Navy plans more soil cleanup near Whitmore Village
By Scott Ishikawa
Advertiser Central O'ahu Writer
WAHIAWA — The Navy will conduct additional soil cleanups at its Naval Computer and Telecommunications Station facility near Whitmore Village to get rid of PCBs and other contaminants dumped there between the 1940s and 1970s.
Navy environmental engineer Peter Nakamura said last night that the work is a follow-up to cleanups done in the early 1990s to remove the industrial chemicals from the base.
Nakamura and other Navy officials assured residents at a Wahiawa Neighborhood Board meeting last night that the soil contamination poses no danger to residents living in bordering Whitmore Village. Nakamura said all of the contaminated areas are on base, and none of the dumping sites were in the civilian housing areas at Whitmore.
Navy spokesman Bill Roome said PCBs were used as a lubricant for the base's older electrical transformers, which are no longer in use. Engineers would examine the transformers periodically by siphoning off a small amount of PCB and inspecting it. The chemical was then dumped along the slopes of gulches at the base's perimeter, Roome said.
The manufacture of PCBs was stopped in the United States in 1977 because of evidence of the chemical's association with liver, kidney and nervous system disorders and of a link to developmental and reproductive abnormalities.
"All this dumping was done before many of these environmental laws were put into place, so it was legal at the time," Roome said. "But now we have to go back and clean up what was dumped there."
Wahiawa Neighborhood Board member Ben Acohido said he invited the Navy to make a presentation on the cleanup program, since the neighborhood board was meeting in Whitmore Village this month.
"We wanted to give the Navy a chance to discuss the cleanups since residents lived nearby, and for them to answer residents' concerns, if they had any," Acohido said.
One concern brought up by board member Mary Jane Lee is whether dumped chemicals seeped into area streams or nearby Wahiawa Reservoir, which is used for irrigation and recreational fishing.
Nakamura said the Navy is investigating the gulches and streams for any contamination, but that there was no reason to believe the aquifer below the Navy base was contaminated. He said an additional groundwater study will be conducted within the next three to five years.
Tests done in 2000 of the base's water well found the drinking water to be safe. Another well testing is scheduled for August. The cleanups are being conducted as part of the Navy's Installation Restoration program. The Navy communications facility north of Wahiawa qualified for federal cleanup money after it was placed on the Environmental Protection Agency's national priorities list in 1994.
According to Nakamura, about 450 cubic yards of PCB-contaminated soil was taken from the base during cleanups in 1992 and 1999 and shipped off-island or to Lualualei on the Leeward side for treatment. The holes were then backfilled with uncontaminated ground cover.
Fifteen transformer sites on base already have been cleaned up, Nakamura said.
The Navy will wrap up cleanups of four remaining transformer sites later this year. Four PCB disposal sites near the base boundaries are also being investigated. Roome said the Navy Restoration Advisory Boards overseeing area cleanups around the state are seeking more residents as advisory board members. The Navy's Central O'ahu Restoration Advisory Board meets twice a year to receive updates.
"We desperately need volunteers in the Central (O'ahu) area for their input, particularly residents who are very familiar with the area," Roome said.
Anyone interested can call Roome at 473-2926.
