Utility problems plague Aliamanu housing
By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer
Renee Strader says there is a power failure at least once a week somewhere in Aliamanu Military Reservation housing.
She says there is a water line break or sewer spill at least once a month.
Twenty-seven families who live on Olive Place and Shower Place were forced from their homes at AMR June 11 following an underground junction box fire.
Recently, the "township" of Hibiscus Hideaway in AMR — approximately 250 families — was without water from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. because of a sewer break, Strader said.
Strader and some other residents of the 2,000-unit military housing complex say they have had enough.
"If it's not electrical, it's water," said Strader, whose husband is in the Army and stationed at Fort Shafter. "That's why we're becoming such advocates about this — it's just getting ridiculous."
The Army, which operates the housing with assistance from the Navy, acknowledges that there are frequent power failures at AMR and says there is a $16 million "routine maintenance" plan to replace underground aluminum wiring delivering electricity from the substation to transformers in the housing area.
But with privatization of the utility system scheduled sometime after 2004, residents say the military isn't about to make those repairs.
"The Army is saying that Congress will not allocate that money because of privatization — they will not put any more money into housing," Strader said. "The thing is, we can't wait for privatization."
Troy D. Griffin, deputy public affairs officer for the 25th Infantry Division (Light), said the near-term solution to the power failures is a $1.2 million "Cable Cure" contract to inject liquid silicone around electrical cables to make them less susceptible to ground fault failure.
"The work accomplished to date has drastically reduced the number of unscheduled outages due to cable failure," Griffin said.
But Strader said what the 27 temporarily displaced families on Olive Place and Shower Place went through on June 11 is not unusual.
The 6:35 p.m. distribution box fire resulted in power being cut to 30 duplexes. Smoke was seen coming from a manhole cover. Residents said some televisions and computers were damaged by the electrical fire. Affected families were put up in hotels by the Army and were able to return to their homes by June 14.
"We have major voltage separations like that a lot. That happened in my back yard six months ago," Strader said. "They dug up the yard three times to fix it, and it's still not fixed."
Some AMR families are concerned about aluminum wiring that was used between the substation, transformers, distribution boxes and residences in the complex that was built in 1978. Navy and Marine Corps personnel also live at AMR.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission found that early 1970s and older aluminum wiring in homes could be a fire hazard, but Army officials said there is no aluminum wiring in AMR homes, and the aluminum wiring used to connect to the residences remains within code.
"The experts tell me that's not a problem externally because these (electrical) boxes were specifically designed for aluminum connectors," said Griffin, who said that electrical inspections at AMR are routinely conducted.
"We take the health and safety of our military families very seriously," he said.
Strader believes the electrical problems stem from a combination of aluminum primary and secondary lines and insufficient insulation.
"The aluminum, when it's exposed to the elements, it's going to deteriorate," she said.
The Army said only that power failures can be attributed to a number of causes, including cable failure, damage while digging, rodents, rocks in the cable trench and termite damage to insulation.
As for the sewer problems, Griffin said the military has spent $5 million over the past several years for repairs to the sewage collection system and pump stations, resulting in a reduction in wastewater spills at AMR.
During the past four years, there were four spills or fewer each year, while in calendar year 2001, there was one wastewater spill, Griffin said. Five years ago, there were an average of 13 sewage spills a year at AMR.
"Maintenance of the electrical and sewer systems at AMR has greatly improved over the past few years," Griffin said, adding the number of unscheduled power failures from primary cable failures is down from 11 last year to just one to date this year — the June 11 fire.
But Strader said, "They are not (using silicone on) the secondary lines, and that's where the majority of the problem has been."
A fire last Aug. 19 that damaged the top two floors of a three-story apartment complex on Milo Place — coupled with the power failures — also has led to concerns about the 13 minutes residents say it took the federal fire department to respond June 11 from Pearl Harbor.
"The military has known there is a problem with the response time up here," said Deborah Coble, whose husband, Scottie, is a Navy chief who works at Pearl Harbor.
Following the Aug. 19 fire, Col. William R. Puttmann Jr., the former garrison commander for the U.S. Army, Hawai'i, wrote to the Navy, complaining in part that the fire department response time of six minutes from Pearl Harbor was not within the Department of Defense maximum of five minutes.
In response, Navy Capt. R.D. Hughes wrote that regulations call for the first arriving fire crews to meet a travel time of five minutes for 90 percent of all alarms — a requirement Hughes said the fire department met.
No cause for the Aug. 19 fire has been determined, but officials say it appears to be unrelated to the more recent fire.
Responding to the latest concern raised by some AMR residents, Michael Jones, chief of the federal fire department, said, "The Navy and the federal fire department are always working to improve our response times."
He said a "milestone" was reached June 13 with the opening of Fire Station 2 at the Pearl Harbor Naval Complex.
Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-5459.
