Pearl Harbor cleanup contract awarded
By James Gonser
Advertiser Central Bureau
PEARL HARBOR — The Navy has awarded a $21.7 million contract for work that will help clean up the Pearl Harbor estuary and bring the sewage treatment outfall at the Pearl Harbor Public Works Center into compliance with federal law.
Healy Tibbitts Builders of 'Aiea will perform the work, constructing a replacement sewer outfall extension at the Pearl Harbor facility.
The project includes installation of a 2.4-mile-long, 150-foot-deep effluent outfall pipeline that will discharge treated effluent into the open coastal waters south of O'ahu.
The existing outfall releases treated effluent at the mouth of Pearl Harbor.
"It is going out a lot further than the existing outfall," said Navy public affairs officer Don Rochon. "One of the good things is it will improve the water quality in the Pearl Harbor estuary itself."
Construction will begin in about six months, after the Navy obtains required permits, and preconstruction conferences are completed. Work will take place within the controlled access Pearl Harbor National Defensive Sea Area and is expected to be finished by October 2003, Rochon said.
The existing outfall is deteriorating and has been operating under an extension to a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit that expired in 1993. The Navy was advised by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1997 that a new permit would limit the discharge of nutrients and metals to levels below those now permitted.
The Navy analyzed the impacts of constructing and operating the deep ocean outfall in an Environmental Impact Statement released in 1996 and analyzed six alternatives. The Navy held public meetings and review periods before publishing its final EIS.
Residents expressed concern about protecting the green sea turtle and the endangered Hawaiian stilt, but construction activities will not adversely affect these species, according to the Navy.
The EPA also requested that the Navy take "appropriate and practicable steps" to minimize adverse impacts to coral, transplant living coral, remove marine debris and enhance the marine habitat.
