Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Services in Wainaku, HI

Wainaku, Hawaiian for 'pushing water', is a census-designated place (CDP) in Hawaii County, Hawaii, on the east side of the island of Hawaii.

The CDP had a population of 1,147 at the 2020 census, living in 410 households, and the median age of its residents was 45.6 years.

The Wainaku CDP covers 1.47 square miles, of which 1.32 square miles are land and 0.15 square miles are water, at an elevation of 256 feet, and it sits on the west side of Hilo Bay, bordered by Hilo to the south and Paukaa to the north.

Hawaii Route 19 is the main road through the community, and the CDP's ZIP code is 96720.

Wainaku was one of at least two Chinese-owned sugar plantations operating in the Hilo district in the 1860s, and in 1884 the Hilo Sugar Company purchased the Spencer Plantation, a sugar operation just north of Hilo that had run since the 1860s.

The former Hilo Sugar Mill stands on the sea cliffs just north of Hilo in Wainaku, and in its heyday it processed 1,400 tons of sugar a day, providing jobs and housing for hundreds of workers from China, Japan, the Philippines, and Portugal.

The former mill site has been transformed into the 12-acre Wainaku Executive Center, an oceanfront property with 3,000 feet of shoreline, including a rock retaining wall built by the sugar company in 1920.

Wainaku is only about a mile from Hilo, but the two areas were long felt to be worlds apart, with residents saying that once you cross the Wailuku River's 'singing bridge' you are in the country.

At the 2020 census, 95.2 percent of Wainaku's residents lived in urban areas and 4.8 percent in rural areas.

There were 466 housing units in the CDP at the 2020 census, of which 12.0 percent were vacant.