Booze runoff so badly contaminated a stream in Hawaii that its water was recently found to be 1.2 percent alcohol by volume, the same amount of alcohol in many low-ABV beers.
The drunken brook was discovered by a hiker, who sniffed its strange aroma while enjoying the scenery on Hawaii’s Oahu island last month. The traveler followed his nose and discovered the stream-turned-party punch 120 feet beneath a freeway.
Disturbed, he contacted a local environmental activist who alerted the Department of Health. After an investigation, the agency found that a runoff pipe had contaminated the water to the point that it became alcoholic.
“The other day we came here you would think it was a beer pub that hadn’t opened its doors for three or four days,” the activist, Carroll Cox, told HawaiiNewsNow. “It’s disturbing. It makes you want to pull your hair out, and I don’t have much left.”
The publication tested a sample of the water itself and had it processed by an independent laboratory, which found the water was 1.2 percent alcohol and .04 percent sugar.
The Department of Health is looking closely at a spill from a Department of Transportation-owned storm pipe adjacent to the highway. The DOT has linked the spill to Hawaii’s largest alcoholic beverage supplier, Paradise Beverages, which owns a warehouse across the freeway.
However, the DOT is unsure what’s causing the spill.
“Right now, we’ve had the Department of Transportation come in with their representatives and we’re dealing with them and we’ve also been contacted by the Department of Health,” the company’s director of operations, Anthony Rowe, told HawaiiNewsNow. “It may be coming from us so that’s why we’re working with the proper authorities.”
While a particularly headline-worthy instance of contamination, Cox told the Washington Post the drunken stream does not surprise him and that bad contamination is “commonplace” in Hawaii.
“[There’s a] lack of respect for the land and the water, even though we preach it. We don’t practice what we preach,” he told the paper, adding that he’s previously found streams contaminated with paint and cement.
