When environmental activist Carroll Cox charged last week that city crews had been illegally dumping tons of concrete rubble in Ma'ili'ili Stream and threatening the habitat of endangered wildlife, he called the unpermitted activity an outrage.

Yesterday, as he examined the city's attempt to clean up some of the mess at the Leeward O'ahu state waterway over the weekend, he got upset all over again.

"It is just as bad to hurry out here and clean it up without any specifications," grumbled Cox, who said city whistleblowers had tipped him off to some 300 truckloads of sidewalk concrete rubble that had been dumped in the stream over the past months.

While hundreds of tons of concrete remain in the channel, Cox said that heavy equipment had improperly removed what he estimated to be 110 tons of concrete from one edge of the stream on Saturday.

"So there's more illegal work — to clean it out without the necessary permits, consultation and environmental impact study," he said as he reached into the stream bed and lifted up a hefty chunk of sidewalk debris with a piece of rusting rebar cable protruding from one end.

"You need to consult the Army Corps of Engineers. You need to consult the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. You need to consult the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

"This is a wetland. The fact is there are indigenous species that live here 24 hours a day."

Even as Cox spoke, a pair of endangered Hawaiian stilts flew screeching over his head. Cox said the stream is also home to Hawaiian ducks and numerous native plants — all of which could be adversely affected by the concrete, rusting metal and flecks of old sidewalk paint that could be lead-based.

"Now, you've created an access island across here where dogs and cats can come in and hide out, and birds are more exposed to predation. You can see mongoose footprints right there in the mud."

'CASE OF IGNORANCE'

Honolulu city spokesman Bill Brennan said crews from the city's Department of Facility Maintenance went out to the Ma'ili'ili Stream on Friday and saw that concrete rubble from sidewalk repair was indeed being placed in the stream area.

"I think it's more a case of ignorance than a case of illegality or malice," said Brennan. "They were not aware that a permit may have been needed to do that kind of work."

Brennan said the superintendent who oversaw the Ma'ili'ili Stream project didn't think it required a permit because the work was regarded as regular maintenance on the stream bank.

Brennan said city workers were trying to restore an access road along the channel banks of the city's flood control project as a way to control brush growing on the banks.

He said project workers believed the access road was necessary for tractor mower equipment to cut the brush. The area had not been maintained for some time, and neighboring properties had used the flood-control area and access road along the top of the bank for personal use, storage, and as a place to allow their horses to run free.

Brennan acknowledged that on Saturday, heavy equipment was used to begin clearing out the rubble from the channel banks. The removed material was disposed of as construction debris at the PVT Landfill, which Brennan said is the normal process with sidewalk rubble.

The state Department of Health expressed concern about the rubble removal work on Saturday and instructed city crews to only remove sidewalk material not directly in the stream.

The DOH said removing rubble from the stream itself could require a permit identifying the work to be done that includes the volume to be removed and a best management plan to control discharges into the waterway, he said.

"We removed what we could on Saturday, and are probably looking at the possibility of getting a permit to remove the rest of the stuff that's in the stream," said Brennan, who said it's not known how much concrete was actually placed in the stream or over how long a period.

But Cox said his sources told him the dumping was done on weekends over two years so workers would get paid overtime.

"The most egregious and insulting part about all this," he said, "is that if it's true — and it has been confirmed that some of it was dumped on overtime pay — then the taxpayers paid extra to have illegal work performed."