Mayor Caldwell leads a press conference at the second Synagro Digester at Sand Island.

Second egg-shaped digester at Sand Island becomes operational

News Release from City and County of Honolulu, November 7, 2016

Sand Island – Mayor Kirk Caldwell, Councilmember Joey Manahan, Synagro executives, and city officials unveiled a second egg-shaped digester and sludge storage tank at the Sand Island Wastewater Treatment Plant in a grand opening on Thursday, October 27, 2016. A tour of the digester, control room, and facilities followed a maile lei untying.

The two Synagro digesters at Sand Island serve the sewer needs of O‘ahu residents from Kuli‘ou‘ou to Red Hill, and the increased capacity provided by the second digester is already making it possible for city officials to approve new housing units in Honolulu’s dense urban core, while also avoiding development in rural areas.

“This new critical infrastructure allows us to make the city more city, while keeping the country, country,” said Mayor Caldwell. “In order to have the sewage capacity for more people to live within Honolulu’s most populated areas, we needed a sister digester, and that’s what we’ve done here today.”

The redundancy provided by having two digesters allows for repairs without disruption in services and increased reliability. Earlier this month, Synagro officials began draining the first digester to conduct maintenance, and the new second digester is picking up the slack. This redundancy also ensures compliance with a 1995 consent decree with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Along with a recently opened third boiler and sludge intake facility at H-POWER, the second digester at Sand Island brings Honolulu closer to Mayor Caldwell’s goal of eliminating the need for a daily landfill on O‘ahu.

Honolulu broke ground on the second $30.6 million digester at a December 11, 2013 media availability, which can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp6g6-MqdBY

A look inside the second Synagro digester at Sand Island.

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