BRIEF HISTORY OF THE HWEA - PWO STATEWIDE
INTER-ISLAND WASTEWATER SOFTBALL TOURNAMENT 

During August of 1985 when the former City & County of Honolulu Wastewater Treatment & Disposal Branch's Softball League concluded, we celebrated the end of the league's season as well as a farewell for Eassie Miller, who was transferring to Maui County for employment. Ray Sugita's last assignment for Eassie was for him to form a softball league on Maui.  This would facilitate a Wastewater Softball Tournament that could rotate from one island to another on a yearly basis.

Eassie was not able to form a softball league; however, he was able to gather enough players to have a team represent Maui and they hosted the first Inter-Island Wastewater Softball Tournament in 1986. The word also got out to Kauai County, so they rounded up a team to represent Kauai in the inaugural tournament. Kauai then hosted the second Inter-Island Wastewater Softball Tournament in 1987.

Word also went out to various engineering firms, in the hopes that a team of engineers (whether private or from the various counties) could be represented in the annual inter-island wastewater competition. Unfortunately, only one engineer in the entire State of Hawai‘i got the word and he ended up playing on the Kauai team since they had the least amount of players when the first tournament was held. This particular engineer, Vic Moreland, was later grandfathered into the Kauai team as a team of engineers never came about.

When the tournament originally started, it was known as the Inter-Island Wastewater Softball Tournament and was organized by Ray Sugita of the City & County of Honolulu. In 1993, Ray retired from the City, and the tournament continued to function with the Hawai‘i Water Environment Association - Professional Wastewater Operators (HWEA-PWO) as the tournament sponsor.  The PWO Representative was placed in charge of the tournament and the coordinator of the tournament would be a person on whichever island the tournament was being held.

With the exception of one year, the Inter-Island Wastewater Softball Tournament has been an annual event for the last 18 years. O‘ahu teams have won the tournament title 9 times, while Maui teams have taken the title a total of 7 times. Kauai has taken the title once, in 1994.

Below are the all-time tournament results: