Part of CHKA’s goal is to make that experience affordable, Bundschuh said. “It’s like they’re taken out of the comfort zones of this world and put into a place where they have to admire and enjoy the wilderness. “Some of the kids return to crazy atmospheres, so we encourage them to hold tight the things that they got up here,” Hill said. The privacy and seclusion of the site without the internet allow for deeper, personal connections without distractions, Hill said. “They’d get to cleaning up the property, picking up trash, painting cabins and working on the main hall.” “I’d bring troves of students up on the weekend,” Hill said. Hill has been running student ministries on the North Shore for over 18 years, often bringing kids of all ages to assist in the renovations. “A lot of locals in the community came and invested their time here.” I don’t know that you could count the hours,” CHKA board member Sarah Hill said. “We had crews of local volunteers, weekends after weekends. It cost about $30,000 to refurbish and furnish each cabins, much of the materials to restore the camp forming from grants and gifts. He guesses it may have been kept as a medical barracks at one time, as evidenced by medicine bottles found on the site. Over the years, with the help of community members, Camp Hale Koa Association has turned the abandoned set of eight cabins, main hall, kitchen and caretaker cabin into an affordable camping experience for locals.īundschuh had been coming to the camp since 1984. The nonprofit has not had any correspondence from DLNR since September 2020. Hearing that the camp was closed, a donor came forward to CHKA, offering to pay for the work, but it’s conditioned on the state extending CHKA’s lease.
The EPA does not comment on pending litigation, and DLNR did not respond to questions posed. The exact amount of fines that the state could be facing is unclear.
#HALE KOA INSTALL#
Private systems have been developed at other camping sites, according to the DLNR report.įor Camp Hale Koa, the cost would be around $300,000 to install a new septic system.
There are cesspools on all leased cabin lots, according to a 2015 report from DLNR, including at the NASA facility and the Air Force facility. Had they known about the cesspool and potential fines, Bundschuh said CHKA might not have taken the property on in the first place over a decade ago in 2011 under a year-to-year, revocable lease.Ĭesspools, which collect raw, untreated sewage, are the primary method for disposal of sewage within Waimea Canyon and Koke‘e state parks. That year, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, from which CHKA is leasing the property, shut down the camp.īundschuh said the camp was not informed of the existence of the cesspool nor conversions prior to taking a 10-year lease from DLNR in 2015. Rick Bundschuh, executive director of the nonprofit Camp Hale Koa Association and pastor of Kaua’i Christian Fellowship in Po‘ipu. Environmental Protection Agency required the closure and replacement of existing large-capacity cesspools in 2005, under the Safe Drinking Water Act.ĭuring a walk-through of the property in 2019, the EPA flagged the cesspools, said the Rev.
The camp located in Waimea Canyon State Park has been shuttered since October 2019, shut down due to the illegal operation of a state-owned, large-capacity cesspool, which the Camp Hale Koa Association had no knowledge needed to be converted.
KOKE‘E - After a decade of rehabilitating and leasing a four-acre campsite, the Camp Hale Koa Association is in limbo.
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