Hawaiʻi Island cesspool conversion batches modeled on Hōnaunau pilot

Fund a repeatable batch-conversion model for Hawaiʻi Island cesspools, building on the Green Fee-funded $1 million cesspool pilot at Hōnaunau. Hawaiʻi Island has about 48,600 of the state's roughly 83,000 cesspools, releasing about 29 million gallons of untreated wastewater a day. A UH Hilo dye study at Puakō found sewage from shoreline homes reaching the ocean in as little as 6 hours.

What it funds:

Batch conversions in two or three more Priority 1 reef areas on Hawaiʻi Island (for example, South Kona, North Kohala/Puakō area, and a Hawaiian Home Lands homestead off the sewer line, such as Panaʻewa or Makuʻu). Neighbors upgrade together, so one engineer, one permit package, and one crew cover a whole street. Batching is how we'll find out how far the cost per home can come down.
The full conversion cost for the 100 participating households, so families pay nothing up front. Where a family qualifies for the new state Cesspool Conversion Revolving Loan Fund, that loan lowers what the Green Fee has to cover. Hawaiʻi County has no cesspool grant today; the earlier DOH $20,000 pilot grant has closed.
A local coordination team that signs homeowners up, gets the paperwork loan- and grant-ready, schedules engineers and licensed contractors, and reports progress.
Public results: homes converted, cost per home, sewage gallons kept out of the ocean, water-quality changes and reef impact, feeding the Green Fee monitoring dashboard.

Suggested scale: a fixed goal of 100 homes over FY28–29, with a budget of $7.5 million to $10 million. Where it lands depends on how much batching and economies of scale bring the cost per home down. Hawaiʻi County estimates a single conversion at $30,000 to $70,000, and the budget is set so all 100 homes get done even on hard sites, including coordination, homeowner support, engineering oversight, and water-quality monitoring. The long-term goal is to drive the cost low enough that every conversion can be fully funded by government programs at no cost to the homeowner. Any money not needed goes back to the Green Fee, and cost per home will be reported publicly so the state learns what an island-wide program really costs. Delivered with DLNR, DOH, and DHHL, building on the Hōnaunau pilot.

Why the Green Fee: this protects coral reefs and nearshore water that residents and visitors both use, and it turns a 2050 legal deadline that most families can't afford into a funded, step-by-step program.

Submitted by ʻĀina Force LLC (Hawaiʻi Island cesspool conversion coordination). Contact: rahul@ainaforce.com, (808) 663-9283.