At the same time, Mayor Kimo Alameda\u2019s office is pursuing a new proposal to develop the park on a new site on Hawaiian homelands between the sewer plant and Honok\u014dhau Harbor, which would make it far easier to develop the park and deliver water to it from the plant.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow I think it\u2019s possible,\u201d Alameda said.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/kealakehe-wwtp-1024x683.jpg\")
Hawai\u02bbi County has big plans for the Kealakehe Wastewater Treatment Plant and the lands around it. The plant is slated for an overhaul so it can produce treated wastewater that can be used to water playing fields. County officials are also seeking access to the Hawaiian homelands around the plant to develop them into the long-sought it Kealakehe Regional Park there. (Cameron Miculka\/Civil Beat\/2020)<\/p>\n
Alameda suggested in an interview Wednesday the county may be able to commit $50 million to $100 million to the project in the years ahead, and said he wants to break ground at the new site within the next eight years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to come, because it makes sense,\u201d said Bo Kahui, a longtime advocate for the park and founder of the nonprofit West Hawai\u02bbi Parks and Athletic Corp. Kahui is a former soccer coach who has been pushing for the project for nearly 15 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need the county and the state to bring these community facilities to fruition,\u201d Kahui said.<\/p>\n
Tracing A Long, Messy History<\/p>\n
Certainly other administrations have tried. The Kealakehe lands mauka of Queen Ka\u02bbahumanu Highway were first proposed in 1985 as the site of a Kealakehe Sports Complex that was supposed to include a gym, swimming pool, tennis courts, concert hall and more.<\/p>\n
Two years later then-Big Island Mayor Dante Carpenter announced a plan to build a new sewage treatment plant at Kealakehe that would produce treated effluent. The plan was for the county to dispose of the effluent by using it to water a golf course.<\/p>\n
In 1991, then-Mayor Lorraine Inouye signed a deal to have a Japanese developer build a golf course where the sports complex had been planned, but that idea didn\u2019t work out.<\/p>\n
Endangered plants were discovered on the golf course site, forcing the developer to repeatedly redesign the project. When the Japanese real estate bubble burst in the early 1990s the developer ended up without the money to build the course.<\/p>\n
The County Council even agreed in 1995 to provide up to $15 million in public funds to salvage the golf course project. Then-Mayor Stephen Yamashiro explained the golf course was needed as \u201cthe final phase of the sewage treatment facility\u201d because it provided a way to dispose of the treated wastewater. The project still failed.<\/p>\n
The golf course was never built and neither was the sports complex. Years later, Kahui and other residents pushed to revive the park idea.<\/p>\n
They helped formulate a master plan for a regional park in 2013 that called for five full-sized soccer fields, a covered play court for volleyball and basketball, a multipurpose stadium for football and soccer, and six baseball diamonds.<\/p>\n
The project stalled again until the administration of then-Mayor Mitch Roth moved ahead with an environmental assessment for the park complex almost a decade later. Alameda said that document was never completed.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/240201-dc-WWTP-Kona-6426-1024x683.jpg\")
A pipe discharges wastewater from the Kealakehe Wastewater Treatment Plant to a disposal percolation basin, which is essentially a hole in a lava field that drains into the groundwater. There is evidence the wastewater then finds its way to Honok\u014dhau Harbor, and two years ago harbor users sued over the dumping. (David Croxford\/Civil Beat\/2024)<\/p>\n
So, Where Does The Sewage Go?<\/p>\n
The Kealakehe Wastewater Treatment Plant did not encounter those kinds of delays. Construction of the sewer plant was promptly completed in 1994, which then presented a problem for the county.<\/p>\n
Since no golf course had been built, the county\u2019s plan to dispose of the effluent wouldn\u2019t work. Instead, the county for the last three decades has been dumping wastewater that hasn\u2019t been as highly treated<\/a> from the plant into a pit in a lava field about 3,700 feet upslope from Honok\u014dhau Harbor.<\/p>\n That\u2019s been a concern for harbor users, environmentalists and cultural practitioners, among others. Bob Fitzgerald, a former county parks director and 50-year resident of North Kona, said it bothers him every time he drives by the plant.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s disgusting to see this kind of water just dump into this big pit,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/240201-dc-WWTP-Kona-6398-1024x683.jpg\")
A settling pond at the Kealakehe sewage treatment plant just outside Kona on the Big Island includes aeration lines that pump air into the ponds helping to settle out any sludge that exists in the water. The green edge is an algae bloom that comes and goes with the seasons. (David Croxford\/Civil Beat\/2024)<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0724kealakehe02.jpg\")
The original plan called for construction of the Kealakehe Regional Park mauka of the Queen Ka\u02bbahumanu Highway on the slopes of Hual\u0101lai, but Mayor Kimo Alameda contends it would be too expensive to develop soccer, football and baseball fields there. Alameda hopes to develop the park makai of the highway between the county wastewater treatment plant and Honok\u014dhau Small Boat Harbor. (Courtesy Hawai\u02bbi County Parks and Recreation)<\/p>\n![\"Civil](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1753322412_339_logo10.png\"){kind=logo}
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