Kalapaki water quality is way worse than most people realize

After all that heavy rain last week and the statewide brown water advisory, figured this was worth bringing up.

Most of us know not to go in when the water's brown. But Kalapaki has a deeper problem that doesn't go away when the rain stops. Surfrider's been testing Nawiliwili Stream where it flows into Kalapaki Bay since 2007 and it has failed every single bacteria test since 2016. Not most — all of them. It's literally on Surfrider's national list of the worst polluted beaches in the country.

We got like 14,000 cesspools on the island still. When it rains, all that sewage washes through Lihue, down Nawiliwili Stream, and dumps right into the bay. And you see families and keiki playing in the shallow water where the stream meets the ocean every day. Right next to the Marriott. Nobody tells them.

Surfrider fought for over ten years to get a warning sign posted at the stream mouth. Hotels, the state, the county — nobody wanted it. They finally got a sign up in 2024 but it's at the stream, not on the main beach where tourists go in.

And on top of all that, DOH has had staffing problems and hasn't been testing regularly since 2024. Their data hasn't even been posted on their website since last June. So the system that's supposed to catch this stuff isn't really working right now either.

Just something to be aware of. The brown water advisories come and go but the cesspool problem is year-round.