human waste being a euphemism for pee and poop.

The deadline for Hawaii Gas to close this cesspool wasn’t last year, or the year before.

Rather, it was April 5, 2005. For almost twenty years after that environmental red line was drawn, Hawaii Gas failed to act, allowing a cocktail of contaminants to seep towards the drinking water sources and coastal ecosystems that are the lifeblood of Hawaii.

Now, in a settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency, the company is finally being forced to clean up its mess. But the deal also includes a fascinating twist: Hawaii Gas won’t just be fixing its own problem; it will be paying to fix someone else’s, too.

How It Happened: An Outlawed Outhouse

The violation here is stunningly simple. Hawaii Gas has owned the property on Rice Street in Lihue since at least 1972. The property uses a large capacity cesspool to handle wastewater from its bathroom. These systems are now known to be major sources of pollution, especially in Hawaii’s porous volcanic geology, where waste can travel quickly into the water table.

Recognizing the danger, the EPA banned all new large capacity cesspools in 2000 and gave owners of existing ones until April 5, 2005, to close them down for good.

Hawaii Gas just… didn’t. Every single day for nearly twenty years after that deadline, they were still in violation of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. It’s a deliberate choice of inaction, allowing a known environmental hazard to persist on their property while they continued to do business.

The Ripple Effect: A Threat to the Water and Reefs

So what? It’s just one cesspool, right? WRONG!!!! In Hawaii, there’s no such thing as “just one cesspool.” The untreated sanitary waste that flows into them contains bacteria, viruses, and nitrates that can contaminate drinking water aquifers, posing a direct risk to public health. Ain’t nobody wants to drink from water mixed with literal pee and shit!

When that polluted groundwater eventually flows into the ocean, it delivers a dose of nitrogen that is devastating to Hawaii’s fragile coral reefs.

It acts like a fertilizer for invasive algae, which smothers the coral, turning vibrant marine ecosystems into murky, barren landscapes. Every illegal cesspool is another nail in the coffin for the reefs that protect the islands and sustain their tourism economy. For two decades, Hawaii Gas was adding to that problem.

A Pattern of Harm

The Bigger Picture: A Statewide Scourge

While Hawaii Gas’s violation is noteworthy for its duration, it’s sadly not unique. Hawaii is grappling with a massive, statewide crisis of outdated cesspools. Tens of thousands of smaller, residential cesspools still dot the islands, and the state has its own ambitious—and expensive—mandate to replace them all by 2050.

The federal ban on large capacity cesspools, like the one at the Hawaii Gas property, was the first and most urgent step in this long fight.

That a major corporation like Hawaii Gas failed to comply with a 20-year-old federal rule highlights the sheer scale of the problem and the enforcement challenge regulators face.

The Aftermath: A Penalty with a Purpose

For its nearly two decades of non-compliance, the EPA has fined Hawaii Gas $45,840. For a major utility, that number is barely a rounding error—a cost of doing business.

But here’s where the settlement gets interesting. In addition to the fine, Hawaii Gas is required to fund a “Supplemental Environmental Project” (SEP). They must spend a minimum of $115,000 to close two other cesspools at two single-family homes in Waialua, Oahu, and install modern wastewater systems for those families.

This is where the real accountability lies. The fine is pocket change, but the SEP forces the company to invest a much larger sum directly into fixing the exact type of environmental problem they perpetuated. They don’t just pay a penalty to the U.S. Treasury; they have to actively improve Hawaii’s environment.

A Better Way Forward

The Hawaii Gas settlement provides a powerful model for environmental justice. The fine itself feels underwhelming, but the restorative project offers a more meaningful consequence. It forces a polluter to become a problem-solver, channeling their resources into a tangible public good.

It’s a form of justice that doesn’t just punish the past but actively builds a cleaner future.

While Hawaii Gas, as is typical, admits no wrongdoing in the settlement, its actions in the coming year will speak louder than words. It took them twenty years to follow the law on their own property, but now, they’re being compelled to bring two more island families into a safer, cleaner future. Stay tuned to this website to find out if they end up doing so, or if they smacked upside the head with another EPA fine?

All factual claims in this article are sourced from the Consent Agreement and Final Order, Docket No. SDWA-09-2025-0101, filed on August 29, 2025.

Please visit this link from the EPA’s website to see the source document used to write this article: https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2025-07/sdwa-09-2025-0101-cafo-the-gas-company-llc-dba-hawaii-gas-2025-07-24.pdf