Police investigating Pearl Harbor mercury find
By James Gonser
Advertiser Central Bureau
Police are conducting a criminal investigation related to the removal of large quantities of toxic mercury from an abandoned Navy pump house below Pearl Harbor's Richardson Recreation Center.
Police from the Pearl City station confirmed a criminal investigation is ongoing, but would not discuss specifics of the case.
One boy, a student at 'Aiea Elementary School, was pulled from his classroom by police Monday in connection with the burglary investigation.
The action has prompted criticism from the boy's family, who described the property as a dangerous, and very accessible, temptation to neighborhood children.
The boy is the son of Myrtle Mokiao. She and her two sons are the last family still not allowed to move back into their apartment at the Pu'uwai Momi housing complex in Halawa since the project was contaminated by mercury March 12.
The state Department of Health reports the family's unit was so thoroughly contaminated that even the floor boards must be removed and replaced.
The family has been staying part-time with Mary K. Dias, a friend who lives nearby.
Last week the family was allowed to move into a vacant apartment in the Pu'uwai Momi complex, but aside from a mattress on the floor, it is empty.
"It's very sad," Dias said. "We went to the housing office last week and were told it might be another month. We have to do something. This family has nothing. They have one rice pot and a mattress, and that is all."
Dias said nine bags of contaminated items were taken from the family's home, and they have not been allowed back in to retrieve other items.
Mokiao was told her son was questioned as part of a burglary investigation.
"Yes. They admit (taking the mercury)," Dias said. "They didn't know what it was. They are not lying.
"The building had holes in it so big, a yokozuna could walk in. This is not a burglary."
Several children in the area fish in Pearl Harbor near the old pump house, Dias said, and a couple of children went inside the building during a rainstorm one day and came across the mercury.
"Many different kids went in there looking for scorpions. It was an attraction to them," Dias said. "It wasn't fenced off. There were no warning signs."
Neighborhood children who went into the pump house said the mercury was in lying in pools on the ground, said Dias' cousin, Lela Hubbard. Hubbard charges that it is not the children who should be reprimanded but the state.
Firefighters investigating the source of the mercury have described the building as as being littered with beer bottles and other items, and obviously used by people for quite a while.
The Navy has estimated that as much as 1 1/2 gallons of mercury may have been left inside the switches and gauges at the old water-pumping station, which it deeded to the state in 1962. The pumping house has belonged to the state Department of Defense since February, when the title was turned over by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.
State health inspectors and crews from the Army Corps of Engineers visited the pump house last week to determine the extent of the mercury spill and to see whether other contaminants had been left there.
The inspection turned up possible PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, a toxic substance that was used in electric transformers and has been linked to cancer. There also are old fuel tanks at the site.
Doug MaKitten, spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers, said that the extent of cleanup at the site will depend on what is found, but that PCBs probably are present.
After the contamination was discovered, the state erected a 7-foot-high chain-link fence, topped with barbed wire, around the pump house. Metal screens were bolted over all windows and doors, and a second layer of barbed wire is being installed on the ground inside the fence to increase security, said Capt. Chuck Anthony, spokesman for the state defense agency.
Elemental mercury is an odorless liquid metal. It can cause burns to the skin and eyes; if inhaled, it can lead to pulmonary edema and damage to nerves and kidneys.
Gary Gill, deputy director of the state Department of Health, said the primary public health concern is breathing mercury vapors, not touching the silvery substance.
