Surfrider Foundation Hawaiʻi released its new Blue Water Task Force Water Quality Report this week. Volunteers collected water samples from 65 shoreline sites on Kauaʻi, Maui and Oʻahu.
The samples were tested for enterococcus, a fecal bacteria that indicates human or animal waste in the water. Exposure to waters with high levels of enterococcus and other pathogens can make people sick, particularly keiki and kūpuna.
The Conversation talked with the foundation’s Hawaiʻi Regional Manager Lauren Blickley about the most polluted beaches in our state and other results of the 2023 report.
In addition to the enterococcus tests, the task force found sucralose in most of the 24 streams tested on Kauaʻi. Sucralose is an artificial sweetener that does not break down in the digestive tract. A positive sample is a good indicator of wastewater, she said.
"If you go up, for example, upstream of Nāwiliwili, it’s cesspools, all of those areas and homes are on cesspools. So it's not necessarily a direct link — there's ways to get that direct link, things like tracer dye studies to understand different sources of contamination — but it is that next step in saying we know that it's in this particular watershed at this particular site, is probably strongly linked to the cesspool activity," she said.
The Blue Water Task Force said Kauaʻi has about 14,000 cesspools.
Want to check if your favorite beach has high levels of enterococcus? Go to bwtf.surfrider.org
This interview aired on The Conversation on Feb. 28, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
