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To test or not to test?
That’s the question before the state Legislature, which is considering a bill that would require the state health department to test seawater during brown water advisories to better protect public health.
The Senate Ways and Means Committee on Friday approved Senate Bill 2322, which would require continued testing during the advisory period with appropriated funds, paving the way for consideration in the House.
Advocates, including the Surfrider Foundation, will do this as part of regular monitoring to ensure the public has the accurate information they need to decide whether it’s safe to surf, swim and play on Hawaii’s beaches. argues that it should.
The Hawaii Department of Health said in previous testimony that it does not have sufficient resources to do so and there is no practical need to do so.
Currently, the department’s Clean Water Division conducts regular sampling across the state as part of a federally funded coastal monitoring program. This includes weekly testing of 61 “Tier 1” beaches considered to be heavily used, including Ala Moana, Waikiki and Kailua.
Under current procedures, the DOH issues brown water advisories after visual detection after heavy rain events, but without actually sampling or testing the water on the affected shores.
Health officials say this is because years of historical data from 1999 to 2021 consistently show that brown water contains higher than acceptable levels of enterococci, an indicator of fecal matter. He said that this is because it shows that Therefore, an advisory is issued if the water is visually brown.
“From the data we have, we know that most of the time when the water is brown, it exceeds this value,” said Myron Honda, DOH water division supervisory supervisor. . “We take this as a precautionary advisory and will proactively notify the public.”
Surfrider says the lack of testing is problematic because there is “virtually no data” to accurately describe contamination levels and health risks during brown water events.
“When the water at the beach turns brown, testing stops, and that’s when we need the data,” said Lauren Brickley, Surfrider’s Hawaii regional manager. “Yes, I think pre-emptive recommendations are great. Let’s not lose that, but we still need to collect data.”
Surfrider said that without testing, there is no data to determine which areas experience spikes in pollution during heavy rains and need to be addressed.
“We don’t know where the chronically contaminated areas are or which areas have the worst problems,” she says.
Brickley said this data gap is an inaccurate portrayal of the true situation in Hawaii’s coastal waters, with little information available during wet weather, when enterococcus levels are most likely to rise, and dry weather. We are concerned that this means that there is a bias toward things that only occur during weather conditions.
Surfrider has its own Blue Water Task Force, made up of volunteers who sample and lab-test water at more than 60 beaches on Kauai, Oahu and Maui.
“According to the Clean Water Branch’s own report, 99.7% of the state’s coastal waters will be returned to clean conditions,” she said. “This is very different from the results we collect as a volunteer organization.”
According to Surfrider data, many areas in Hawaii continue to be contaminated, including Haleiwa Beach Park and Chocolate in Kahalu’u, Oahu.
In its latest 2023 Hawaii Water Quality Report, Surfrider found that 50% of water samples from seven sites on Oahu and Kauai exceeded state health standards. Three of these sites (all on Kauai) had all samples collected last year exceeding standards.
This is primarily because surfriders sample whether the water is clear or brown, she said.
Surfrider is also sampling various locations, including several spots in Pokai Bay on West Oahu, which became a priority after community concerns. On Kauai, the DOH does not test water, so volunteers are sampling at the mouths of streams where families often play.
Additionally, some brown water advisories have been in place for long periods of time without testing, most recently for the entire island of Maui for three weeks in January.
This leaves the public in the dark, especially when levels at some beaches were OK based on testing by Surfrider volunteers.
This monitoring program is funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as part of the Beach Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health Act of 2000 (commonly known as the BEACH Act).
The DOH receives about $310,000 a year to operate the program and says it complies by notifying the public when the threshold set by the EPA of 130 enterococci per 100 milliliters of water is exceeded.
“Data is not going to tell us more than what we can see,” Honda said. “Either you’re over (the threshold) or you’re not. There’s no in between.”
He said the EPA has come up with statistical thresholds that indicate no difference in the degree of disease risk, either acceptable or not.
The advisory will be posted online with a map and made available to the public through an email notification system.
Signs will not be physically placed on beaches during these brown water advisories, but health officials said they are working with the county to order the signs and determine where they should be placed.
Honda said the steps to lift a brown water advisory are usually three to four consecutive days of sunlight after visual confirmation that the water is no longer brown.
If the DOH conducts the test, it would take at least 24 hours for the results to come back from the lab, he said. DOH receives no state funding for this program and it is not identified as a priority for the department in the executive budget.
Additionally, DOH officials said staffing is limited. The program has three workers on Oahu, one on Maui, one on Kauai, one on Hawaii Island, one in Hilo, and one in Kona, with 61 We conduct regular sampling and weekly inspections of Tier 1 beaches.
There are also more than 100 “Tier 2” beaches, which are tested on a biweekly or bimonthly basis.
In testimony submitted to the Ways and Means Committee on Friday, state health officials said implementing the measure would require additional annual funding from the EPA. If EPA does not approve these additional funds, DOH estimates it will need an additional $1.1 million annually to hire nine additional personnel.
Surfrider disputes this, saying it does not require additional personnel or funding and is not asking DOH to conduct sampling outside of regularly scheduled locations.
Brickley said the group is simply asking the department to do what it’s supposed to do: test the water to see if it’s clear or brown as part of routine monitoring.
She asked if workers were already at the beach site and doing visual inspections, why not get samples?
The bill is supported by 23 organizations, including Surfrider, Hawaii Lifeguard Hui, Earthjustice, Hawaii Sierra Club, Maui Tomorrow Foundation, and Friends of Hanauma Bay.
“Brown water” testing bill
