‘We’re relying on you’: Ookala residents share concerns about dairy farm waste with state officials

Ookala residents concerned about pollution from the large dairy farm mauka of the village have gotten the attention of the state Department of Agriculture.

Scott Enright, who leads the department and lives part time in the community, told about 40 residents during a meeting Tuesday evening he will dip into his contingency funds to support whatever follow-up inspections or soil and water tests are needed.

“I do advocate for growing the dairies,” he said. “The first thing you need to care about is health and safety of the people.”

Enright said his department, which leases land to Big Island Dairy, would serve as a supporting role to the state Department of Health.

Deputy Health Director Keith Kawaoka said additional water sampling might be done. A recent sample found high levels of bacteria in a stream on a resident’s property downstream of the dairy.

Residents’ concerns include reports of mucky water that smells like manure flowing in nearby gulches and last year’s flood that sent torrents of water from the dairy into the community, with some blaming it for health problems.

Hawaii County Council Chairwoman Valerie Poindexter, who lives in Ookala and has spearheaded the effort to get the state more involved, voiced the frustration of many of those in attendance.

“We feel abandoned,” she said. “We’re relying on you.”

Matt Kurano, state environmental health specialist, acknowledged the Health Department could have done more after responding to the first complaint of stream contamination from the dairy in 2014.

“It didn’t elevate to the department’s attention enough to take action,” he said.

A health inspector who responded to the complaint confirmed a “steady flow of very turbid brown water that … smelled like cow manure” in a nearby gulch, according to a report from the clean water branch. That continued during a follow-up visit the next day when inspector Neil Mukai went on the dairy’s property.

“As we drove into the pasture to find the source of the brown water in the stream, we noticed a well-defined flow path with brown water actively flowing from the vegetated area near the sewage holding tank going through the pasture and straight toward the stream,” the report says. That water was seen entering the stream. Above that point, the stream was dry.

Discharges into waterways are illegal without a permit. No enforcement action was taken.

Asked Wednesday why nothing was done then, Kawaoka said: “I can’t answer that. I don’t know.”

The department, along with a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency contractor, visited the dairy again in December 2016 to assess its need for a discharge permit.

Kawaoka said they found no evidence then of the dairy discharging into waterways despite the dairy’s lower wastewater lagoon having a spillway 100 feet from Kaohaoha Gulch.

“You almost have to catch them in the act,” he said. “… At the time, we felt operations was sufficient to control any discharge into the stream.”

Kawaoka said the department isn’t asking the dairy to remove or relocate the spillway, though it advised that another lagoon be added.

The department’s report says “discharge from the facility’s wastewater lagoons would likely enter this gulch upon overflow.” Kawaoka said that’s not enough for anything to be done about it.

“When we looked at it, we did not see evidence that it did” overflow, he said.

The report says the 2,500-acre dairy farm has the potential to discharge pollutants to Kaohaoha Gulch.

At the time, the dairy had approximately 1,800 cows.

The dairy uses 2.5 million-gallon and 1 million-gallon lagoons to collect wastewater.

The lower lagoon was near capacity, according to the report.

A burial pit for dead cows is located near the lagoons. A dairy manager told health staff that any “storm water runoff that comes into contact with the open mortality burial pit would sheet flow into the lower lagoon,” which is used as part of the irrigation system, according to the report.

Kohala Councilman Tim Richards, also a veterinarian, said at the meeting that he found the dairy to use good agricultural practices while touring it earlier that day.

“I was quite impressed with management as a whole,” he said, adding he thought any problems were being addressed. “I was surprisingly happy with what I saw.”

The December report also says a manure composting building is located near the start of Alaialoa Gulch, which goes through Ookala.

Ookala resident Charlene Nishida said the gulch goes through her property. She said the seasonal stream that goes through it is murky on a weekly basis.

It was on her property that high levels of bacteria were found, which Mukai confirmed.

Nishida said there needs to be more regulations of dairy farms in the state.

“They may be doing best practices for the mainland, but it’s not best practices for such a steep sloping area,” she said.

Brad Duff, dairy general manager, said it’s not their intent to discharge any wastewater or manure into the gulches.

“It’s not in our best interest,” he said after the meeting.

“I’m going to do my part to try to help that and to alleviate that suffering,” Duff said, when asked about residents’ concerns.

Nishida said she just wants them to fix the problems.

“To me, the proof is in the pudding, and the pudding is at my house,” she said.

A guinea grass buffer was planted to help prevent large flooding events such as happened last year, Duff said.

Email Tom Callis at tcallis@hawaiitribune-herald.com.