Three weeks ago I wrote about my friend being infected from a cut on his foot while he was fishing off Kaimana beach…the photo above shows his leg now…believe it or not, it is healing after two surgeries to remove dead flesh from it…the second photo is from another friend who cut her foot on a rock in front of Michel’s Restaurant…within a week after this photo (the least gruesome I can show) was taken, the infection had spread to her bone and her doctors were talking amputation…she refused and in took three months and reconstructed surgery to get her foot back to normal…

According to their doctors both of my friends contracted enterococci from the water. "Enterococci are gram-positive, facultative anaerobic organisms. Enterococcus faecalis and E. faecium cause a variety of infections, including endocarditis, urinary tract infections, prostatitis, intra-abdominal infection, cellulitis, and wound infection as well as concurrent bacteremia,” (Merck Manual – Professional Version). Enterococci comes primarily from fecal waste.

The news media picked up the stories and interviewed my friends and both Sarah Park, M.D. who is the Hawaii State Epidemiologist and Chief of the Disease Outbreak Control Division, Hawaii Department of Health and Myron Honda, Section Supervisor of the State of Hawaii’s Clean Water Branch Monitoring and Analysis. Dr. Park stated there was no anecdotal evidence of enterococci bacteria in Hawaii waters. Mr. Honda stated, "that bacteria is not a good indicator in Hawaii because it’s shown to grow in our tropical environment. 'It grows in soil, in streams, and things like that so moist soil with decaying organic matter. So it is present in the environment, but us detecting enterococci in the water it’s not an indication that there is sewage in the water’.” Really, the fecal matter is from plants?

Further, Mr. "Honda says they’ve teamed up with the University of Hawaii to do a study of another source they could test for and get the EPA’s approval. 'I’m hoping that we would be able to use would be the clostridium perfringens since we have a lot of data on that,' said Honda. 'So what we want to do is correlate the presence of pathogens and the density with the presence of clostridium.’” (KHONTV2 – October October 6, 2019 Interview with Sara Mattison).

So regardless of the increasing infections seen at Urgent Care or ERs, there is no anecdotal evidence and the State now wants to change the way the waters are being tested because the levels of bacteria are going up to get better results and “correlate the presence of pathogens”?

Regardless, with Honolulu's dated sewer plant at 1965 standards and 68% of the entire State still on cesspools that are now old, saturated, and leaching into our shorelines, it is my opinion from what I have seen, bacteria has reached critical mass…

The State, City, and Counties bureaucrats can say what they want to deflect and try to calm the public, but infections are on the rise and it is only a matter of time before this affects our number one product, Tourism…

My friend’s leg will never be the same because it has a lot less muscle attached to it, but he will be able to keep it and again walk like you and I, but notwithstanding unless we get government to upgrade on systems now, then I am afraid for our future…