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Navy to clean up waste in Wahiawa, Wai'anae

Military installations on EPA's 'Superfund' list pose no immediate threat

By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Advertiser Staff Writer

The Navy this week signed off on an agreement to clean up hazardous waste sites on active military installations in Lualualei in Wai'anae and near Whitmore Village in Wahiawa.

Officials with the Navy and the federal Environmental Protection Agency, however, said that the agreement is largely a formality for the two locations that are on the EPA's National Priorities List, also known as the "Superfund" list.

"Preliminary investigations have indicated that no immediate threats currently exist at the sites while further investigations continue," the EPA said yesterday in a release.

Navy spokeswoman Denise Emsley said actual cleanup work began in 1991 for the sites even before the EPA put them on the Superfund list in 1994.

Both the Naval Computer and Telecommunications Area Master Station for the Pacific in Wahiawa and the Navy Radio Transmitter Facility in Lualualei continue to operate as active military installations.

Technically, 24 "sites" have been designated — 11 in Lualualei and 13 in Wahiawa.

Cleanup at five of the sites are completed, Emsley said. Most of the work already done involves the soil at former PCB transformers that the Navy deemed a priority, she said.

According to the EPA's Web site on the cleanup effort, soil from those sites was excavated and transported to a thermal desorption treatment facility at the former Naval Air Station Barbers Point. Once cleaned, the soil was returned to the excavated sites and used as backfill.

"The Navy manages its various sites to be cleaned up by dealing with those of highest concern first," those that pose the most risk to people or the environment, Emsley said.

According to the EPA, PCBs can cause cancer in animals and adversely affect the nervous, immune and endocrine systems in people.

Among the sites yet to be cleared at the Wahiawa location are a landfill, an incinerator, several disposal sites, a "service station gulch," a dump site and an abandoned firing range.

Included among the sites yet to be cleaned at Lualualei are a landfill, an old coral pit, several disposal areas, two wells and sewage ponds.

"This is a critical step in completing the cleanup actions," said Keith Takata, director for the EPA Pacific Southwest Region's Superfund Division. "Our agreement with the Navy and the state finalizes the process that the Navy will follow to complete the investigation and cleanup of any remaining chemical contamination at both sites."

Last summer, the Department of Defense publicly raised issue with the EPA's demand that it clean 11 hazardous locations across the country, including the Wahiawa location.

Both Emsley and local EPA spokesman Dean Higuchi said they did not know the reason for the Department of Defense's objections to cleaning the Hawai'i location.

Emsley said the Navy has had a cooperative relationship with the local EPA office and the state Department of Health throughout the cleanup process.

The Navy has spent approximately $250 million to date cleaning restoration sites throughout O'ahu, including at the Pearl Harbor Naval Complex, Emsley said.