How is Hawaii Holding Up?
When it comes to gauging the health of a city, most people talk about the job market, the cultural scene, the number of cool bars. Really, though, a city is only as strong as the roads and highways, sewers, utilities, and public buildings on which it’s built. Honolulu’s infrastructure happens to be old and on the brink of failure.
(Who can forget the aging sewer pipes that burst and spilled millions of gallons of sewage into the Ala Wai Canal in 2006? Not the City and County of Honolulu, which yesterday announced that it has agreed to upgrade old sewer lines and improve Oahu’s two main wastewater treatment facilities.)
It’s a statewide problem really, one that will require spending billions of dollars for repair, maintenance and upgrades, for a range of different infrastructure systems.. An upcoming summit organized by the Hawai‘i Institute for Public Affairs looks at exactly what the state can expect to face in the near future.
“The findings are the result of eight months of exhaustive work by 20 state and county governmental agencies that participated in a survey of current and planned infrastructure projects across the entire state,” says Jeanne Schultz Afuvai of HIPA. “We discovered that more than $14 billion in infrastructure construction is planned over the next six years.”
Attendees will get to hear from a range of experts on the subject, ranging from U.S. Representative Jim Oberstar, who is chairman of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and U.S. Representative Mazie Hirono, also a member of the committee. A panel of local experts will include Mark Anderson, the state’s lead coordinator for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act; Cheryl Soon, from SSFM International; and Bill Wilson, from Hawaiian Dredging Construction Co. Inc.
The two-hour summit takes place on Tuesday, July 13, 2010, beginning at 9 a.m. at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Coral Ballroom III. The event is free, but registration is required. Forms are available at www.hipaonline.com. For more information, email hipasummit@gmail.com or call Susan Oshiro at 626-6755.
