A University of Hawaiʻi pilot program to test new wastewater technologies may lose out on more than half a million dollars in state funding due to a miscommunication about when the money needed to be spent.
Last year, state lawmakers passed House Bill 736, directing about $745,000 to the University of Hawaiʻi’s Water Resources Research Center to develop cheaper ways to manage wastewater.
Hawaiʻi needs to eliminate about 80,000 cesspools by 2050, but the cost of converting cesspools to compliant systems is beyond the means of many homeowners.
Stuart Coleman, the executive director of Wastewater Alternatives and Innovations, said the pilot program was intended to produce new technology that could drive conversion costs down.
“This testing center was exactly what we needed,” he said to HPR.
It was designed as a three-year program, but its funding will likely lapse tomorrow. Based on the language in the bill, any funds not encumbered this fiscal year — which ends on Tuesday — have to be returned, according to Coleman.
“We have this great thing that's going to pay for itself because companies are willing to pay fees to get approved here, and we already have a list of companies that are ready to do this,” he said. “But right now it looks like the funding is a problem, and it's just literally a miscommunication that we need to resolve.”
Funding was approved last July, but the center reportedly only received funds early this year. Darren Lerner, Director at the University of Hawai'i Sea Grant College Program, said such delays are common.
“It simply takes time and effort and paperwork to move funds,” he said to HPR.
Zhiyue Wang, with UH’s Water Resources Research Center, said that so far, the program has only received about $174,000 — less than a fifth of the total funds awarded to the program. All that money has been spent.
In an email to HPR, Wang attributed the limited fund release to “a miscommunication and administrative factors between the [UH] Mānoa Budget Office and the Governor's Office.”
There isn’t an easy mechanism that allows funds to simply roll over into the next fiscal year, so lawmakers will probably have to weigh whether to support the program again next legislative session.
Wang said that the pilot program is ongoing, but some work has been paused, including the hiring of a project manager for the program.
