Atoll still harbors toxic dangers
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Science Writer
The nerve gas incinerator complex on Johnston Atoll has been dismantled and buried, but pollution threats persist on the remote island, and it may be a long time before it reverts to being a full-time wildlife refuge.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it won't take full control of the atoll until the toxic threats are removed and the military makes a commitment to return to resolve any future toxicity issues that arise.
Johnston is a remote atoll 800 miles southwest of Honolulu, where the military during World War II dredged up coral to create a runway, harbor and base, transforming a former sand bar into a small, rectangular industrial complex.
Over the years, the island has been used for nuclear testing, chemical munitions storage, military herbicide storage and eventually for a prototype facility for the destruction of chemical munitions such as Sarin and VX nerve gas and the blistering agent called mustard.
The chemical weapons and the plant that destroyed them are gone, as are most of the uses for which the military might want the island. But more cleanup is needed. Johnston has an impressive list of toxic contaminants, including dioxin, PCBs and radioactive plutonium.
Air Force Lt. Col. Mark Hostetter, the Johnston base commander, said the Air Force, which has operational control of the island, has contractors busy tearing down barracks, storage buildings and the like. Some solid concrete bunkers that are unlikely to pose a future threat and would be expensive to destroy will remain, he said.
"Our main goal is minimizing dangers to wildlife and people in the future," he said. A building that might weaken and could fall on someone would not be left behind. The concrete bunkers do not appear to pose that kind of threat, he said.
Chemicals are the other threat. Dioxins got into the soil during the storage of Agent Orange when drums rusted, spilling the Vietnam-era herbicide into the island's coral soils. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers dioxin, a contaminant in the herbicide manufacturing process, one of the most powerful known cancer-causers.
The Coast Guard dumped into the Johnston lagoon old transformers full of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. The transformers were later recovered, but not before they had leaked chemicals into the lagoon.
Hostetter said there are about 16,000 tons of soil contaminated with dioxin and 7,000 tons of soil contaminated with PCBs. Both are in sediment in the lagoon, generally in the immediate area where they were spilled.
On land, the Air Force is using a process called thermal desorption to clean the soils. In this process, the soils are excavated and heated, and the chemicals are sucked off and destroyed by heat. In the lagoon, the Air Force and the EPA are monitoring the natural breakdown of the chemicals.
The Air Force hopes to be done with its cleanup and ready to leave Johnston by June, Hostetter said.
The plutonium contamination is another issue. On June 20, 1962, Starfish, a Thor missile with a nuclear warhead, was blown up directly over Johnston when it failed one minute after launch. Metal parts and debris fell back onto the island. A month later, on July 25, 1962, a launch dubbed Bluegill Prime was destroyed on the launch pad, also scattering radioactive material.
Some of the radioactive material was dumped in the deep ocean. Sensitive equipment was used to remove the most highly radioactive particles from the soil in the 25-acre contamination area. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency buried the rest, despite the objections of the Fish and Wildlife Service, which wanted the radioactive material removed from the island.
"The Defense Threat Reduction Agency put a coral cap on it, but we're afraid that could erode over time," said Don Palawski, manager of the Pacific Remote Islands National Wildlife Refuge Complex, which includes Johnston as well as Palmyra, Kingman Reef, Howland, Baker, Jarvis, Rose Atoll and the islands from Nihoa to Pearl and Hermes Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
The island was established as a wildlife refuge in 1926, but wildlife uses were made secondary to military applications starting in 1934. The Fish and Wildlife Service has a staff of two on the island, overseeing the well-being of hundreds of thousands of nesting seabirds.
While the pollution issues could prevent the wildlife service from taking total control, there is precedent for the agency "carving out" areas with significant problems and accepting the rest of the atoll, said Barbara Maxfield, spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service's Pacific Islands Office.
For now, though, no decisions have been made, she said.
Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 245-3074.
