Please Testify in Support of the Red Hill Bill!

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All hands on deck! SB 2930 SD2 HD1 has a hearing in a CRITICAL COMMITTEE: House Committee on Health and Human Services on Tuesday March 20 at 8:30am in Capitol room 329. This is our opportunity to demand that these leaky, antiquated tanks be upgraded to secondary containment within 10 years! Please help us get this critical bill to the governor's desk...only one more committee after this one if we can successfully shepherd it through Tuesday's hearing.

This bill presents the best opportunity to ensure the strongest regulations of the Red Hill fuel tanks. The tanks at Red Hill will need to brought into compliance with the rules that are drafted by the Department of Health—this bill, through the legislative process, allows the opportunity for the public to help influence those rules, even before the administrative process. 

Please testify now using the form below!

If you are available, please come out and support. Your oral testimony, and even simply your presence, makes a big difference in helping legislators take a strong position in defense of our water. You may bring signs but they must be on 8.5x11" paper. 

Need a refresher on the Red Hill Water Issue? Click here.

Call Your Representatives for the Red Hill Bill!

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Thank you to everyone that submitted testimony on SB 2930, the Red Hill bill - we had over 120 people submit testimony - THAT IS OUTSTANDING!

Chair Lee, Vice Chair Lowen, and the members of the Energy and Environmental Protection Committee have deferred SB 2930 to the end of the Thursday, March 15 agenda for decision making. This decision—after long testimony and discussions from the U.S. Navy, Attorney General’s office, Hawaiʻi Department of Health, Honolulu Board of Water Supply and the Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi—allows for further discussions to be had with these stakeholders on exactly what amendments should be made to the bill. We expect that SB 2930 will be passed out of EEP on Thursday but with what amendments is unclear.

What you can do:
Call House Speaker Saiki at 808-586-6100 today or tomorrow and ask him to protect Oʻahu's water by passing a bill that requires secondary containment of the Red Hill tanks within 10 years. The people of Oʻahu deserve clean and secure drinking water and should not have to wait another 20 years, as proposed by the Department of Health, to ensure our water is safe from fuel contamination.

Representative Bellati (Email: repbellati@capitol.hawaii.gov, Tel: 808-586-9431) and Representative Luke (Email: repluke@capitol.hawaii.gov, Tel: 808-586-6200) are also two legislators who should hear community voices on this critical water security issue! Please take a few minutes to let them know it matters to you and your community.

We will keep you posted on the status of SB 2930.

As always, thank you for everything you do to protect Hawaiʻi and its environment.

E ola i ka wai. Water is life.

Red Hill Bill Needs Your Support!

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Just in case you missed it, we won our lawsuit against the Hawaiʻi Department of Health. At the end of February, first circuit court Judge Crabtree ruled from the bench in favor of the Sierra Club—finding that the state’s exemption of the Red Hill fuel tanks violates state law.

This is a HUGE WIN and a giant step in the right direction. But we have lots of work left to do.

Next Step: Senate Bill 2930 SD2. This bill requires that the Red Hill tanks have secondary containment—that is, leak prevention—or the tanks be removed and the fuel relocated. The deadline for accomplishing this was blanked out in the last Senate Committee to hear the bill (that’s Sen. Baker’s Consumer Protection and Health Committee). But we are asking for 5 years.

This bill presents the best opportunity to ensure the strongest regulations of the Red Hill fuel tanks. The tanks at Red Hill will need to brought into compliance with the rules that are drafted by the Department of Health—this bill, through the legislative process, allows the opportunity for the public to help influence those rules, even before the administrative process. 

SB 2930 SD2 has a hearing in the House Committee on Energy and Environmental Protection on Tuesday, March 13 at 8:30AM in Conference Room 325. If you are available, please come out and support. Your oral testimony, and even simply your presence, makes a big difference in helping legislators take a strong position in defense of our water. You may bring signs but they must be on 8.5x11" paper. 

Contact Your Legislators ASAP!

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We have provided the following bill numbers and talking points for your convenience. Please call and email on Monday at the latest to get these important bills heard before crossover!

Please contact Chairwoman Sylvia Luke of the House Finance Committee at 808-586-6200 and repluke@capitol.hawaii.gov

Aloha Chair Luke, 

My name is ____________ and I live in ____________. I am writing to kindly request that you hear a few environmental bills this week.

  • HB 2468 HD2 - This bill would establish a Hawaiʻi Beach Preservation Special Fund and a 3-year pilot project for North Shore beaches. As climate change progresses, we must find solutions to address the very real problem of sea level rise and how it will impact our communities.
  • HB 2249 HD2 - This bill would establish the Grid Resiliency Rebate Program and a Grid Resiliency Task Force to prepare the State's electrical grid for natural disasters and other emergencies. We don't want what happened in Puerto Rico to happen here. 
  • HB 2726 HD2 - This bill would support our recycling programs by setting important benchmarks for redemption rates and finding alternatives for the sustainable reuse of plastics. We need to reduce the vast amount of waste that ends up in our oceans and on our beaches, plus redirect unsustainable waste that goes to H-Power (e.g., plastic--which is an unclean source of energy when burned!).

Mahalo for your time and I look forward to seeing these bills on a hearing notice soon!

Please contact Chairman Chris Lee of the House Energy and Environmental Protection Committee at 808-586-9456 and replee@capitol.hawaii.gov

Aloha Chair Lee, 

My name is ____________ and I live in ____________. I am writing to kindly request that you hear an important environmental bill this week.

  • HB 2512 - This bill would further restrict the criteria for variances from the requirement that all new single-family homes utilize solar water heating. In places like the Ewa Plain on Oʻahu where solar irradiance is high, there are few reasons why on-demand gas water heaters should be installed instead of solar water heaters. We MUST avoid dependence on liquified natural gas. It is often obtained in an unsustainable way (e.g., fracking) that not only contributes to climate change, but also pollutes communities at the source.

Mahalo for your time and I look forward to seeing this bill on a hearing notice soon!

Please contact Chairman Donovan Dela Cruz of the Senate Ways and Means Committee at 808-586-6090 and sendelacruz@capitol.hawaii.gov

Aloha Chair Dela Cruz, 

My name is ____________ and I live in ____________. I am writing to kindly request that you hear a couple environmental bills this week.

  • SB 3063 - A bill that would have the University of Hawai‘i conduct an economic analysis of North Shore beaches. As climate change progresses, we must find solutions to address the very real problem of sea level rise and how it will impact our communities. This bill will help us understand the economic aspect of addressing this issue.
  • SB 2446 SD1 - This bill requires that a percentage of the Hawaii Tourism Authority's budget be transferred to the Department of Land and Natural Resources and the counties. With tourist arrivals poised to exceed 10 million per year in the next couple of years, we MUST re-direct funds to protect and preserve the very natural resources most visitors--not to mention locals!--are coming here to experience. 

Mahalo for your time and I look forward to seeing these bills on a hearing notice soon!

Please contact Chairwoman Rosalyn Baker of the Senate Commerce, Consumer Protection & Health Committee at 808-586-6070 and senbaker@capitol.hawaii.gov

Aloha Chair Baker, 

My name is ____________ and I live in ____________. I am writing to kindly request that you hear an important environmental bill this week.

  • SB 2442 - This bill would require mandatory seller disclosures in real estate transactions within a sea level rise exposure area. As climate change progresses, we must find solutions to address the very real problem of sea level rise and how it will impact our communities, beaches, and the environment.

Mahalo for your time and I look forward to seeing this bill on a hearing notice soon!

Cesspools Could Soon Impact Hawaiʻi's Drinking Water

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Act 125, passed in the 2017 legislative session, bans all cesspools by 2050 and expands the tax credit to to homeowners with the intention of making it less financially burdening to upgrade existing cesspools. In December, the Hawaiʻi Department of Health released a report required by this law that investigated the number, scope, location and priority of cesspools statewide.

The Department of Health (DOH) identified four categories designating priority for cesspool replacement with Priority 1 posing significant risk of human health impacts, drinking water impacts, or draining to sensitive waters. Priorities 2 and 3 pose potential risks to drinking water and sensitive waters. Priority 4 designates cesspools where human health and environmental risks have not yet been identified. There are 42,730 cesspools (half of all cesspools in HI) statewide that fall under Priorities 1-3, with two Priority 1 areas: one in upcountry Maui and one in the Kahaluʻu, Oʻahu. These priority cesspools fall under 14 critical areas across the state; 5 on Hawaiʻi Island, 5 on Oʻahu, 3 on Kauaʻi and 1 on Maui.

UPDATE: Public informational meetings will be held in Makawao, Maui on Tuesday, January 9, 6-8pm at the Eddie Tam Memorial Center, 931 Makawao Ave., Makawao, HI 96768 and in Kahaluʻu, Oʻahu on Friday, January 12, 6-8pm at Kualoa-He‘eia Ecumenical Youth (KEY) Project, 47-200 Waihe‘e Road, Kaneohe, Hawai‘i 96744. 

There will also be a legislative informational briefing on Wednesday, January 10, 11am-12:30pm at the Hawaiʻi State Capitol, room 423. 

Hawaiʻi has far more cesspools than any other state—cesspools that inject tens of thousands of gallons of raw sewage into our groundwater every day. This is problematic as this input of raw sewage not only harms our aquatic and nearshore environments but can spread disease through Hawaiʻi’s primary source of drinking water.

“Hawaiʻi needs to race to catch up with the rest of the world when it comes to wastewater management. We are the last place in the U.S. to ban cesspools. This report shows leaks from cesspools are undermining the quality of our groundwater and drinking water resources. Keeping our ground and drinking water clean is mission-critical in terms of protecting public health and preserving our environment. Act 125 is a step in the right direction, however, we believe more needs to be done to help make upgrades more accessible to Hawaiʻi’s people," said Marti Townsend. “Upcountry Maui is already seeing the impacts of outdated cesspools. The State should take these early warning signs seriously and act now to protect Hawaiʻi’s drinking water and the environment. That means releasing more funds to the Department of Health and making upgrades more accessible to Hawaiʻi’s people through stronger incentive programs.”

We recognize that upgrading cesspools can be costly. The Sierra Club will be supporting legislation that designates grant funds, particularly for low/median income cesspool owners who cannot take advantage of the tax credit made available by the law passed last session.

Click here for our educational sheet on cesspools in Hawaiʻi.

In the news:
- Hawaiʻi News Now: Cesspools could soon impact your drinking water, DOH says
- Civil Beat: From Bad to Worse: Hawaii’s $1.75 Billion Cesspool Problem