Politically, Hawai`i is part of the United States. Ecologically, it has much more in common with other Pacific Island nation states than it does with the North American continent. In this issue, Environment Hawai`i looks at some of the environmental problems encountered elsewhere in parts of the Pacific basin under the U.S. flag.
Navy Blasts Reef In Mariana Islands
Two years ago, the U.S. Navy blasted the famous Coral Gardens of Rota — an action that, according to a study done for the government of the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas, has resulted in $82 million worth of damage to the reef.
The Navy’s action has been the subject of several studies, but little publicity outside of the CNMI. One of the most exhaustive studies was prepared by David Worthington, a biologist now with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Honolulu, and Mark Michael, operator of Dive Rota. In their study, submitted in September 1996 to the CNMI’s Emergency Management Office, Worthington and Michael call into question the need for the action as well as the process of decision-making that led up to it.
Rota, an island about halfway between Tinian and Guam, was occupied by Japanese forces during World War II. Since then, unexploded ordnance has been known to exist in the waters off Rota and other islands in the Mariana archipelago. As Worthington and Michael write, “the presence of ordnance at this site [the Coral Gardens] was not a secret to anyone,” with articles and pamphlets having publicized this. Yet, apparently acting on the complaint of a Japanese tourist who raised concerns after seeing what appeared to be UXO near the wreck of a Japanese submarine chaser in the Coral Gardens area, of the southeastern coast of Sasanhaya Bay, the CNMI Emergency Management Office asked the Explosive Ordnance Detachment of the U.S. Navy for its recommendations.
Relying on the advice of an individual who appears to have had little expert knowledge, the EMO obtained the consent of government regulatory agencies to allow demolition of the UXO.
The Navy agreed to have the site surveyed before the scheduled demolition by the CNMI Division of Fish and Wildlife. However, write Worthington and Michael, “biologists were not apprised of the operation until the day prior to the planned detonations, and upon arrival on Rota the following morning, were allowed just one 25-minute dive to assess the site.”
In informal advance consultation with the National Marine Fisheries Service, the Navy described the operation as an “emergency” that would have minimal environmental impacts. Worthington and Michael report that NMFS required “specific actions be taken to avoid killing listed species,” but the documents do not “address the necessity for take permits under Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act. To the best of our knowledge, no permits were issued to either the navy of the CNMI and therefore it appears that either or both the CNMI and Navy are in violation of the ESA.” A federally endangered hawksbill turtle was killed during the Coral Gardens detonation.
“In addition,” they write, “the Navy elected not to conduct a consultation under the National Environmental Policy Act with the Council on Environmental Quality, stating that it was not required, in part because of ‘unavailability of personnel in Washington, D.C.’ and because ‘environmental impacts should be minimal.’ Thus an environmental impact statement was not prepared.”
In early 1997, the Coral Gardens site was surveyed by Robert Richmond and Sandra Romano, scientists with the Marine Laboratory at the University of Guam. The site damaged by the blast was compared with a nearby area.
“Seventeen coral species were found in the reference site, versus only 10 in the damaged area,” Richmond and Romano write. Coral cover of the ocean floor was 60.63 percent in the reference site, as opposed to 1.10 percent in the area of the blast. Whereas the reference site had 27.46 corals per square meter, the blast site had on average just 1.01 per square meter.
“Inspection of the reef and review of photographs and video taken prior to and after the blast revealed two types of damage resulting from the detonation of the depth charges,” they write. “The initial problems included the destruction of sections of the reef due to the physical impact of the blast. In addition to damaging corals, killing fish, and a hawksbill turtle…, the integrity and stability of the reef structure was weakened. Waves associated with a subsequent typhoon dislodged additional corals and sections of the reef. On the day of the survey, large areas of the reef substrata were dominated by the red alga Liagora sp.,” which prevents “the recruitment of coral larvae” to the damaged site.
“Judging from the size of corals in the reference site,” Richmond and Romano say, “corals over 200 years old were destroyed by the blast. The secondary damage resulting from waves generated by Typhoons Yate and Dale hitting the weakened reef structure expanded the affected area to an estimated 29,000 square meters (120 m x 240 m). If the value of coral reefs from Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park in Florida is applied at the calculated $2.833 per square meter, the value of the resource destroyed in Rota would be $82 million.”
But, they go on to say, “these figures are most likely an underestimate of the true damage, as the reference site selected on the southern edge of the Coral Gardens reef was reported to be less diverse, and containing fewer corals than the Coral Gardens site prior to the blast.”
“Qualitatively, the differences between the two sites were striking,” their report concludes. “The reference site was dominated by large, intact colonies of Porites spp., while there were only small patches of Liagora sp. Coral species present at the reference site included slow-growing, massive and encrusting species that were not present at the damaged site. At the damaged site, living coral was only present in small patches, often growing on loose rubble. The entire area was flat and covered in rubble made up of dead coral skeletons. Large clumps of red algae were present in abundance.”
After the Navy’s damaging blast, still more UXO was found in the area. This time, the CNMI government hired a private company, Bombs Away, to remove the ordnance, which it accomplished with no damage to the reef. Richmond and Romano take note of this, adding: “While it is understood that a private company may have a different set of regulations and procedures than the military, it appears more could have been done by the Navy to prevent such extensive damage to the marine resources of Rota.”
John Naughton of the Honolulu office of the National Marine Fisheries Service vividly recalls the blasting, which he described to Environment Hawai`i as “absolutely devastating.” Naughton, who had dived at Coral Gardens before the detonation, says it was a wonderful place. Not only did the Navy obliterate huge, spectacular colonies of Porites rus coral, but, in destroying the sub chaser, it also eliminated a part of history, he said. What was left of the site when he visited it in May 1997 was a plain of rubble.
Naughton also feels as though the risks posed to divers by UXO may have been overstated. “It’s very hard to explode these things, especially after 50 years in the water,” he said. None of the bombs found has ever gone off nor have any divers been injured around UXO, he said. He could think of only one instance, where a fishing vessel and crew were blown up on the east coast. That occurred when a bomb netted in a bottom trawl hit the boat as the net was being hauled in.
Alternative methods to dealing with UXO exist, he said, including encasing it in concrete or gently slinging it from dive sites or anchorages into deep water.
But the Navy, he said, “tends to regard any UXO as an opportunity for training. And the Explosive Ordnance Detachment’s main job is to blow up things. It’s overkill.”
Unexploded ordnance is everywhere in the Western Pacific, he noted. “After all, they fought a war there,” he said. “There are wrecks in all the Pacific islands just full of ordnance.”
EIS To Review Impacts Of Military Training
Under terms of a lease between the United States and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the U.S. Department of Defense since 1971 has been conducting monthly bombing exercises on the uninhabited island of Farallon de Mendinilla. The 206-acre island lies about 45 miles north of Saipan.
According to the Navy, “an environmental impact statement was never completed prior to the initiation of bombing exercises, and in late 1995 the commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Division of Fish and Wildlife and the United States Navy agreed to biological surveys” of the island and its surrounding waters. The studies are to be part of an environmental impact statement addressing all of the training activities conducted by the U.S. military in the CNMI.
The initial survey of Farallon de Mendinilla, conducted in November 1996, “was cut short due to pre-typhoon conditions, resulting in one day of terrestrial surveys.” The marine survey was conducted in July 1997.
The island is home to many nesting seabirds, including (at one time) the endangered Micronesian Megapode. The island population of the Megapode is believed to have been extirpated by the bombing. However, protected green sea turtles are known to occur in surrounding waters. The Fish and Wildlife Service has granted the military a permit for the incidental taking (including the killing) of birds on the island.
Fishers claim that the bombing is affecting marine resources. One commercial fisherman has complained that his boat was almost hit during a Navy exercise a couple of years ago.
A report of the July marine survey issued by the CNMI Division of Fish and Wildlife in 1997 concluded that the marine resources probably suffered little from the bombing. Coral cover in the leeward areas is low, but, the report says, “the windward side of the island does not provide sufficient protection from physical forces to contribute to extensive coral settlement and growth. Although some nearshore areas were found to contain high degrees of suspended sediment, aerial bombing cannot be assumed to be the primary cause. In addition, no impact from bombing was observed. In contrast, the most protected parts of the lee side of the island supported the highest degree of coral growth.” Just one observation of damage from bombing was observed, at the southernmost point of the island, the report stated.
Although the EIS was expected to be out by late 1997, it is not yet completed. Calls to the Navy to inquire about the anticipated release date were not returned.
American Samoa : Pigs in the Park, Wrecks on the Reef
American Samoa is the site of the latest addition to the U.S. national park system. The park, authorized by Congress in 1988, is made up of three units — one on the main island of Tutuila, one on Ta`u, and the third on Ofu. Altogether, about 8,000 acres of dry land (most in the Ta`u unit) and 2,550 acres of off-shore waters are under the National Park Service’s jurisdiction.
Unlike other parks in the National Park System, the federal government owns none of the land included in the park; American Samoa generally forbids foreigners from owning land. Instead, in 1993, the U.S. government signed a 50-year lease with the governor of American Samoa, acting on behalf of village landowners.
One of the problems managers of the park share with National Park managers here in Hawai`i is management of feral pigs. As in Hawai`i, pigs were introduced to the Samoan islands by Polynesian settlers. Until recently, however, pigs were not regarded as a major problem in Samoan forests.
After the islands were hit by three devastating hurricanes in the early 1990s, scores of penned domestic European pigs escaped into the forests. Just a few generations later, the pigs have reverted to their wild boar ancestral stock, replete with tusks, long, black hair, broad shoulders and tough hides.
Managers of the National Park of American Samoa have been working closely with staff of Haleakala National Park to control the pigs, which, as in the Hawai`i rain forests, destroy habitat for native birds, bats, and plants.
Many of those species qualify for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act. According to the park’s environmental impact statement prepared by the National Park Service, within the park’s borders are found two species of bat, two species of dove, two species of sea turtle (green and hawksbill) and several varieties of tree snails that qualify for such protection.
The Reef Wrecks
The lasting effects of the typhoons in the early 1990s may also be seen in the reef off Pago Pago, where several rusting hulks of fishing vessels pay ongoing tribute to the storms’ force.
The hulks are an eyesore. Over and above that, officials with the federal government and the government of American Samoa fear that, without some action soon, they may begin leaking fuel when their tanks are breached.
In recent months, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and representatives of several American Samoan agencies have begun working together to develop a plan and seek financial support for addressing the environmental threats posed by the derelict vessels. The government’s inability to track down the owners of the vessels has eliminated any prospect that insurance might help pay the costs of cleanup.
Plans for removal of the hulks have not yet been completed. However, Captain Frank Whipple of the U.S. Coast Guard told Environment Hawai`i that progress is being made.
— Patricia Tummons
Volume 9, Number 2 August 1998