A study to investigate how to improve the water quality of Hilo Bay could begin this year.
The Hawaii County Department of Research and Development announced Wednesday that it is requesting proposals from contractors to develop a “Hilo Bay Resilience and Watershed Management Plan.”
In 2022, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced they would award a $2 million grant to the county develop the plan, with a county funding match of $464,300.
With the request for proposals published, Research and Development Deputy Director Dennis Lin said via email that the plan will still take a couple of years to develop “as technical hydrology and erosion studies may be needed to get the full scope of the area being managed.”
The grant funds, Lin said, are available up to July 2026, but the county has already requested a no-cost extension to Sept. 2027. According to the RFP, the contract between the county and the selected contractor will terminate when the agreement between the county and NFWF does, and the plan is therefore expected to be completed by then.
Once completed, the county will collaborate with partner organizations to carry out actions recommended within the plan.
“While water quality improvement is a long-term process, several promising initiatives are already underway, including collaborative efforts with the agricultural industry to implement conservation practices, and ongoing efforts to control feral pigs to prevent further runoff into the watershed,” Lin said via email. “The University of Hawaii at Hilo is also contributing valuable research to support these efforts.”
Lin added that, once the plan is approved by the state Department of Health and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, it unlocks EPA funding for watershed-related projects.
The $2 million grant was awarded following a separate U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study, which investigated a series of possible methods to improve Hilo Bay’s water quality.
The cheapest of those methods involved the development of the watershed plan, while the most expensive would include heavy modifications of the Hilo Bay breakwater, which has been theorized to be inadvertently trapping sediment from the Wailuku and Wailoa rivers.
In any case, the development of the watershed plan will help scientists better identify the source of Hilo Bay’s contamination. The bay’s water was found in 2009 to not meet state water quality standards.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
