Fellows mentioned in this story: Stuart Coleman

From Honolulu Star-Advertiser:

The state Department of Health gives the same warning to beachgoers each time the islands are hit with a heavy storm: Don’t swim in brown water.

The back-to-back “Kona lows” that inundated Hawai‘i in March and a third low-pressure system earlier this month were no different.

As of Saturday, the Health Department had issued 36 separate brown-water advisories statewide since March 11 — when the first of the trio of storms hit the island chain — and all of O‘ahu, Kaua‘i and parts of Maui remained under advisories.

High bacteria counts also were recorded at five locations on O‘ahu, with four remaining active at Pua‘ena Point, Hale‘iwa Beach Park, Mokulēʻia at Kiapoko Point, and Kawaihāpai 1. Also late Friday, the Waialua Water Association issued a boil-water notice for customers served by the Waialua Sugar Pump 2 water system Opens in a new tab after tests detected E. coli bacteria, an indication the water may be contaminated with human or animal waste.

Heavy rain was listed as the cause of two ongoing sewage spills, one at the Waimea Wastewater Treatment Plant on Kauai and the other at the Wahiawā Wastewater Treatment Plant on O‘ahu, while an unpermitted wastewater discharge from the Kāne‘ohe Marine Corps Base Hawaii wastewater treatment plant, which did not offer a cause for the spill, also remained active Saturday.

Most of the areas that received advisories during the storm — and those that remain under one — were among the hardest-hit regions during the recent string of intense storms that soaked the state, but they also share another factor: They are all in or near high-priority cesspool zones.

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