Excerpt and Photo from hawaii.edu
A notable challenge for island water resources is wastewater management, often reliant on inadequate cesspools. In Hawaiʻi, the 83,000 cesspools across the state are estimated to leak 52 million gallons of untreated wastewater daily into the environment, endangering aquifers and coastal areas.
To address this issue, researchers from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Water Resources Research Center and College of Engineering will work with a team from several other universities and organizations to develop wastewater management technologies tailored to island environments. The project earned a $650,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). It is one of 15 projects nationwide selected for theNSFConvergence Accelerator program to develop innovative technologies and solutions to improve U.S. freshwater systems.
“Treated wastewater creates a new source of clean water for non-potable purposes, such as irrigation and firefighting, significantly reducing pressure on freshwater supply and contributing to a more sustainable water future,” said Zhiyue Wang, project co-principal investigator and assistant professor from the Department of Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering and Water Resources Research Center.