Compiled by Ewa Historian John Bond
Lying In Wait
Researchers help U.S. Army search for chemical munitions dumped at sea
https://pubsapp.acs.org/cen/government/87/8713gov1.html MARCH 30, 2009
The detected trails are located 3 to 7 miles south of Pearl Harbor, Edwards notes. At approximately 3 to 6 feet long, the reflective targets, or "speckles," are located in water between 900 and 1,500 feet deep.
The find earlier this month off the Oahu coast by researchers from the School of Ocean & Earth Science & Technology (SOEST) at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, on behalf of the U.S. Army is likely just part of the more than 8,000 tons of chemical agents that the Army reportedly dumped off the Hawaiian shores at the end of World War II. But this cache is only a small fraction of all the munitions and bulk containers holding chemical weapons agents that were routinely scuttled in the ocean.
According to Army documents, large quantities of shells, mines, solid rocket fuels, propellants, radioactive materials, and chemical weapons were dumped into the ocean not only off U.S. shores but all around the world. And on at least 74 occasions, the Army knowingly dumped hazardous chemical agents such as mustard, lewisite, phosgene, and VX off U.S. coastlines. Records of exact locations of such dumps can be hard to find, only partly for security reasons.
"The Department of Defense disposed of excess, obsolete, or unserviceable munitions, including chemical warfare material, in coastal waters off the U.S. prior to 1970," says James C. King, the Army's assistant for munitions and chemical matters. Like questions about the location of dump sites, the exact quantities of materials disposed of at sea also remain unclear.
"On the basis of the reports we have seen, the U.S. dumped somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 to 25,000 tons of chemical warfare agent off the various coasts of the U.S.," says Craig E. Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, a Berea, Ky.-based nonprofit community organization dedicated to the safe disposal of chemical weapons agents. He believes that some records may no longer be around and that the U.S. may have dumped "significantly more" chemical warfare agents than the Army reports indicate.
Recently, DOD contracted the University of Hawaii to assess the location, condition, and potential risks of a chemical weapons disposal site near Pearl Harbor. DOD has a long list of munitions it says were dumped somewhere in this area, but "the problem is that where exactly is not well established," says Margo H. Edwards, director of the Hawaii Mapping Research Group at SOEST.
Mustard Bombs Off Pearl Harbor Investigated for Potential Health Hazards
Thousands of unexploded chemical weapons are sitting on the ocean floor about five miles off of Oahu’s famed southern beaches.
Research shows that the military dumped about 16,000 bombs filled with mustard agent, each weighing 100 pounds, off the coast of Pearl Harbor during World War II. At the time, it was a common method of disposal.
Now, decades later, with $3 million in funding from the U.S. Army, scientists at the University of Hawaii are investigating whether these weapons could be posing a risk to human health or the marine ecosystem.
Old Weapons Off Hawaii Should Stay Put, Army Says
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/us/01weapons.html
Chemical weapons dumped in deep water five miles south of Pearl Harbor after World War II should remain at the site because moving them could pose more of a threat to people and the environment, the Army says.
Records show that the Army dumped 16,000 bombs at the site after the war; each of the bombs contained 73 pounds of the chemical agent mustard.
J. C. King, the Army’s assistant for munitions and chemical matters, said in a statement on Friday that the Army was reviewing a University of Hawaii study on the weapons that was released earlier in the week.
Margo Edwards, a senior research scientist at the university, said the study showed that the munitions were not a hazard, but that they were deteriorating and should continue to be monitored.
Navy Toxic Dump Site Goes Back To
1946 Operation Crossroads Era
Thermal Desorption Treatment of PCB-Contaminated Soil.
Former Naval Air Station Barbers Point. Oahu, Hawaii
https://triadcentral.clu-in.org/user/doc/TPP-BarbersPt-Thermal_Trmt.pdf
An estimated 26,306 cubic yards of PCB-contaminated soil from 100 sites at various Navy installations on Oahu were sent to the site for treatment. Soil from 21 sites totaling more than 5,600 cubic yards had been excavated and processed through the NAVFAC Kalaeloa former NAS Barbers Point site. The area has been a dump since 1946 and was directly adjacent to atomic bomb facilities and where test aircraft were washed and cleaned out.
PCB Contaminated soils where brought in from military bases all over Oahu, including Kaneohe MCBH where there have been lawsuits filed.
From the mid 1940’s to late 1970’s the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) leased areas and built facilities around NAS Barbers Point. Lot 82 was the primary Site 95 weapons compound while Lot 83 above it is where the Navy has been operating their toxic waste site. Lot 84 by the US Coast Guard Station has long been rumored to contain buried AEC materials and tools.
The North American producer, Monsanto Company, marketed PCBs under the trade name Aroclor from 1930 to 1977. No one will say what else was stockpiled or dumped as toxic waste at the site which has been operated since 1946.
Area 95 in 1967 after it had been turned over to the Navy for special weapons storage. The very high double fencing indicates nuclear weapons storage. Buildings at left are 278 and 1682.
Many rumors over the years have suggested that material used in the 1946 Operation Crossroads tests, such as radiation badges and other items may have been tossed into open karst holes and bulldozed pits. This may have continued in the 1960’s with the highly rushed Operation Dominic and other major nuclear weapons tests at NAS Barbers Point.
This is karst area where the mountain rainwater flows underground and comes out at the shoreline and mixes with the ocean tide. The water runs right through the Navy toxic waste dump where everything toxic has been dumped for 75 years at the bottom of the Navy’s WW-II coral quarry pit.
June 7, 2017 EPA letter to Navy complained about their lack of understanding ( perhaps intentionally) of how Ewa Plain karst water system operates. The Navy has also continuously failed to understand the dangers that exist with the leaking Red Hill fuel tanks.
The Regulatory Agencies have thoroughly reviewed these documents and have determined that the Navy continues to demonstrate insufficient understanding of the expertise and level of effort necessary to develop technically defensible environmental assessment and modeling deliverables required by the AOC.
We continue to encourage the Navy to perform an investigation that can withstand critical scientific scrutiny.
Based upon the Regulatory Agencies' experience working on other similar large scale environmental projects with significant stakeholder and public interest, the Navy does not appear to have the appropriate personnel directing this work.
The Navy continues to fail to implement an effective iterative approach to data collection and analysis that is typical of large groundwater investigation and modeling projects.
The Navy should perform an iterative investigation that concurrently investigates and analyses existing and new field data to yield a better understanding of environmental conditions around the facility.
What Chemicals Have Been Stockpiled There?
PCB- Short for polychlorinated biphenyl. A family of industrial compounds used as lubricants, heat-transfer fluids, and plasticizers. The manufacture and use of PCBs has been restricted since the 1970s because they are very harmful to the environment, being especially deadly to fish and invertebrates, and stay in the food chain for many years. Most of the toxic materials came from WW-II and 50's-60's era Oahu military bases. PCB's are found in old electric power transformers as dielectric and coolant fluids. PCBs as definite carcinogens in humans. The maximum allowable contaminant level in drinking water in the United States is set at zero.
The North American producer, Monsanto Company, marketed PCBs under the trade name Aroclor from 1930 to 1977. The commercial production of PCBs started in 1929 but their use has been banned or severely restricted in many countries since the 1970s and 80s.
Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), DDT and other pesticides had been shown to cause cancer and that their agricultural use was a threat to wildlife, particularly birds. DDE is dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene-breakdown product of DDT.
DDD (DDT) is dichlorodiphenyldichloroethane
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a class of chemicals that occur naturally in coal, crude oil, and gasoline. They also are produced when coal, oil, gas, wood, garbage, and tobacco are burned. Cancer is a primary human health risk of exposure to PAHs.[43] Exposure to PAHs has also been linked with cardiovascular disease and poor fetal development.
Total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) is a term used to describe a large family of several hundred chemical compounds that originally come from crude oil.
Also: Dumped residual sewage sludge (and what ELSE? we don't know)
Navy seeks comment on waste mitigation plan
Honolulu Star-Advertiser 16 Jun 2017 By William Cole
The Navy is seeking public comment on a proposal to spend $1.2 million to reduce potential exposure to chemicals at a Barbers Point landfill where asbestos and burned municipal waste were in trash dumped between 1942 and 1997. Surface soil contains antimony, lead and hydrocarbons that exceed state Department of Health action levels, the Navy said. The Navy is proposing to add cover material, put in place erosion control measures, add perimeter warning signs and conduct a review every five years at the industrial site in an old coral pit south of Runway 11 at Kalaeloa Airport.
Under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, also known as Superfund, the Navy is responsible for the investigation and cleanup of contamination resulting from its past operations.
Deep karst waterway channels flow underground through the entire Ewa Plain
Mike Lee: Mountain water and rain fall streams flow directly through the Ewa Plain ancient
coral reef and into the shore and reef system, affecting the health and pollution of these traditional native Hawaiian resources which are also the basis for Oahu's marine ecosystem.
Navy Barbers Point Toxic Dump Site Goes Back To 1946 And Entire Atomic Bomb Test Era
