Hawai'i's beaches and waterways were among the cleanest in the country in 2005, according to statistics released by an advocacy group yesterday.

The Natural Resources Defense Council's report, released by U.S. Public Interest Research Group, showed that only 4 percent of the 2,274 water samples tested at 97 of the state's beaches and waterways exceeded national contamination level standards.

The testing also showed a 91 percent increase in the number of days that Hawai'i beaches had contamination advisories from 2004. The increase, the report said, was due to unusually heavy rains and increased monitoring.

The study does not include information from last spring's heavy rains and the contamination from a raw sewage spill into the Ala Wai Canal.

"As a whole I think we have very clean beaches," said Janice Okubo, spokeswoman for the Department of Health. "(Beach water quality) is a very big focus for us. Our beaches are very important for our residents and for our tourism industry."

Okubo said the 91 percent increase in advisory days is misleading. The DOH, she said, just started doing brown-water advisories toward the end of 2004, before and during heavy rains, as a way to let the public know that chances of runoff and sewage spills are very high. "We believe that people should be warned ahead of time," Okubo said.

To that end, the DOH will soon be launching a hot line that people can call to check on beach contamination conditions, Okubo said, possibly within the next month. The department also is looking to make its Web page containing contamination updates more user friendly.

"There have been more pre-emptive advisories issued," said Moira Chapin, of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. "However, the problem is that we need to reduce the contamination in the first place."

Moira wants the Environmental Protection Agency to require more federal funding to fix the sewage systems and keep beach waters clean.

In March, a pressurized main sewer line in Waikiki ruptured, and city officials responded by pumping 48 million gallons of raw sewage into the Ala Wai Canal. They said the reason was to avoid risking backup into homes, hotels and businesses. The spill fouled the waters of the Ala Wai and closed some of Waikiki's beaches.

City officials sent the six-page report along with photos, maps and other supporting documents to the EPA in San Francisco. The report details the sequence of events surrounding the most recent rupture and what steps were taken to address environmental and health risks.

City officials told the EPA that the rupture likely was caused by a combination of heavy rains, soil settlement and pile-driving in the area.

Nationally, 3,700 beaches were monitored from 29 states for nearly 115,000 samplings. Eight percent of the beaches nationwide exceeded the national standard in 2005.

Some popular Hawai'i beaches sampled many times showed no signs of exceeding the national standards for contamination.

Magic Island Lagoon, Sandy Beach Point No. 1, Ma'ili Beach Park and Makaha Beach on O'ahu were sampled 44 times each and did not exceed contamination standards. Ala Moana Beach Park was divided into three parts, and the 'ewa end of Ala Moana Beach Park was reported the cleanest.

The state Public Interest Research Groups are a network of independent, state-based, citizen-funded activist organizations, according to the PIRG Web site.

Reach Brittany Yap at byap@honoluluadvertiser.com.