(AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is fining Hawaiʻi County $28,500 for failing to develop a plan to replace large capacity cesspools in Kaʻu with a wastewater treatment plant. The EPA required all large capacity cesspools to close by 2005 but a number have remained in use. The Hawaiʻi Tribune-Herald reports the county agreed in 2017 to have a wastewater treatment plan design approved by the state Department of Health by this past July. The mayor says a revaluation of the project and the April discovery of a more extensive lava tube system than anticipated prompted the county to study the issue further.

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