Hurricane Katrina has shown what happens when you delay an "ounce of prevention" and suffer the expense of a "pound of cure." I'm told that the Army Corps of Engineers' price tag to harden New Orleans for a Category 5 hurricane was $14 billion before any loss of life or property.

According to a recent CNN report, Congress has appropriated more than $60 billion in emergency funding as a down payment on recovery efforts projected to cost well over $100 billion. This is not counting the losses of private property (only some of which may be covered by insurance), long-term damage to the economy and tragic loss of life. It is said that our nation's emergency response was very slow in Louisiana. How much slower would it be way out here in Hawai'i with our at-sea-level airports and potentially damaged harbors?

A threat to public safety also exists in Maui County. The Kahului Sewage Treatment Plant, Maui Electric's primary generating facility and a concentration of huge fuel tanks are all near each other in a proven tidal wave flood zone. When (not if) Maui is hit by another major tsunami or a Category 5 hurricane, there is a good chance that these facilities would be put out of commission, causing a serious public hazard.

When the last major tsunami struck Maui, there was no centralized sewage facility. Homes had cesspools. While a centralized sewage treatment plant is a definite improvement over thousands of cesspools leaching dangerously into the soil, placing the Kahului Sewage Treatment Plant in a tsunami flood zone was a serious mistake. When this plant is rendered inoperative by a tsunami or a hurricane, Maui citizens are almost guaranteed a public health and environmental disaster. Our main power generation facility could very well go down at the same time.

A Bailey House historic photo shows the aftermath of the 1960 tsunami with Pu'unene Avenue under water. The photo was taken far inland of the sewage treatment plant. What would happen under similar conditions today, with sewer lines now below Pu'unene Avenue and the pumps stopped? And what would happen to the sewage plant on the beach?

Old-time kama'aina will tell you that the tsunami of 1946 was much more destructive than the 1960 wave. How long should we gamble that it won't happen again? What would be the health effects of raw sewage spread throughout the concentrated Kahului community?

In addition to the dangers of raw sewage, the Kahului plant also contains 8 to 10 tanks of concentrated liquid chlorine in a small building a few feet from the shoreline. Each tank holds 2,000 pounds, which if released would become chlorine gas. All that separates these tanks from a tidal wave or hurricane are a number of large glass windows, which are supposed to allow the storm to wash through the building with the tanks strapped down to the concrete floor. The tanks might remain, but the devastation of the 1946 tidal wave and Hurricanes Iniki and Katrina have shown that a storm washed a steel beam from the ceiling, and that other debris could easily puncture one or more of the tanks.

Old-timers in Hawai'i know that tsunamis wash in, break everything up and then suck the resulting debris back out to sea, before pushing it back in again. Tradewinds would tend to push the released chlorine gas into Kahului Town and toward Maui's primary airport, rather than out to sea. One or more of the fuel tanks nearby could also be ruptured, adding gasoline and diesel to the deadly mix, and greatly affecting our fuel supply.

In the late 1980s, I expressed concern about the location of this treatment plant to the Public Works director. I was told that my concern was justified, and that a plan was being developed to phase the Kahului plant out and to build a new sewage plant away from the ocean in Pu'unene. However, since then, nothing has been done except to enlarge the Kahului facility, and thereby, to increase the danger.

A plant manager told me in 1999 that the cost of building the Pu'unene plant had increased more than 50 percent since 1991. Can we afford to wait any longer? We need to measure the cost not only in dollars, but also in the potential of having the present situation causing human and environmental destruction on a par with Hurricane Katrina or the Indian Ocean tsunami.

If a disaster occurs in Kahului, it will affect all of Maui County. We need to acknowledge that there is a problem and include it in our community planning now to begin the process toward a solution. The county sewage facility, the Maui Electric Company facility and the fuel tank farm should be moved out of the tsunami flood zone while we have time to make an orderly transition.

Tom Cannon lives in Ha'iku and was born in Wailuku. An architect, he is the 2006 president-elect of the American Institute of Architects' Maui chapter.