Honolulu's Forgotten Karst History - Why Water Mains Explode

Honolulu's Forgotten Karst History -

Why City Water And Sewer Pipes Break And Explode?

Why do Honolulu water mains and sewer pipes constantly break

and below ground electric vaults explode?

I was walking with some friends in downtown Honolulu, near the State Capitol a couple of years ago, when a water main exploded directly in front of us, blowing the heavy manhole way up into the air followed by a geyser of water 15 feet high. The land under Honolulu is constantly awash in ground water, removing coral land fills and shifting water and sewer pipes.

In downtown Honolulu, when the new First Hawaiian Bank building was constructed, a truely massive amount of liquid concrete had to be injected for months into the foundation because of an huge underground Karst cave below the building.

The empty lot behind the old Honolulu Advertiser building had huge water problems for years, requiring very expensive "dewatering" before it could be made ready for construction.

Punahou School was built on the lands of Ka Punahou, named for the fabled natural spring discovered centuries ago under a hala tree. The spring still flows today under the Thurston Memorial Chapel, and its waters form the Lily Pond and are used to irrigate parts of the campus.

A street below Manoa Valley is named Artesian Street- named for the first artesian well dug in the area because of the large volume of ground water flowing through the area. They didn't have to dig far.

Waiola Street- Waiola which means "living water" - a running stream or spring. Below Waiola Street are running streams of water through the ancient coral reef.

Waikiki - Waikiki means “spouting water,” a reference to the Karst rivers and springs that flowed into the area creating hundreds of fishponds and rich taro fields. Look at very old photos of Waikiki, a large amount of it was under water.