Stray Cat Causes Sewage Spill In Honolulu Harbor
A stray cat that got into a sewage pumping station last night caused a major sewage spill into Honolulu Harbor.
City officials said today that the cat made its way into the Hart Street sewage pumping station and caused a short circuit in the plant’s electrical system that shut the station down.
This caused an estimated 4.6 million gallons of untreated sewage that would otherwise have been processed by the Sand Island treatment plant to overflow into Honolulu Harbor, Nuuanu Stream and the Kapalama Canal.
City crews were alerted by the plant’s automated monitoring system and responded in about an hour, but the damage also affected the transfer circuits, preventing use of the large emergency generator that keeps the plant in operation during commercial power outages.
In the interim, some of the load was diverted to another pump station on River Street and city tanker trucks were brought in to move sewage to the treatment plant.
The State Department of Health was notified as warning signs were posted and city technicians began monitoring water in the harbor, stream and canal. Thousands of feral cats roam Honolulu, encouraged by mild weather, lack of predators, and a large transient population that often abandons cats. The Hawaiian Humane Society (HHS) offers free spaying and neutering for some ferals.
The nonprofit Hawaii Cat Foundation works towards population control with the HHS by trapping feral cats in humane animal traps, taking them to the HHS spay/neuter clinic and returning them to their chosen environment complete with identification, a collar with ID tag or microchip ID.
These techniques prevent thousands of litters from being born each year, but feral cats can still be seen in Honolulu neighborhoods, on the grounds of public buildings, and, last night, in a sewage treatment plant.
Provided by theEnvironmental News Service.