In Midst of '83 Water Crisis, State Rises to Defense of Growers

posted in: May 1996 | 0

In September 1982, dibromochloropropane was found in Mililani well I at 97 nanograms per liter. (A nanogram is a billionth of a gram.)

The well had been tested as a result of a settlement agreement between the Environmental Protection Agency, the Pineapple Growers Association of Hawai’i, the state of Hawai’i, and Amvac Chemical Corp. and Cowan Co., makers of DBCP. The agreement, signed on March 6, 1981, allowed Hawai’i pineapple plantations to continue using DBCP despite the chemical having been banned two years earlier for all other uses. As a condition of the agreement, the state pledged “to conduct extensive water monitoring and testing for information on the behavior of DBCP (i.e., persistence and penetration) in local soils.”

After the Mililani contamination was found, the well was immediately removed from service, and, a few months later, the state Department of Health began a second round of more systematic sampling of wells for the presence of ethylene dibromide (EDB) and DBCP.

In July 1983, a well in Waipahu was the first to be closed after EDB was found in the water at concentrations above the maximum contaminant level. By late July, eight wells, serving parts of Maui, Waipahu Mililani, and Waialua, were found to be seriously contaminated- and Hawai’i’s 1983 water crisis was in full swing. Chemicals of concern were no longer just EDB and DBCP, but now included trichloropropane, or TCP – used industrially as a cleaning solvent and also present as a contaminant in some pesticide formulations. And the list was to grow later.

Responding to growing concerns nationwide about the health consequences of human exposure to EDB and DBCP, the state Department of Health adopted new, lower maximum contaminant standards of.02 parts per billion (20 nanograms per liter) for both chemicals. Governor Ariyoshi established a Task Force on Water Contamination to look into the problem further. Meanwhile, the DOH and other agencies, from the Honolulu City Council and neighborhood boards to the governor’s office, were besieged with questions from worried residents about the source of the pollutants, their health effects, and possible ways of dealing with the problem.

Reassurances

Governor Ariyoshi and his Board of Agriculture chairman, Jack Suwa, continued to reassure the public that the well closures were precautionary only, invoking the old bromides about the chemicals binding tightly to the surface soil and never moving to such depths that they could harm Hawai’i’s groundwater supplies.

For example, in an August 1983 letter to Avis Kiyabu-Saballa, a member of the state House of Representatives who had requested Suwa ban further use of EDB in Hawai’i, Suwa stated, “The absence of EDB in … irrigation and domestic wells in areas of EDB application served to reinforce the conclusion that the use of EDB by pineapple does not pose a significant threat to groundwater in Hawai’i.”

In September 1983, Ariyoshi wrote William Ruckieshaus, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, urging Ruckieshaus not to cancel the use of EDB. (Rucideshaus’ agency did so anyway the following month – a move widely criticized in the environmental community for being taken so long after the evidence of EDB’s harmful health effects was conclusive to all but a die-hard few.) “To date the tests do not indicate any movement of EDB into the basal aquifer from agricultural use,” Ariyoshi wrote. “Residual amounts decline rapidly and appear to be confined to the top few feet of the soil profile… [Evidence] to date does not indicate a need to suspend or cancel the use of EDB for pineapple in Hawai’i.”

Yet on October 28, 1983, Suwa received from Lyle Wong, the Department of Agriculture’s pesticide branch chief, the results of a series of tests that had been conducted on a Dole pineapple field above the Mililani wells. Results of the tests, Wong wrote, “clearly show EDB movement down the soil profile” to 61 feet, which was the maximum depth of the sample bores. Residues of TCP and DBCP were also detected at similar depths. “Water movement in the soil profile appears to be a significant factor in the downward movement of EDB, DBCP, and TCP,” Wong concluded. “Deeper drilling will be initiated to determine the rate of this downward movement of residues.”

Eventually, the Legislature appropriated funds to support a study into groundwater contamination on O’ahu by the University of Hawai’i Water Resources Research Center. That work, completed in 1987, found that the presence of “thick layers of soils and hundreds of feet of volcanic rocks above the ground-water table may have contributed to a false sense of security.” And, while EDB and DBCP tended to bind to surface soils, if freshly fumigated fields received rain, there could be “percolation episodes” that carried the fumigants into the underlying volcanic rock. Once there, it would only be a matter of time before the chemicals made their way into the basal aquifer.

Modeling studies for DBCP, based on admittedly sketchy data, led the WRRC researchers to predict that not until around the year 2000 would DBCP levels in Mililani wells decline to the point the water would no longer require treatment. Wells at Waipi’o, downslope of Mililani, “would experience a slight increase above the action level in DBCP also around the year 2000, then a slow decline.”

By 1991, Deputy Director of Health Bruce Anderson suggested that the time required to purge O’ahu drinking water of DBCP would be far longer. “It’ll be in our drinking water for generations to come,” Anderson was quoted as saying in the May 8, 1991, Honolulu Advertiser.

A Military Source?

Soon after EDB and TCP contamination in the groundwater was confirmed in 1983, the Governor’s Task Force on Water Contamination began looking for sources of the chemicals other than the pineapple plantations. The U.S. military, with its large presence at Schofield Barracks and Pearl Harbor, was identified as a likely culprit, particularly after the task force began receiving anonymous complaints that military agencies had dumped petroleum wastes in pits and gulches of central O’ahu.

In addition to being an effective soil fumigant, ethylene dibromide was also used as a lead scavenger in some gasoline formulations (old-timers will remember this as ethyl gas). Since the pre-World War II installation of the military’s Petroleum-Oil-Lubricant pipeline, extending from Pearl Harbor to Schofield Barracks, many leaks and spills of petroleum products were known to have occurred.

On August 23, 1983, Governor Ariyoshi wrote Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, asking Weinberger’s assistance in “making available to us any information the Department of Defense may have that would clarify such suspicions on the possibility of military fuel installations as a source of water contamination on O’ahu.”

Weinberger appointed Admiral W.J. Crowe, Jr., commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, to work with the state on the issue. In December, Crowe reported to Ariyoshi the outcome of what he described as a “thorough review of our storage and fuel transmission facilities on O’ahu.”

“The results confirmed that the possibility of military leaded fuel contamination in the groundwater in Waipahu is very remote, Crowe continued. “This conclusion is based on our findings char (1) the U.S. Army has not had any recorded spills or leaks of leaded gasoline on O’ahu; (2) the only U.S. Marine Corps spill of leaded gasoline occurred in 1981, 25 miles from Waipahu, on the opposite side of the island mountain range; (3) the last major Air Force spills of leaded gasoline occurred in 1954. Two were in the Kipapa/Waikakalaua area. There is only a remote possibility these spills contributed to the contamination of the Waipahu wells because of the time-lapse.”

But on January 23, 1984, representatives from the state Department of Agriculture and Department of Health who met with Crowe were skeptical, especially in light of the confirmed presence of petroleum components – benzene and hexane, among others -among the Mililani contaminants.

By August 1984, Crowe reported to Ariyoshi that “two separate occurrences at the Waikakalaua Tank Farm” might have been the cause of the anonymous reports of military dumping of petroleum wastes. “The first was a tank cleaning operation during November 1975 in which 5,500 gallons of unleaded JP-4 sludge and water were removed and treated by weathering in an open pit for a period of approximately four weeks. Since the tank contained JP-4, which has neither EDBs nor leaded compounds, no analysis for hazardous contents was performed. The sludge was disposed of by burying it in on-site pits as was the acceptable practice at that time. All operations were accomplished by Murray Baxter, a contractor from San Rafael, California. Since JP-4 does not contain the elements identified in the analysis from Mililani or Waipahu, this operation could not have been the source of the current groundwater contamination.

“The second occurrence was the repair of a pipeline leak in 1978 near Mililani at Kamehameha Highway. To accomplish this operation, a valve was closed and all fuel in a section of 10-inch diameter line was pumped out and replaced with water. The displaced file (unleaded JP-4) was transported by fuel tanker trucks to the Waikakalaua Tank Farm and returned to a fuel tank. Because of he distance between the removal location and the rank farm, a casual observer could erroneously conclude that the Army was removing and subsequently dumping fuel.”

Crowe concluded by promising to forward to Ariyoshi a copy of a forthcoming report reviewing fuel disposal practices at Waikakalaua and other Air Force-controlled areas.

Leaking Pipes

The Air Force report did much to undermine Crowe’s reassurances to the state. Among other things, it identified 10 major leaks of fuel along the 16-mile pipeline connecting the Waikakalaua and Kipapa storage facilities in Central O’ahu to Hickam Air Force Base at Pearl Harbor. In 1954, 300,000 gallons of aviation gas leaked into Pearl Harbor from the pipeline. In 1978, 50,000 gallons of jet fuel soaked into the ground.

But were the leaks, serious as they were, the source of EDB contamination? Of the 10 leaks, nine involved aviation gas, which contained EDB as an additive. Seven of those nine, involving a total of 516,000 gallons of spilled aviation gasoline, were upgradient or within 1.5 miles of EDB-contaminated wells. Two leaks in which a total of 386,000 gallons of aviation gas were lost occurred within half a mile of a contaminated well.

Still, the fraction of EDB in leaded fuel, including aviation gas, is so small (.03 percent in leaded automobile fuel, and .06 percent in aviation gasoline) that the Environmental Protection Agency has pretty well dismissed it as a cause of concern, relative to the contribution of EDB made by agricultural uses. “This potential for EDB to contaminate groundwater from gasoline losses should be examined on a relative basis,” the EPA states in its “Ethylene Dibromide (EDB) Position Document 4” (September 27, 1983), which served as the EPA’s justification for canceling uses of EDB in early October of that year. “The Agency estimates that over 20 million pounds of the pesticide EDB are applied to soil in the U.S. annually. To have an equivalent loading to soil from losses of gasoline, there would have to be approximately 10 billion gallons lost directly to the soil each year.”

In Hawai’i, EDB was applied to pineapple fields about every third or fourth year, before new plants were placed in the ground. Between 10 and 12 gallons of EDB (the active ingredient, not the total formulation) were applied per acre treated. Not all plantations relied on EDB. EDB was the primary soil fumigant used by Del Monte for 35 years, until its stocks ran out at the end of 1983. Dole, which planted the fields in the immediate area of the Mililani wells, had used EDB only since 1978, when it phased out the use of DBCP. It stopped using EDB in October 1983.

Total sales of EDB for use on O’ahu pineapple fields from 1974 to 1983 were 4.5 million pounds (again, this is the weight of the active ingredient). For leaks from the military pipeline to have contributed an equivalent amount of EDB to the soil, the amount of leaded fuel lost (at .06 percent EDB) would have to be 937 million gallons-more than a thousand times the largest estimates of the volume of fuel lost.

No Superfund Help

For a time, the state of Hawai’i was hoping that some of the pesticide-contaminated well areas in Central O’ahu (at Kunia, Mililani, Waipahu, Waipi’o Heights, and Waiawa) could be cleaned up with federal Superfund money. Governor Ariyoshi, in fact, had asked Hawai’i’s congressional delegation to propose amendments to the Superfund law that would allow the government to recover costs of cleaning up pesticide-contaminated sites.

In January 1986, then-Representative Cecil Heftel wrote Governor Ariyoshi, describing his efforts on this front. “George,” Heftel wrote, “affirmatively establishing the eligibility of Hawai’i’s pesticide-contaminated drinking water wells for investigation and cleanup was a high priority for me during consideration of Superfund legislation. As you know, current Superfund law contains a provision precluding EPA from recovering cleanup costs from parties responsible for pesticide contamination if the pesticides involved were applied in accordance with federal law. Based partly on this provision, it is the position of the Reagan administration that cleanups of pesticide contamination resulting from legal use of these substances is outside the scope of Superfund.”

Heftel went on to describe discussions he had with Representative James Florio, chairman of the House Commerce, Transportation and Tourism Subcommittee on the subject: “The Chairman believes, and I concur, that Superfund response authority, as intended by Congress, is sufficiently broad to encompass pesticide contaminated groundwater sites, regardless of the statutory impediment to cost recovery. We therefore engaged in a colloquy on the House floor during debate on this year’s Superfund measure to establish legislative history clearly expressing that the eligibility of these sites was consistent with the intent of the 99th Congress.”

In any event, Heftel went on to say, “I understand that state and local officials have the Central O’ahu water contamination situation under control at the present time.”

Controlling the situation, however, was an expensive proposition. New wells were dug and treatment plants, employing a costly granular-activated carbon filtration process, had to be put in place. Altogether, the Honolulu Board of Water Supply spent $9 million to address the problem of pesticide-contaminated wells in Kunia and Waipahu. (Castle & Cooke, developer of Mililani Town, bore the cost of new wells and treatment in Mililani.) Had the wells been deemed eligible for inclusion on the Superfund list, it is possible that much of this cost could have been reimbursed by the federal government.

By 1989, the matter was resolved (even though news of this wasn’t carried in Honolulu papers until February 1991). According to a report in The Amicus Journal (Summer 1989-published by the Natural Resources Defense Council): “EPA has declined to invoke Superfund for areas contaminated by pesticide use Although it seriously considered allocating Superfund monies for five sites in Hawai’i where the groundwater is contaminated with EDB and DBCP,… the EPA finally rejected the proposal because it would set an unmanageable precedent.”

Volume 6, Number 11 May 1996

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