Posted on: Thursday, November 20, 2003

Navy to tackle contaminated soil

By Will Hoover
Advertiser Leeward O'ahu Writer

For the first time in Hawai'i, the Navy today will fire up a technologically advanced heating unit that is expected to treat some 26,000 cubic yards of PCB-contaminated soil excavated from various locations around O'ahu and stockpiled at the former Naval Air Station Barbers Point at Kalaeloa.

The contaminated soil was removed from Navy facilities at Pearl Harbor, Central O'ahu, Kalaeloa and Lualualei Valley on the Wai'anae Coast. Each site once housed electrical transformers that, prior to 1977, used polychlorinated biphenyl, or PCB — a toxic substance that has been linked to cancer.

Known as a Thermal Desorption Unit, the mobile equipment is designed to heat soil to a high temperature and then filter and separate contaminants, which will be collected and disposed of at an EPA-approved landfill on the Mainland.

The treated soil can then be safely returned to the earth.

According to the Navy, the electrical transformers in question were phased out after it was realized that they could be harmful to humans and the environment.

"But years of use resulted in the release of PCBs into the soil," said a statement issued yesterday by the Navy. "On O'ahu, soil from 21 sites has already been excavated and stockpiled at Kalaeloa and Naval Radio Transmitting Facility, Lualualei, for treatment."

The Navy said an additional 79 locations await excavation and treatment.

"The unit will be operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week," said Julya Wacha, the Navy's acting environmental public affairs officer. "The operation is scheduled to take between four and five months, and the treatment unit is scheduled to be removed from the site in April of 2004."

Wacha said the entire process will cost just more than $8 million.

"Transporting the contaminated soil off island is much more expensive than treating it here," she said.

Wacha said the savings has been estimated at around $10 million.

The treated soil will be returned to the sites from which it was excavated, she said.

Kat Brady with Life of The Land, an organization that has worked with the military on cleanup projects, said yesterday that she is familiar with the process.

"We have already seen and done research on this unit, so we know that it apparently works," she said. "The soil will basically be sterilized, so it won't have any of the natural constituents that promote growth, so you'd have to add soil amendments" to grow anything in it.

Brady said Life of the Land will monitor the thermal desorption unit while it is in operation, and the organization will ask to see the Navy's treatment reports to make certain the soil actually has been thoroughly cleaned.

"There have been a lot of proposals for different uses of the land at Kalaeloa, and the community has been really adamant that they want it to be cleaned up to the highest level possible.

"Our concern is where the soil is going to go, and has the Navy surveyed the areas for cultural sites or burials or artifacts. We want to make sure that there is a full cleanup so that the area is usable."