So far these are the locations of the sites I have found: Bauxite Reclamation Area, Waikoko Block, Sam Thronas Area (?), Hanahanapuni, Wailua Game Refuge, Moalepe.
The EPA declared the whole area a Superfund site in about 1990. Still researching this. They ordered UH to clean up the mess they found on Kauai, excavate all the toxic materials they buried, etc. EPA also found barrels of toxic chemicals in basements on UH campuses. Everything is vague. In 1990, there were still incinerators in California and Johnston Atoll. Those are closed now. EPA did not follow up until 2000. What they found was that UH dumped all the poison from Kauai into a Matson Freight container and left it somewhere FOR 10 YEARS. At that point, EPA levied a 1.8 MILLION DOLLAR FINE against University of Hawaii. This is one of the largest fines in history. In a country of gross and repeated toxic crimes, that is saying plenty. It is interesting to note that the UH local workers who died were not awarded anything because they were UH employees and had workmens compensation insurance available. These stories don't exactly match up - just like the rest of the documentation. I did not take a lot of notes on what I had found because it was all so vague. I was waiting to get the reports I ordered from the EPA.
What I got was a bunch of nothing with impossible instructions that led nowhere. The EPA has no original or ongoing reports of any of their investigations. Now they say it is not a federal site, so they are not responsible. Everything has been purged from their site apparently. I called EPA in San francisco to ask for information. I was told by the investigator that I should contact State of Hawaii, Dept of Health. There is nothing on their website regarding dioxin across the interior of Kauai. Looks like a cover up all the way around to me.
I found some activity by Akaka who is on the Senate Veterans Commission. He is down playing the effects of Agent Orange on Vietnam Vets and questioning some of the illnesses as being connected to the poisonings. If he had 10 pages of single spaced illnesses, he still couldn't include them all. Somebody needs to connect the dots here. Does he want to give Hawaiian Homes Land to anyone who goes into the military? I am brain dead from too much research right now.
I know there must be many other people on Kauai who are ill. The younger the person was when exposed, the more susceptible they are to the poison. I can very clearly remember lying on the punei (sp?) in the living room doubled over with stomach pain with so much saliva I though I would drowned. It came to me like a really bad flashback. This is classic symptoms of poisoning. Latest connection I have found with my situation and the Vietnam poisonings: My oldest daughter was finally tested at 10 years old for learning disabilities. Big problem. When the test results came back, they all backed off. She had the analytical reading ability of a 26 year old PhD candidate - and the ability to recognize the letters of the alphabet less than a kindergardener. I already found two other vets with children with the same trouble. Because this is so unusual, she was immediately admitted into the University of CA San Francisco learning disabilities clinic. They told me she was not illiterate because she had learned how to read by memorizing the shapes of the words. This seemed to get better along with the asthma and severe joint pain over the next 10 years. What a coincidence.
I am going to go back and start piecing together the dates and information regarding the experiments. So far it looks like not much matches up in the numbers and dates department. After I get it all together, I am going to put it all on a website.
Comments
Thank you for your post. About a month ago when I first realized what my health problems have been for all these years, the first thing I thought of was all the other people who must have been poisoned. That is what brought me here. There was no TV there in the 60's. Nobody really read the newspaper. We were just living in a beautiful dream. Yesterday I learned that the waste UH was fined 1.8 million for disposing of improperly had been buried in the 60's near the Wailua Reservoir. That is new information. I don't know what the source of our drinking water was there in Wailua River Lots. None of the information is in one place. People in Canada and Australia are sending me information. It is unbelievable. I feel like I am in the Twilight Zone.
There were a lot of different types of dioxin spread around up there in all different chemical mixes. Also, UH told them to burn some of the test sites. Dioxin is produced when chemicals are heated up, burning it makes it much, much more toxic. The quantities that were dumped up there were much more than were used in Vietnam because they were supposedly testing application rates. If so many people are sick in Vietnam, and so many veterans are sick, how many sick people are on Kauai? I have found some workers in Australia who were illegally given 2,4 D to use that had been in a fire in Singapore. They said it made them sick immediately - really sick in a much different way. Dioxin and some of the other chemicals bind to soil molecules and can be there "for decades." Studies have shown that trying to wash the chemicals off with water increases dermal absorption. So I am wondering what happens when a person is in a tropical climate swimming in contaminated water. Also, the soil up there is a silty clay. I got this from a 1960 PhD thesis I found which was written about the Bauxite mining up there. That means it is not free draining material - it's like a clay pot that holds water. That's why clothes turn red. So in areas that are not so vertical, none of it would have drained away. In vertical areas, All of it would have drained into the Wailua. I am going back to pick up information I found earlier. I was waiting for EPA records and reports, but there are none. They have all been purged - unlike records from other Superfund sites. EPA is saying it is not a federal Superfund site. Why were they there then??? The whole thing was handed over to the State of Hawaii Department of Health (the ones who did nothing when the mess was left for 10 years in a shipping container). Akaka is the Veterans Affairs guy and he is downplaying the health problems the vets are having.
The reason for the poisoning was because a few people wanted to make money. The reason the records disappeared is because a lot of people are making a lot of money selling Hawaii to tourists. I read some of the posts here about Disneyland in Hawaii. That is as wrong as having white guys dressed up like Indians running around on football fields. It is so disheartening. If the whole dioxin mess was known, a lot of people would be out of work. Those "green" tourist dollars would disappear. I was looking at photos of tourists at the Jurassic Park set. That is right in the middle of the sprayed area I think. I need to plot it. That place is all hot up there. People who are susceptible to the dioxin will go home and in a few years they will not know why they are having so many life threatening illness. The whole endocrine system is disrupted. For years I thought it was the dioxin burning in the cane fields that made me sick. I knew it was something at the cellular level. Now I know what really did it.
That was a lot in one paragraph, but it is all produced by the same mind set. For some reason it makes me think of a utube video I watched last night of a bunch of Navajos "Riding for Obama" on 11/4/08. They have US and Navajo Nation flags with photos of Obama and rode across the Navajo Nation. I hope we were not all fooled.
I am still collecting information. When I think I have it straight, I am going to put it all on a web site - hopefully in a comprehensive manner so it can be understood. I don't know anything about chemistry or much about medicine, but I know where to find the studies. So far every weird thing that has happened to me has been linked to dioxin exposure especially digestive and estrogen based problems. It's like nothing works right - from retained placenta to Toxic Shock Syndrome - all linked.
I hope you are well. Small children are more susceptible because their brains are not fully developed, and their body mass to chemical ratio is different. I wouldn't trust anyone in Hawaii who isn't local. And some of them will sell out all the others. Historically, there are always a few who are chosen to "represent the tribe." They are just trained circus animals who are making fools of themselves and destroying the land. It is always about the land.
I spent a lot of days at the slide in Kilauea. Sometimes I think about those little biting fish. And every winter I loved to go out to the lighthouse by myself and watch the 50 foot waves come in. I never saw another person out there in winter. Probably it's different now. Even now, it would be hard to trade those memories for my health. I would be a different person.
It's snowing. I am not ready.
Many blessings,
Sheridan
I live on Kaua'i in the Lihue area but was living in Kilauea on the North shore at the time of the spraying. This is very worrisome for me. I have hiked and swam in the Wailua area, but not on a regular basis. What if any of the toxins would still remain in the watershed of Wailua today? It is heartwrenching to know that in one of the most beautiful places on earth, Waialeale, the University carried on this research without the public's knowledge. It is a tragedy what happened to you and the UH workers who died. That is why we can't afford to allow the continued militarization of our islands that have been ongoing since the time of the Reciprocity Treaty. Please accept my sympathies for the severe health issues that you've experienced as a result. Mahalo nui for sharing this information.
I took me a long time to piece together the information on that map - weeks. Who has time to do that? I still need to go back and get some other information now that I now EPA has nothing. State of Hawaii is afraid of losing the tourist dollar. They could lose the land and the people too. I was reading about some chemical smell somewhere over there - Kekaha I think. I can tell you that if I knew any of those
companies was near me, I would walk away from the house and everything in it.
The Australian said some things about depleted uranium too. Something about being able to shoot somebody dead with a bullet - why do they need to use DU? I hope I didnt lose that email. I can spend an hour like a dummy looking for one thing like that. I wonder where the limit is, and why do we need to get there. If they keep increasing the killing power, at some point the planet is going to overload. I think the bees are key. They are the pollinators. Now we have killer bees going after the stock and no normal bees.
My mother got fed up with everything and how it was in California. That's why she went to Kauai. She had never lived anywhere else besides close to where she grew up. I can remember her fighting a bad uphill race battle with everybody in the family. I don't know where that came from. She had never lived without either her parents or husband. She had me when she was 21 years old. It seems unlikely that a person who wanted to take her children to a place where they could have some peace, would end up in a poisonous environment.
Small peepee and small thinking --home of the little people. I'm being a bigot at this moment. I love my people (all). I just get cranky sometimes.
It will take gigantic movers to sway the communities into rejecting poisioning their environment.
Sorry, but here is the up beat. Noelani, I just zapped her this information and hope to hear from her on this issue. She has to borrow a computer to write on the forum. She has a strong will to take action!
With data and facts I believe that is plausible. This forum is a good place, believe it or not--the White house reads this site and so do journalist for the only paper in town. It's funny sometimes!