Toxic site poses hazard to HCC expansion plan
By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer
The 12-foot fence surrounding the old Kapalama incinerator site next to Honolulu Community College has broken and toppled in several places, and the dust protector is torn and ragged, revealing two mountainous piles of dirt beyond.
Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser
Less than 100 feet away, preschool-age children run across the grass shrieking, part of a campus daycare program that looks after 30 youngsters while their parents attend classes.
The property behind Honolulu Community College, promised to the campus, awaits city cleanup of a 4-acre site where an old incinerator stood. After 25 years and millions spent, the job still is not complete.
A peaceful scene on a sunny afternoon, except that the dirt in the heaps is contaminated with high levels of lead and other heavy metals, which also might be in any dust that blows.
The 3.8-acre parcel promised to the community college for expansion has been waiting 25 years for cleanup. The incinerator was idled in the mid-1970s and demolished five years ago, but the terms of a cleanup agreement before the city returns the land to the state have yet to be met.
"Just the fence itself is a safety hazard," said HCC Provost Ramsey Pedersen, striding across campus and pointing out the dilapidated structure. "We need the land desperately. We had a lot of high hopes when the city stepped in."
The site never provided easy answers, Pedersen said. It took years of discussions to decide what to do with it, and the cleanup process has been complex.
"It was never a priority of the state," he said. "And the city has its own budgetary issues, and putting $6 million into cleaning up property to turn over to the state wasn't real high."
Though the administration of Mayor Jeremy Harris has been pushing to finish the project with help from Kalihi City Councilman Jon Yoshimura, years of sporadic attention are creating a cascade of new problems, including the potential lead hazard for young children because of a missing dust shield; the hazard for homeless transients who sleep on the ground under the broken-down fence; and continual postponement of HCC expansion plans.
"Too much lead intake slows down the development of a growing brain," said Department of Health toxicologist Leslie Au. "(But) you would only be speculating how much leaded dust was getting across. The philosophy of the Department of Health is to reduce exposure wherever possible. (With) the posts being down and the lack of a dust fence, the city better shape up or pack (the dirt) up and move it out."
On Feb. 1, the Health Department sent a letter to the city asking that options be spelled out for removal of the dirt by truckload, including safety measures during removal and dumping.
The letter also asked that the city address "potential hazards" of the fence toppling, including "The potential for fugitive dust emissions from the site impacting nearby residents, students and workers ... and the potential for unauthorized access to the site by persons entering through breaches in the fence."
"We would be concerned about people directly inhaling dust blowing around," said Eric Sadoyama, environmental health specialist in the Health Department's Office of Hazard Evaluation and Emergency Response.
Sadoyama said recent rains have kept the dust down, and weeds help keep the soil from blowing.
"Based on the weather and vegetation on the site, I'm not too concerned about dust clouds coming off the site today — but it's a potential issue if things were to change," he said.
There's no final decision yet on when or how the site will be cleaned to make it safe and useful. The City's Department of Design and Construction is involved in the project, but calls for comment were not returned.
Dean Masuno, a spokesman for Yoshimura, said more money must be appropriated in the coming city budget if work is to continue. The budget is expected to include $2.5 million for new cleanup, he said, but it won't take effect until July 1.
Several years ago the city spent $6 million to $7 million to clean some contaminants from a portion of the dirt.
Meanwhile, Pedersen and HCC wait, as do plans to build a Technology Training Center for more than 500 students majoring in computing electronics and networking technology, and a building for the early childhood education program now housed in portables.
"We're busting at the seams," said Pedersen. "We have the strongest demand in the state for information technology certification, with 1,300 course registrations and certifications in our first year."
Sadoyama said a spokesman from the city Department of Design and Construction had told him the city hoped temporarily to
"hydromulch" exposed areas of the contaminated soil and build a supplementary fence on the HCC side to keep dust down.
Final cleanup options are difficult and expensive. There is no easy way to get rid of the contaminated soil, as deep as five feet in some spots. Sadoyama said the city had told him it was considering three cleanup alternatives:
- Soil washing, estimated at $4.7 million. Some of this has been done on a limited basis, but is slow, expensive and doesn't always work.
- Stabilization, estimated at $3.2 million. This would turn the soil into concrete.
- Landfill, estimated at $2.8 million. This would entail scraping the surface off, as deep as five feet in places, and trucking it away. With about 11,000 cubic yards to dispose of, this would involve around 450 truckloads, based on each truck carrying about 25 cubic yards.
Sadoyama said the city favors the cheapest disposal method. But Yoshimura's spokesman said landfills are essentially full and cannot take much more. And it is illegal under federal environmental guidelines to dump toxic waste in landfills.
New tests will have to be done of metal levels in the waste, as rainfall over the years has driven metals deeper into the soil — though not to a level to contaminate ground water.
Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.
