A question of damage control

By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Staff Writer

While the state Health Department was telling legislators this week that its cleanup of mercury from an old pump house a great success, Joe Ryan was in the audience fuming.

Ryan, vice president of the Hawai'i group EnviroWatch, thinks the whole sorry episode was anything but a success. Instead, he thinks it was an unmitigated personal and environmental disaster.

Rather than seeking praise, the state should be accepting blame for the way it let the whole situation develop over years, then rushed to contain the damage, real and political, Ryan said.

Rather than trying to investigate whether two teenagers committed burglary at the pump house, someone in the government should be held legally responsible for allowing the contaminated facility to sit open for many years, he said.

Despite being aware of the problem, "... Neither the government nor any of their agencies applied for the available cleanup funds or instituted cleanup in a timely manner. Instead, the pump house was allowed to become a source of recreation," Ryan said. (For more than 15 years it was inside the limits of a state park.)

The Navy has estimated that as much as 1 1/2 gallons of mercury was left inside the old water-pumping station which it deeded to the state in 1962. The pump house has belonged to the state Department of Defense since February, when title was turned over from the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

State Health Director Bruce Anderson told lawmakers Tuesday that the government's response to the emergency was well-run, timely and appropriate. However, members of House and Senate environmental committees didn't allow testimony from others who disagreed with that assessment.

If they had, Ryan was ready to tell them that the entry of state sheriffs, police, conservation officers, health officials and the National Guard into the homes of terrified public housing residents was hardly well-conducted or appropriate. Evacuating families and seizing and destroying their property without a declaration of an emergency was probably illegal, he said.

Ryan, a former police detective, also thinks the arrest of two children on burglary charges for taking mercury from the wide-open pump house is a cheap attempt to intimidate families from complaining about the way the state handled the situation for decades, then mishandled its emergency response. That's blaming the victims, he said.

Mike Leidemann's columns appear Thursdays and Saturdays in The Advertiser. He can be reached by phone (525-5460) or e-mail (mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com). More information about the EnviroWatch position on the pump-house case can be found at the group's Web site (www.envirowatch.org).