The city Department of Facility Maintenance is under pressure to clear vegetation and other debris from nearly 100 city-owned and privately-owned waterways that flow across Oahu to protect the environment and prevent flooding.
The Honolulu City Council recently has been focused on the need for DFM to take a proactive approach to address vital infrastructure challenges, especially for flooding and stormwater management.
But the department recently told the Council that current efforts are hampered by the challenges of aging infrastructure, sea-level rise and security issues over the island’s fresh water supply, as well as low staffing and lack of access to necessary funding and equipment equipment.
The gap between resources and funding also is widening, according to DFM, who said that the current total cost of service for stormwater maintenance is about $116 million annually, but that the projected annual average for fiscal years 2027 to 2032 show a rise of 49% to $173 million.
Val Okimoto, vice chair of the Council’s Infrastructure, Transportation and Technology Committee, asked Gene Albano, the DFM’s director and chief engineer, at a July 23 briefing to elaborate on how the Council could help his agency be more “proactive versus what tends to be the reactive nature of the department.”
“First thing is to be able to gather data — information — to allow us to have a more overall master plan,” he said. “And I think that one of the struggles that the department has had is being able to fund a master plan.”
Don’t miss out on what’s happening!
Stay in touch with breaking news, as it happens, conveniently in your email inbox. It’s FREE!
City officials listened to Albano, and the discussion veered toward identifying short-term, midterm and long-term strategies as well as building collaboration with other city departments and the state to mitigate flooding risks.
The heightened level of discussion comes as DFM and the city have been criticized — to the point of litigation — for not cleaning up debris in and near local waterways on a timely basis.
In December, Honolulu settled a lawsuit related to a December 2021 flooding event in East Oahu.
Filed in 1st Circuit Court in November 2023, the lawsuit by plaintiffs Michael Sklarz and Jo Frasier claimed their residence at 158 Hanapepe Loop in the Portlock neighborhood of Hawaii Kai was severely damaged after “contaminated floodwater, wastewater, and debris” overflowed from a nearby storm drain onto their property and into their home.
The lawsuit blamed the flooding on what it described as the city’s failure “to inspect, control and maintain the waterways of East Oahu in order to prevent and mitigate damages due to flooding and stormwater.”
The Mayor’s Office confirmed the case was settled late last year.
“In exchange for the release of all claims, the city will pay plaintiffs $75,000,” Ian Scheuring, the mayor’s spokesperson, said previously. “The city denies liability for the incident, and the settlement of the disputed claims by the city is not an admission of liability.”
But the plaintiffs’ attorney, Eric Seitz, previously said the city “has had lots of problems with drains in East Oahu.”
“That’s very well documented,” he added.
Longtime challenges
The lag in long-term planning for stormwater infrastructure on Oahu also is a well-documented concern.
Randall Wakumoto, Storm Water Quality Division program administrator, said, “From a stormwater standpoint it has been mostly ignored and underrepresented when you look at all of the other utilities here in the city.” He added that “using data and doing the analytics, and being able to make those informed decisions,” would improve the department’s work over the near term as well as its master-planning efforts.
But he also noted that DFM currently does not have access to the data that it needs.
Wakumoto said, “We do know that it exists, it’s just we haven’t had the opportunity to aggregate all of that information, and use it for the purpose of being able to do something more from a long-range planning standpoint.”
Such data, he added, might help DFM forecast where “choke points” could occur in local streams and waterways, and “where capacity issues, in terms of why we’re experiencing flooding issues” could be foreseen.
But Albano said identifying where DFM can get budgeted funding for a master plan has been a challenge.
“It does not, unfortunately, come from the (city’s capital improvement program) … it comes from (the) operating budget,” he said. “And I think if there’s continued investment in the master plan we ultimately can get to a proactive state versus reactive.”
Manpower, gear woes
Council members at the DFM briefing expressed urgency to establish a maintenance schedule to regularly inspect and clear drainage areas, particularly in anticipation of severe weather events.
But Albano pointed to shorter-term impediments like equipment and manpower shortages.
“We have been able to reduce our (employee) vacancy, specifically with road division, by 5% over the last two years,” he said. “And we are making better strides, hopefully this year, as we have invested in getting key positions filled.”
According to the DFM’s latest budget, its road maintenance and stormwater quality divisions total 523 full-time equivalent positions — but the actual number of people working in those city positions was not immediately available.
This year, DFM’s budgeted salaries paid to these divisions total more than $34.3 million, city records indicate.
After the meeting, DFM spokesperson Chassity Santiago said, “Our staffing is not solely dedicated to stream maintenance; the number of workers assigned to each project depends on the scope of work — for example, annual maintenance, emergency response.
“Staffing for each project can range from approximately five to 20 workers at a time,” she added.
A lack of working equipment has exacerbated the department’s challenges, Albano said.
“We still struggle with global competition to get parts, and as we determine whether or not it’s feasible to continue to try and replace obsolete equipment, there lies the decision to then replace it and then ask for (the) budget to replace equipment,” he said.
Albano also noted during the briefing that his department — which features closely related work performed by its stormwater quality division — has only one long-reach excavator to do dredging or demolition on projects around the island.
Collaboration required
Tyler Sugihara, DFM’s chief of the Roads Maintenance Division, noted conducting stream maintenance work includes dealing with state and federal agencies to perform “permitted work.”
“Basically, our maintenance is performed on city streams, and we perform them through a series of permits issued by the Army Corps of Engineers and the state Department of Health,” he said.
But there are also “streams or ditches that don’t need these types of permits,” he added.
“The stream permitting itself is rather extensive, so we did utilize an engineering consultant to assist us with procuring those” permits, he said. “These have currently been extended, so we’ve actually gone beyond the five-year life of the permit, but they have been administratively extended so we are able to perform work.”
The city’s extended permit occurs while the Army Corps of Engineers is “going through an update of their nationwide permit system,” he added.
“So initially our permits were individual permits, but on our next go-around we’re going to be under a nationwide permit system,” Sugihara said.
Thomas Takeuchi, Division of Road Maintenance’s drainage engineer, said there are 92 streams on Oahu that are involved with this permit, which allows the use of heavy equipment.
“And we also got another permit to do stream-mouth dredging and maintenance,” he said. “So these are city streams that are plugged with sand, and that requires maintenance to basically have a good exchange with the ocean and the streams.”
Takeuchi noted the city’s sand-plug removal permit was issued in 2022. “This permit actually will expire next year,” he added.
Dustin Harbottle, Storm Water Quality Division civil engineer, noted DFM also works on nonpermitted stream maintenance. “So these are our streams that we have within the city that do not require a permit to clean,” he added.
He said sand-plug removal can require city Department of Emergency Management authorization to open stream mouths during adverse weather events.
One sand removal project is currently staged at the mouth of Kaelepulu Stream, which flows into Kailua Bay. That DEM-authorized work, which use bulldozers and other heavy equipment, will continue through late September, city officials say.
Council member Tyler Dos Santos-Tam noted segments of streams in the town area are “state owned, some of them are county owned.”
“And for many streams it’s a little bit of a patchwork,” Dos Santos-Tam asserted. “(Have) we explored either an exchange of jurisdiction or perhaps a (memorandum of understanding) where we as a city could go in and maintain a portion of the state-controlled stream, and vice versa, to help streamline and help make the maintenance more efficient. Have we explored that?”
Albano replied, “We are certainly open to collaborating with the state, and I believe there have been efforts in the past.
“However, there tends to be some jurisdictional issues that come up,” he said. “But we’re more than willing to try and engage the state further.”
He added, “I think one good example is the Ala Wai Watershed; we are working with (the state Department of Transportation) … in terms of trying to find a reasonable approach as it relates to maintaining Ala Wai Canal.”