Meredith Berger, assistant secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations and Environment, tours the wastewater treatment plant at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, Nov. 2, 2022. (Greg Hall/U.S. Navy)
FORT SHAFTER, Hawaii — The Navy’s wastewater treatment plant near Pearl Harbor dumped almost 2 million gallons of partially treated sewage into the ocean Monday due to an electrical failure, according to the service.
Heavy rain knocked out a transformer that provides power to an ultraviolet system used to treat wastewater in the plant on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, the Navy said in a news release Tuesday.
About 1.89 million gallons of partially treated wastewater flowed into the sea during the five hours the transformer was down, the Navy said.
The discharge point is about 1.5 miles offshore of the joint base.
The Hawaii Department of Health has directed the Navy to post notifications about the discharge along the base’s shoreline, the Navy said.
The ultraviolet system is the fourth and final step before wastewater has been treated sufficiently to be discharged into the sea.
Tainted discharges such as this have been a chronic problem for the Navy in recent years.
In September 2022, the Hawaii Department of Health levied an $8.7 million fine on the Navy for more than 700 incidents of discharging sewage from the plant over the previous two years.
“The Navy’s failure to properly operate and maintain this wastewater treatment plant led to the pollution of state waters,” Kathleen Ho, deputy director of environmental health at the Health Department, said in a news release announcing the fine.
Just over 6,000 gallons of untreated wastewater were released in two separate incidents in December 2022. All but roughly 1,700 gallons of the untreated sewage made its way to the harbor waters.
About 30,000 gallons of partially treated wastewater was discharged into the sea in three separate incidents in July and August last year.
Navy contractors are at work repairing and modernizing the treatment plant. The work includes replacing sludge pumps, piping, valves, controls and ventilation systems.
