STAND. COM. REP. NO. 399

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 675

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2025

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Health and Human Services and Agriculture and Environment, to which was referred S.B. No. 675 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO CESSPOOLS,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

(1) Establish within the Department of Health's Wastewater Branch a Cesspool Conversion Section, which shall be responsible for facilitating the conversion of cesspools within the State; and

(2) Establish and appropriate funds for positions within the Cesspool Conversion Section.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Hawaiʻi Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Commission; Environmental Caucus of the Democratic Party of Hawai‘i; Hawaiʻi Reef and Ocean Coalition; WAI: Wastewater Alternatives & Innovations; Surfrider Foundation, Hawaiʻi Region; and three individuals.

Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Department of Health.

Your Committees find that Hawaii has more than eighty thousand cesspools that discharge about fifty million gallons of wastewater into the State's groundwater every day. Your Committees further find that to mitigate the impacts of cesspools on public health and the environment, the legislature passed laws that require all cesspools in the State to be upgraded or converted to a wastewater system approved by the Director of Health or connected to a sewerage system by 2050. This measure provides the Department of Health with additional personnel to help facilitate compliance with this mandate and to administer thousands of cesspool upgrades in the coming years.

Your Committees have amended this measure by:

(1) Inserting an effective date of December 31, 2050, to encourage further discussion; and

(2) Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Health and Human Services and Agriculture and Environment that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 675, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 675, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Health and Human Services and Agriculture and Environment,

________________________________ MIKE GABBARD, Chair

________________________________ JOY A. SAN BUENAVENTURA, Chair