Kauai Homeowners Worry About ‘Black Slime’ Health Risks … Residents say they feel trapped in new homes plagued by a mysterious water problem that they fear could be making them sick.
LIHUE, Kauai — It took Dr. Brigitte Carreau a decade to afford a home on Kauai.
A pediatrician at Wilcox Medical Center, the first-time buyer was thrilled to purchase a three-bedroom duplex in a new development in the Hanamaulu neighborhood of Lihue in 2019.
With new construction, she figured she wouldn’t have problems cropping up any time soon. But Carreau quickly discovered what she and dozens of her neighbors have come to know as “the black slime” — a sticky, smelly sludge that seeps from their water faucets and shower heads, sometimes in long, oozing strands.
“When I brushed my teeth, I’d gag and spit up junk,” Carreau said. “It was like, ‘What is this stuff?’”
The source of the so-called black slime remains mysterious. State health regulators said the problem is isolated to the 151-unit Hooluana at Kohea Loa housing development, a mix of market rate and affordable single-family homes and duplexes. More than half of the Hooluana homeowners say they’re affected.
