Posted on: Wednesday, May 14, 2003
Officials testify Waipahu sites pose no danger
By Lynda Arakawa
Advertiser Capitol Bureau
State and city officials yesterday told two Senate committees that the old incinerator site and landfill in Waipahu pose no health risks to workers and surrounding residents.
But Ron Menor, chairman of the Senate Commerce, Consumer Protection and Housing Committee, said he has doubts about the sites' safety and that there are still unresolved issues.
Officials from the state and city were among those testifying at a briefing before Menor's committee and the Senate Health Committee about the illegal dumping of materials at the incinerator site and a nearby landfill.
Menor said he will probably schedule another meeting, possibly in the community.
"Basically, it just raised a lot of unanswered questions," Menor, D-17th (Mililani, Waipi'o), said of yesterday's briefing.
Testimony that the sites pose no public health risk "is very much an open question," Menor said, saying that he needs to review documentation confirming that.
He questioned whether the nearby Waipi'o Soccer Complex posed risks, but city officials said they conducted a complete environmental assessment before acquiring the property from the Navy.
A state investigation continues into illegal dumping involving the city's Waipahu incinerator site.
Since March, about 210 tons of buried appliances have been removed from the site, costing the city some $150,000. Two more instances of illegal dumping have been found nearby.
Elevated levels of lead and cadmium have been found at the incinerator site, and high levels of cadmium have been found at a nearby landfill, which closed in 1990.
Brian Magee of AMEC, which the city hired to conduct a health-risk assessment, said it was determined that there were no adverse health effects.
State officials told senators that their goal is to inspect each facility annually but said that would be difficult with only three inspectors statewide.
John Lee, acting chief of the city Refuse Division, said a facility superintendent took it upon himself between 2000 and 2001 to "clean up the area around the incinerator to make it suitable for us and (for) storage as a work area."
"In the process of cleaning up the area, this employee recognized that he would need materials to make the area usable, so he authorized a construction company to deliver things like dirt and rock to the site" to make it level, he said.
This employee did not tell his supervisors, Lee said.
But Carroll Cox, president of EnviroWatch, said that the employee's supervisors should have known what the employee was doing and that it was "nothing more than superficial excuses."
Cox said there should be another hearing "with full disclosure" by government officials and that there needs to be more public participation in the process.
