Fix It! People Have Been Waiting Most Of A Decade To Use This Bathroom
Users of a popular park in ʻEwa Beach still have a long wait ahead of them.
Kalaeloa Beach Park has a lot going for it: white sandy beaches, a view of distant downtown Honolulu, campsites you can drive up to and easy access for West Oʻahu residents.
But it’s missing something important: working bathrooms.
The bathrooms have been closed for years. A handful of porta-potties dot the beach park campground, but ʻEwa resident Darrell Swayne said they’re inadequate for a weekend camping trip.
“The porta-potties just ain’t kicking it,” Swayne said while setting up a tent at the park on a recent Friday evening. He could use a tree if needed, he said, but his wife would be there soon, and she and the other women in the group wouldn’t want to use the porta-potties.
“If it’s not clean, they don’t want to really go in there,” he said. Swayne said he and his wife would probably drive a few minutes home to use the bathroom there instead.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the campground, Pearl City resident Taylor Hong was setting up a tent over his car. He comes to Kalaeloa Beach Park a few times a year because it’s one of the places on Oʻahu where users can park next to their campsites.
He remembers the bathrooms being open when he started coming shortly before the Covid-19 pandemic, but he said they’ve been closed most of the times he’s come since.
At some point, he decided to spend a few hundred dollars on a portable bathroom that can be set up as a tent on the side of his truck.
“I got it mostly because the bathrooms are closed and the porta-potties suck,” he said.
City parks department spokesperson Nate Serota confirmed in an email the bathrooms have been closed on and off over the last 10 years because of a variety of operational and maintenance issues.
He said the parks department plans to request half a million dollars in this year’s budget cycle to make necessary repairs and upgrades to the bathroom’s wastewater system.
Why the repairs were not done earlier? Jurisdictional issues.
Serota said the land used to be owned by the U.S. Navy and operated by the city, similar to Bellows Field Beach Park on the Windward side of the island. That meant the city could do basic repairs but nothing large-scale. The city finally received full ownership last summer as part of the military’s wide-ranging Base Realignment and Closure program to get rid of land it no longer needs.
It’s too early to estimate when the bathrooms will reopen, Serota said. It could be several years after funding gets approved, especially since the project is close to the shoreline and may require a Special Management Area permit.
Who Is Responsible?
Laura H. Thielen, director of Honolulu Department of Parks and Recreation, 808-768-3003.
Residents can also submit reports online at honoluluhi.citysourced.com; by email at complaints@honolulu.gov; by phone at 808-768-4381; or through the free Honolulu 311 app.
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