Ala Wai resistance remains
By James Gonser
Advertiser Urban Honolulu Writer
Kalihi residents continue to oppose a state plan to dump material dredged from the Ala Wai Canal at Honolulu International Airport despite assurances that a treatment plan for polluted muck is safe.
"They can talk until they are blue in the face and they cannot tell me all these things are safe," said Bernie Young, chairwoman of the Kalihi-Palama Neighborhood Board.
The dredging of the Ala Wai Canal is 96 percent completed and work on the final and most controversial area at the Kapahulu end of the canal can begin only after the state Department of Health issues a special waste landfill permit for the sediment disposal. Health Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino will make the final decision on the permit within the next 30 days.
Eighteen people, most of them state or contractor employees, attended a public meeting at Moanalua High School Friday night to hear state Department of Land and Natural Resources chief engineer Eric Hirano present detailed plans for the dredging, transporting and placing of sediment at the reef runway.
Approval of the permit would allow the contractor to dredge the 400-foot long section of canal known as area 3, taking an estimated 1,825 cubic yards of sediment that contains urban contaminants including pesticides and heavy metals to the airport's reef runway for disposal.
"Safeguards are in place to protect the public heath and the environment," Hirano said.
The plan, approved by the Environmental Protection Agency, is to mix the dredged material with a cement binder and take it to a lined pit at the airport. It would then serve as structural fill.
Young said although issuing the permit is likely a forgone conclusion, she went to the meeting to voice the concerns of Kalihi residents. Young wants the materials treated by a process called bioremediation to ensure that they are completely safe.
"I'm an environmentalist at heart," Young said. "The DLNR says bioremediation has not been proven. Well it has not been disproved. I know it is going to take land and money but we have to start sometime."
Bioremediation is a technique using plants and bacteria to remove and break down pollutants.
Hirano said if work is not completed now, it will cost another $1 million to do the project later and bring in a contractor and equipment.
"We cannot predict when and if future funding would become available to dredge area 3 due to the ... state's condition," Hirano said.
Work began on dredging the two-mile canal Aug. 22. American Marine won the $7.4 million contract to remove two decades of sediment and debris that have left the canal only inches deep in some places.
About 184,000 cubic yards of sediment have been taken to a federally approved ocean dumping site 3.8 miles off the airport, according to Neil Williams, project manager for American Marine. Williams said the dredged materials are not toxic or hazardous.
"The same type of material in San Francisco Bay, which is one of the meccas for environmentalists, is used for levy fill in the delta," Williams said.
Williams said the final section of work should take less than a month to complete once the job begins.
