The state Department of Education may have to request an extension on its September 2009 deadline with the Environmental Protection Agency to close some 300 cesspools in public schools if it doesn't receive the $49 million it is requesting from the Legislature.

"If we don't get the money, we'll know immediately that we won't be able to do the work. We'd have to sit down with (the EPA) immediately," said Randy Moore, DOE assistant superintendent.

The DOE has 322 cesspools in 60 rural schools statewide. About 45 of them have already been closed and another 25 projects are under way, said Gaylyn Nakatsuka, with the DOE's facilities planning section.

"Most of the projects are on the Big Island, some on Kaua'i and Maui," Nakatsuka said.

The closing of the remaining cesspools depends on the Legislature and Gov. Linda Lingle coming through with $49 million, Moore said.

Because of budget restrictions, the governor did not include the request for that money in her recent budget sent to the Legislature. So education officials have been urging state lawmakers to fund the project, citing next year's deadline.

Several lawmakers have said that the cesspool removal project is one of the priorities in DOE's budget requests.

The DOE has an agreement with the EPA to close its cesspools by September 2009. School cesspools would have to either be replaced with septic tanks or connected to municipal sewage lines, said Dean Higuchi, EPA-Pacific Islands spokesman.

The DOE sought the September 2009 deadline after it failed — like most large-capacity cesspool owners in Hawai'i — to meet a federal deadline of April 5, 2005.

The federal government ordered large-capacity cesspools to be closed, calling them a public health risk because they release pathogens into groundwater, streams and the ocean.

Of of the 3,095 large-capacity cesspools that the EPA has identified throughout Hawai'i to date, only 804 have been closed, Higuchi said.

Another 1,500 cesspools are subject to consent decrees or voluntary agreements, such as the one that the DOE is operating under.

Twenty-five percent of cesspool owners have not complied with the deadline or voluntary come forward to work out an agreement to close their cesspools, Higuchi said.

Owners whose cesspools are in violation of federal regulations face fines of as much as $32,500 a day until they comply by either closing or replacing them.

The cesspool closure at Lahainaluna High School on Maui accounts for the largest project by the DOE — $11 million of the $49 million being requested by education officials.

Nakatsuka said the Lahainaluna project will be more costly because of the work involved in connecting the school to the municipal sewer line.

"Because it's a sewer connection, there's a lot more involved than a conversion, where you just have to stick a tank in the ground," she said.

Only 55 of the DOE's 322 cesspools are on O'ahu. So far 42 have been closed and two other schools — Ka'a'awa Elementary and Waimanalo Elementary — still need work, said Nakatsuka.

Moore said the DOE should know by May 1 if the Legislature will fund cesspool removals.

If it does, he said, education officials should know by August if the governor is going to release or withhold the money.

If the DOE doesn't receive the money, he said, the department would immediately seek an extension from the EPA.

Reach Loren Moreno at lmoreno@honoluluadvertiser.com.