 Welcome to Inside Hawaii Real Estate, I'm Wilton Aka. Hey Lunar New Year, it is the year of the water rabbits. I am Leonie Lam and we are your hosts for Inside Hawaii Real Estate. Our co-host world is a full-time real estate professional and a licensed attorney. And Leonie, I actually worked together as a husband and wife real estate team. Leonie is a Hawaii Real Estate broker and a 20-year veteran of the Hawaii Real Estate industry. Wil and I love to help clients at the front lines with buying and selling their properties. And that's who we are. Our mission is to share insider information with you by having amazing guests to provide our community with resources and perspectives about everything in Hawaii Real Estate. Well, today we have a very special guest who's going to share about the significance of cesspools, septic tanks, and clean water. Stuart Coleman is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of VAI. That's W-A-I, which stands for Waste Water, Alternatives, and Innovations. Welcome Stuart. Welcome. Thank you. Good to be here. All right, we're so excited to have you. So, cesspools, septic tanks, water, clean water. I mean, how did you get into this? Tell us your story. Yeah, if you told me I was going to get into wastewater in my career, I would have probably laughed way back when. But it was a journey that began in California when I lived in Los Angeles. And I used to go surfing at the famous Malibu Beach. And that's where they have all these million dollar homes right on the beach. And a lot of them had septic systems that were just leaking right into the beach and into the surf. So I'd have this great time surfing. We're getting home later. A few hours later, I'd start to feel sick. And so that's when I joined the Surfrider Foundation, which started in Malibu and really began thinking about water quality issues because I was the guinea pig that was suffering the consequences. And so that eventually led me to head up the Surfrider Foundation chapters in Hawaii and then led to my current gig now. So you're the executive director and founder of VIWAI. And tell us about your organization's mission, your vision. Yeah, thank you. We wanted to call it VIWAI because VIWAI means water in Hawaiian. So this is actually kind of an acronym and a backer name. We went back and said, OK, how do we fill that in? And so we made it wastewater alternatives and innovations because we wanted to introduce new sanitation technology to Hawaii. And when I worked at the Surfrider Foundation, we had really helped pass laws to ban cesspools because we were the last state in the country to do that by decades. And so we also helped pass a law to create a cesspool conversion working group, which I served on for the past four years. And I realized there were no nonprofits that were focused on this issue. And no one was there to help the state, the counties, communities, and individual homeowners with this really difficult conversion process. So we are basically all about clean water and restoring healthy watersheds by reducing sewage pollution. And we want to bring in innovative technology to help do that. So as we kind of get into this discussion, if you could kind of just help us understand what is a cesspool? Yeah, a cesspool is, and I believe me until 10 years ago, I didn't even know what it was because I hadn't grown up in an area that had them. But it's basically a hole in the ground where all the wastewater from a house, but that's including all the showers, sinks, dishwashers, washing machines, goes and untreated, it goes into the ground and just they're usually like rings around and it concrete rings and all that wastewater just seeps into the ground and eventually into our groundwater. And so it's an amazing thing that we allowed this for so long, but thankfully we really are on the white track. And there are 83,000 cesspools across Hawaii and they discharge 52 million gallons a day of untreated waste and wastewater into our ground and groundwater. So it's pretty phenomenal. So we help pass Act 125, which really mandates the conversion of all cesspools by 2050. And that's what we've been working on cesspool conversion working group about how do we do that. And easy. When you're talking about cesspools and conversion, what are people mandated to convert it to? Can we hear septic systems, septic tanks and what are the differences? Yeah, I'll tell you first of all, you know, the difference between a septic tank and a cesspool because that's important to know. So, you know, there's a slide that shows, you know, the cesspool just being this hole in the ground where all the waste goes to and percolates out. And the difference is with a septic tank, as you can see on the right, there's a closed tank where all of that goes first. And the solids settle at the bottom and what they call the fogs, the fat oil and greases goes to the top. And then everything in between starts to go out into a leech field. And it's actually the natural microbes and soil that break down all the pathogens and viruses and such. What they don't do, and so why we can't just convert all of these cesspools to septic systems, is they don't deal with the nutrient pollution. So that's the nitrogen and the phosphorus that it can't, those septic systems can't treat. And so if that goes into the groundwater, as you can see in the scale here, you know, on a cesspool, it just goes directly into the groundwater. And you can see that groundwater well, in certain parts of the Big Island, like Hawaii Paradise Park, they showed, they did a test. And of the 23 wells they tested, 50% showed fecal indicator bacteria. So signs of waste contamination in their drinking water. But then it goes on to go into streams and into the near shore waters, and it can kill reefs, create algal overgrowth, and really decimate fish populations. And so we're saying there any houses that are near a stream, or near the ocean, or near water wells, is going to have to do a higher level of treatment. Stuart, just take a step back into why people have cesspools and why they never convert it into the public sewer system. Yeah. You know, Hawaii, most of Hawaii is rural, considered rural, and so most of Honolulu has sewer and big cities do. And most of the cities throughout Hawaii have sewer systems. But it's too expensive and too disruptive, and sometimes impossible, given the topography or the geography with their remote areas to bring sewer lines out there. And so at first, when there were just a few settlements and few houses, cesspools were probably okay if they were away from the coast. But then as the population exploded, we started seeing more and more pollution and more contamination. And so that's why it really bubbled up to this crisis that we have now. So this sounds like a huge, no wonder it's such a huge hot topic for us right now. And then there's so many of them, I didn't even realize that the sheer number of cesspools that are out there on Oahu alone or statewide. Can you speak a little bit more to like, so what would it do to me as a person, like this, the impact, the environmental impact and just me, like generally or any of us? Yeah. We like to joke that it's a crappy topic, but somebody's going to talk about it. And we're here to do that. So the environmental and health aspects of this that we have to be careful of is the overgrowth of the reefs environmentally can really, our reefs are our main protection against storms and hurricanes and tsunamis. And so we just have to make sure that we don't do anything to kill our reefs. And that's what the nutrients do, the algal overgrowth. But then there's also, it can be very dangerous to human health. Hawaii has four times the rate of staff and two times the rate of MRSA than the rest of the country. So we have a lot of infections and we have, you know, a lot of potential waterborne diseases. And I've known friends that got Vibrio from swimming in dirty, you know, rainwater after a big rainfall. And they were hospitalized very weak and it got very serious. So it can go from the very minor to the very serious. So Stuart, what did you say that your friends had? It's called Vibrio and it's a type of infection that you can get from accidentally consuming. You know, when you swim or you surf or you dive, you're always taking in a little bit of seawater. And so if that's contaminated, it can really wreak havoc on your gastrointestinal system and have other skin effects and such. Yeah. So it's definitely a hot topic. It's across all islands, whether it's the big island, which I understand has the most cesspool possibly. Of course, Oahu, Maui, Kauai, in terms of, I mean, why is it such a hot topic now? Yeah, it was always, I think, in the background, people just didn't know. And so it was something that, you know, your waist goes out into the cesspool. You don't have to pump it. You don't have to do anything. You think there's not a problem, right? But anywhere downstream of that or upstream of you, it is a potential problem because it's getting in the groundwater. And so there just wasn't an awareness of it. And to show you how serious these issues can be, in Suffolk County, New York, which is known as most of Long Island, they have the most cesspools in the country, while Hawaii has the most per capita. And they have a shellfish industry there. And I used to go clamming and fishing and crabbing as a kid, and it's literally collapsed due to this very issue, because there's so many cesspools and septic systems. And so it really has affected the near shore waters. And it's been a very serious issue, you know, back east. So we don't want that to happen to Hawaii. Hey Stuart, so regarding the cesspools, I understand that they're currently being updated right now, but are there, could you kind of walk us through a little bit about the priority areas that the current cesspools are located in and just sort of what is that, what does that look like? Yeah, thanks. We have 83,000 across the state, as we mentioned, releasing 52 million gallons per day of this untreated effluent into our ground and groundwater. And so the cesspool conversion working group just did a reprioritization mapping of all the islands. And this, unfortunately, it's not been released publicly yet. But this is the one showing Oahu is will be the most recent one until the new one is released. And so if we look at Oahu, you can see their five priority areas across the islands. And they're different levels and this will change slightly, but where those cesspools are and how much they're releasing will not change. And so the priority areas basically are going to be priority one is effluent in areas that poses health or environmental risk to people and significant risk to like drinking water and near shore waters. Priority two is suspected like strongly suspected that it leads to, you know, some contamination of groundwater. And then priority three are just the, you know, their potential impacts to the sensitive waters. And so that's what we're kind of dealing with right now in the middle of rolling that out to the public and at the legislature this year. So in terms of priority one, which area on Oahu's priority one, like the number one priority area. Yeah. So for me, that's Diamond Head area because I live there. So that's my own personal priority one area. And I serve in these areas and there's even with a lot of the, you know, million dollar houses around here, there are cesspools in those areas. And but, you know, we have heavy cesspool concentration in Waialua on the North Shore. And so that's an area of real concern because they're so tightly bound together you have a lot of former plantation houses that are really close together and then it's not far from the beach. So that's an area that's a real concern. And then Kahalu in particular is an area where, you know, there's 740 cesspools and they release 440,000, 440,000 gallons per day. And so, you know, this is an area that we're also really focused on trying to help the homeowners in that area kind of get financing and realize first why it's important to switch over. Sometimes when people are told they have to do something, there's resistance. But when you realize that they're environmental and serious health threats that affect you and your neighbors, then people understand, you know, it's something that has to be done. Right, because, you know, the deadline is 2050. That's about 27 years, right? So if you told me I have 20 years, 27 years to do something, most likely I'm not going to do it. Exactly. Right. I mean, just generally speaking. But you make a great point about, okay, how does it affect beyond yourself? Yeah. And that's human nature, right? You're going to wait until you have to do something, you know, filing taxes the day before they're due, you know, we've all been guilty of that at some point. So, you know, this year, the cesspool conversion working group, and again, this is a group of experts who've been working for four years. And we recommended that there be earlier deadlines for those priority one and two areas. So we think there'll be, you know, priority one will have to convert by 2030, priority two by 2035 and the rest before 2050. Just because we need to expedite these things because there are certain areas and certain bays across Hawaii that are considered completely, you know, there are 303D impaired bodies of water classified by the EPA. And we see coral reefs declining rapidly. So there's a scenario where our coral reefs could be killed by a lot of this nutrient pollution coming from cesspools and septic systems. And yeah, so it's a pretty serious issue. And so we need to definitely speed up those time frames for conversion. Plus, I think like if we gave, you know, the 27 years and then everyone waits until the last minute, I don't even know if we have the resources to be able to make those conversions. But if you were, someone was thinking like, how do I even convert a cesspool into a septic? What is that look like? I mean, how do you even do that? Well, the first step and because we love puns, we created something called the potty portal on our website. So if you go to, you know, www dot by clean water dot org backslash potty portal. It gives you step by step and in, you know, instructions about what a homeowner needs to do. And there's a lot of valuable information about potential grants and in the process. But you first want to contact a wastewater engineer because they have to survey your place, find out what the percolation rate is. And so you need to hire a licensed engineer. They will submit plans to the wastewater branch at the Department of Health to get, you know, approval. And then they can oversee hiring a licensed contractor once the plans are, you know, accepted and approved to begin work on that. And so you have to backfill the existing cesspool, pump it out, clean it out, backfill it. And then you can move on to finish. They do an inspection to make sure it's done correctly. And then you will be, you know, good for however long that system lasts, you know, which can be decades and decades. This sounds like such a costly undertaking, but I think the good news is you said that there are possibly some financial grants available to people who need to go through this process. Yeah, yeah. And it's going to be a little bit of a, you know, hardship and unexpected for some people. But remember, you know, along with food, energy, water, waste is something that's always a part of our lives and we have to take care of it. And two most important reasons we have to do that are number one and number two. So can't resist a coupon whenever I can throw them in there. So, you know, it's something that a lot of cesspool owners got out of, you know, paying those fees when everybody else does across, you know, the country. And so eventually everybody has to pitch in to handle their own waste. It's just, you know, what you have to do in a civilized society where we live close to each other and want to take care of each other. So in terms of your organization by WAI, do you help facilitate or do you help educate, you know, if consumers who have cesspools, can they reach out to you and your team? And what is that process like in terms of communication with your team and, you know, in terms of getting financial help? How would people approach that? Yeah, good question. We help with outreach and education and sometimes we can help facilitate, give connections to, you know, license engineers and contractors. And we have all of those listed on the Potty Portal, so you can look through that. But we also, you know, are trying to bring in new technology. So if you live near the water, say, and or drinking water wells or stream or the ocean, then, you know, you're going to have to do a higher system of treatment. And so sometimes traditionally those were ATUs, aerobic treatment units. But those require power and annual maintenance that has to be done every year. So we are introducing a couple of systems that are passive. And so they are nature-based systems that we hope will be more affordable and yet still offer higher levels of treatment. But there's some where ATUs are going to be the best, you know, solution. And so we work with, you know, companies like Fuji Clean that are like have the most, the smallest, most compact, most affordable and use the least energy to do those kind of treatments. And then we also work with a company called Elgin. It's a veteran-owned company. It's really established on the mainland. And they have a nature-based system where it just treats it naturally. And another nonprofit that we work with, Ridge to Reefs, has a bioreactor garden. And that uses plants also in the process of doing the denitrification. Yeah, so lots of different alternatives that we can offer, you know, technologically. So if consumers, you know, wants to look into, well, I want to just connect to a public sewer line. Would that be just cost prohibitive or how would that work if you look into that option? Yeah, it's a good question. So unless you live near a sewer line or within range of a wastewater treatment plant, it's going to be very difficult to hook up because as you know, sewers you've seen it before when they're doing the road work, it's so expensive. First of all, it's like a million dollars per mile just to lay the pipe. But it's also very disruptive. And so rural areas where there's only one road in, and that road is being dug up for six months, it's not going to be, you know, the most feasible solution. And for most areas in the rural areas, it probably won't happen. So we're also introducing cluster systems that, you know, do decentralized treatment in certain areas. And so instead of going home by home, we can connect a bunch of homes together and send it to a local treatment plant. That's not one of these big multimillion dollar things. And so, you know, there are other options, decentralized options for rural areas. So basically everybody needs to check out the potty portal for more information. And this might be a basic question. So, you know, in terms of the public sewer line. Yeah. When people go and where does that get fleshed out to? Yeah. It goes to large municipal treatment plants like at Sand Island or Hannah Ulu Uli, you know, more on the west side, or Kailua has its own wastewater treatment plant. And the piping, you know, is really expensive, like I was saying, it has to go miles and miles. And so for any areas that are close to those, it would be, you know, beneficial to hook up to sewer. But if they're far away, it's most likely not going to happen. Yeah. And those, you know, municipal plants are very expensive to build and operate. And they produce a lot of greenhouse gases. So we're looking for ways to do it that are better for the environment and less expensive. And if someone is looking to buy a home with a cesspool, and they have to keep in mind, okay, I'm paying this much money, but I also have to convert in terms of a general range of the full conversion, including all the architectural or engineer costs. And, you know, how would that look like? Yeah. So there are USDA loans that are available to homeowners. And we helped pass a bill last year, House Bill 2195, which became Act 153. And that creates up to $20,000 in grants or low to moderate income homeowners. And so we think that's going to help the Department of Health is in the middle of rolling that out. And so hopefully it'll be, you know, later this year that those grants will be available to homeowners. But there are also, you know, USDA loans, and we're trying to bring in more EPA money from the state revolving funds to help homeowners as well. And so that's, we have a number of bills at the legislature this session that we're trying to pass to help homeowners with the cost. You're a nonprofit organization by and you rely on donations from everyone in Hawaii and probably beyond. Yeah, I mean, we're very lucky in that we have, you know, big foundations like, you know, the Castle Foundation and HCF and Healy Foundation and all these great foundations that give us grants. And then, but we're also relying on, you know, mostly donations and fees for services. We do offer something called town halls and we've done about eight of them across the state. And that's a good way to just educate a particular community that's wrestling with an issue. And we bring in experts and really survey the landscape to look at the very specific options for that area. So that's something we can offer as well. You know, if we can get grants to do that for a community, we do that. And how would people donate? So if there's, if it's an individual, a family, another organization, how would people donate to Vi? Yeah, they can. Thank you for asking. That's really nice. There's a struggling nonprofit and a startup. We've won all kinds of awards, but it's still a struggle, you know, and they can go to ViCleanWater.org. And or email us at info at ViCleanWater.org. And there's, we have social media pages on Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn. And on our website, they can send in, you know, the address to send in checks or make an online donation, which we greatly appreciate. Well, thank you so much, Stuart. And you know, if you could just share like a final message or what is your final word on all of this, you share so much great information with us. And we're educated, but what is, do you have any kind of final message for us? Yeah, thank you for having me on and exploring this issue because we really need to educate people about it is, you know, your home is a sacred place. And when you're buying a new home, you want to make sure that it is, you know, safe for not only for you, but for the neighborhood and for the environment. And so, you know, just reminding people that this is a health and environmental issue. And that if we take care of this issue, we're ultimately taking care of ourselves, our neighbors. And, you know, it's really about embodying the Loha spirit for Hawaii. So true. Love that. Thank you, Stuart. Hello. Thank you so much, Stuart. I mean, I learned so much about clean water and septic tank cesspools and just how it affects the environment and why we should care. Yeah, I really appreciate you guys having me on today. Yeah. So with that, yeah, let's donate to Vi and the awesome nonprofit organization. And thank you so much to her and Aloha. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.