A fuel spill from the U.S. Navy poisons the water of thousands in Hawaiʻi
orionmagazine.org
orionmagazine.org
Military protection at the expense of essential services is some of the more sobering irony I've seen. What's the point of having the biggest, baddest military in the world if they make your community uninhabitable in the process?
Pearl Harbor is an enormous base. Incidents like this tell basically nothing about the base rate of military vs business vs residential environmental accidents.
And it's not about "military protection" as much as "the US military pumps ridiculous amounts of money into the local area".
Hawaiian GDP seems to have dropped ~8% in 2020 [1] where tourism spending plummeted let's say 50% [2]. I would expect that Hawaiian military payroll has stayed roughly fixed during the pandemic.
This seems to put an upper bound on tourism at ~20% GDP. Quite high! You would not want to lose it, but not the sole engine of economic success.
[1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/187859/gdp-of-the-us-fed... [2]: https://www.hawaiitourismauthority.org/news/news-releases/20...
> Since statehood in 1959, tourism has been the largest industry, contributing 24.3% of the gross state product (GSP) in 1997, despite efforts to diversify... In 2009, the United States military spent US$12.2 billion in Hawaii, accounting for 18% of spending in the state for that year. 75,000 United States Department of Defense personnel live in Hawaii.
Tourist dollars tend towards maintaining that industry and the state just doesn’t have the funds to support large infrastructure projects without heavy federal funding (water, power, ports, roads, airports, IT backbone). Many of islands run on shoestring budgets.
It seems any petroleum fueling infrastructure needs to be moved far far away from ground or surface water infrastructure.
I started a site at postpump.org to encourage land use updates to do this-- many municipalities have done it already.
It is a tragedy this keeps happening and the I am sure the federal government likes to play by different rules. Hopefully one day we can stop storing tens of thousands of gallons of petroleum right next to fresh water sources.
It is already slowly leaking, but could explode any minute.
People forget that these theoretical disasters can become reality.
This is a disaster waiting to happen. If it spilled, it would disrupt the Suez Canal and jeopardize the livelihoods of 1.7 million people who depend on fish.
We (humans) really suck at not turning this planet shit.
> This well, the Red Hill shaft, is one of three that provides water to residents on the Joint Base Pearl Harbor and Hickam (JBPHH) on the island of Oʻahu. For weeks, families living on the base registered complaints of a gasoline smell and taste in their water and illnesses ranging from vomiting to headaches, stomach pain, burning skin, and diarrhea. Initially, the navy dismissed residents’ concerns, but later admitted the water was unsafe for consumption and relocated more than 3,000 families to hotels. Because the navy shares an aquifer with the Board of Water Supply, officials worry that contamination in navy water wells could affect the city of Honolulu’s drinking water as well.
So: the people currently affected all live on the navy base. But the concern (not yet proven) is that this spill may affect the city water supply. Certainly concerning... do we know how to clean an aquifer if it becomes contaminated like this?
I'll add the caveat that the Navy's water system apparently reaches many houses and businesses that you wouldn't call "on the navy base." Watching that unfold was painful, like when a network goes down and the operators clearly don't know their own network. This includes housing neighborhoods for other military service members (i.e. Army, Coast Guard) who work elsewhere, run by a different property manager, and neighborhoods that were transferred back to the civilian community 10-20 years ago.
As mentioned in my other comment, what's most scary is that there's still no solid theory of what happened and when. We aren't sure of the chemicals, the amounts, the timeline, or the mechanism by which the chemicals got into the water. The story keeps changing, and never really adds up. So it does seem quite possible that the whole aquifer is at risk. The city plans to avoid drawing from this portion of the aquifer for several years now.
Here's a local news station's story on it, that might shine a human picture on what's happening https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvtbPAJ2hiQ
In my opinion, please know that what the dot-mil says in public may or may not have anything to do with their internal reasoning. The responsible parties internal discussion is shielded, and that leads to all sorts of results. There are hundreds of reasons, real or imagined, that might lead to "stalling" .. and don't forget, stalling is addictive, and accumulates!
At first, I figured that this was no big deal. We've dealt with water quality issues before in various places, using bottled water or boiling for a couple days, or just running the water until there was no visible sediment. I realized that this was more serious when other residents started reporting symptoms consistent with things that my family had experienced over the preceding weeks and months. The symptoms were mysterious and generally low-level, the kind that you would mention to your spouse but then write-off, rather than taking a sick day to see a doctor until they persist for a month. So we know that we were exposed to something nasty that we couldn't see, taste, or smell until it reached some peak around Thanksgiving.
What's most disconcerting is that we really have no idea how long we were exposed, to what chemicals, and in what amounts. I don't think we'll ever know, since rigorous sampling and testing and monitoring didn't start until after the Navy facilities folks started drawing water from a different well and flushing the pipes. Furthermore, there has been a pattern of Navy officials telling a story that everything is fine, and being evasive about the details, and then revising the story and releasing not-so-fine details later as a result of public outcry. Repeat several times. I don't even know what the working version of the official story is at this point. The Navy, Army (which also has many affected residents), and Hawaii Department of Health have issued starkly different guidance, forcing the Environmental Protection Agency to step in and mediate.
I actually considered submitting something on this to HN a few weeks ago, hoping to get opinions on the situation from some disinterested experts that hang out here. How bad might this be for us? Does any version of the story make sense?
The financial costs to the government will be staggering. Affected residents are getting paid for months of hotels, meals, and incidentals. We're submitting claims for damaged property items. The Navy has acquired dozens of huge filtration devices and flown them here overnight along with contractors to do remediation and consultants to inject expertise. All of this was over Christmas and the peak tourist season in Hawaii, plus COVID supply chain issues, at the highest possible prices.
Systemic problems in waste management on military base land stem from defense budgets that go to fun, sexy projects and toxic waste cleanup budgets that are for civilian sites only.
Expect all 20th century Navy bases to pollute indefinitely. Hawai'i particularly sad because everyone knows what a loss it is. The death of places like the San Francisco Bay ecosystems are less visible.
If you look at a map of pollution sites, it’s pretty easy to see where defense related stuff was active 1940-1980. Look around Stanford, the old Grumman facilities on Long Island and Burlington, MA.
If you look at a map of pollution sites, it’s pretty easy to see where defense related stuff was active 1940-1980. Look around Stanford, the old Grumman facilities on Long Island and Burlington, MA.
pointers?
you forgot, giant, muscular and overweight guys who rule by being the biggest and baddest on the Island. Its a thing, but they lost. Not to the USA, but to a series of really exploitive, unimaginably exploitive settlers, who then were thrown back to their own lands by force by other people that had industrial arms, uniforms, ships larger than your village, compass and other things. The result being a democratic government, but also the Bishop Museum scandal and you know, Larry Ellison (edit almost) owning an Island. The novel 'Hawaii' by James Michner is a palatable retelling of some of that. (spoiler: death and cruelty in the most beautiful place imaginable)
the real story is quite disturbing all around.. I agree with the anti-pollution part, however.. toxics are also no joke.
I really have doubts that the independent sovereign kingdom would have done it any differently
I think it dilutes the independence message as its the worst example of colonization
I highly recommend spending some time in Lanai if you find yourself on Maui. It’s a short boat ride, there’s a couple good beaches, some interesting geography, and about 1/1000 the volume of tourists you run into on Maui.
Thanks, okay, you are correct. There was state approval involved. I'm not sure what regulation that entails, compared to simply providing notice.
It could have gone the way of Puerto Rico- at least Hawaii is a State which makes them technically equal to the mainland.
US and China were in a trade war in the 1890s, same story different century, this placed tariffs on agriculture imported to both unions, the only clever part is that the elite in Hawai’i realized that the tariffs magically disappear if a part of one of those unions. This was accurate. But it was such a clusterf*ck that it is indefensible. The US president had no idea it happened and was against it but ran out of time to do anything before his term was up, the next guy was like “lol awesome” and the rest is mostly history (aside from the part that Congress didn't want it because it meant Asian political representation in a US state, purely race based discrimination)
The fisherman running over turtles (and all the other "fuck everyone but me) behavior is just how things work anywhere tourism is a major industry. When a large chunk of the local economy is dependent on single time transactions with outsiders it creates an massive trickle down incentive to behave that way. You see this same shit in base towns, college towns or any other dump where most of the monetary input is lifted from the pockets of short term transient residents that there is no incentive to do honest business with.
Source: lived it, but not on Hawaii
> AC filters remove chlorine and certain pesticides and organic solvents that the RO membrane is not as effective in removing
It seems like as long as you have a complete water filtration system, you’ll cover most bases.
[1] https://inspectapedia.com/septic/RO_Waste_in_Septic_Systems....
Otherwise I agree with you. RO technology has mostly stagnated.
https://kutv.com/news/local/sandy-estimates-600-homes-affect...
And a follow up a year later:
https://kutv.com/amp/news/local/exclusive-cause-of-sandys-wa...
This is of course cherry-picked. And having a million smaller deployments is harder than one big centralized one. But the anecdote here is that even in a well-off, large suburb like Sandy, the infrastructure that is meant to “protect” the residents actually poisoned them.
It’s hard to say, IMO, that municipal run water on its own it guaranteed to be safe.
If there are cases where municipal water supplies are contaminated and it’s unknown for a while, then we need to address that by either changing federal laws, changing funding sources, or otherwise fix such issues for all.
It was just one example. But stuff like this does happen. Just the other day another nearby city mailed all its residents that there was a problem discovered LAST SUMMER, but all is fine because it’s fixed… now.
I don’t know what the solution is. But it’s scary when it happens.
Or something like https://www.eldoradosprings.com/ or https://rmbw.com/ or similar near you.
Edit: adding potential reliable source: https://inspectapedia.com/septic/RO_Waste_in_Septic_Systems....
They sent me an excel sheet (fron 2013?) with information about tested sites. With the curious omission of measured levels.
It was explained as "levels are too low to be required for disclosure"
Hmmmm...
Also, before taking Hawaii, they'd have to take Guam, which they don't even remotely plan to.
Absolute bollocks. The Chinese are never going to be economically or militarily dominant enough to pull it off. For the US to do it, they had to get in a position where they were >40% of the global economy. Even if every Chinese citizen was three times richer and that the average American didn't get any richer, they still wouldn't get to that kind of dominant position.
> Also, before taking Hawaii, they'd have to take Guam,
Why would the US Territory of Guam come into play if the US gave up Hawaii and it was no longer a part of the US to defend?
The attack on Pearl Harbor only worked because they managed to do it in secret. It would have been suicidal and a disaster otherwise. The US overestimated it's intelligence capabilities, but they were right to think it was an improbable attack. Nowadays this wouldn't work.
China's islands are very close to it's territory, and were preceded by 50 years of claims in that area.
> Again, it doesn't have to be China
Who else?
> Why would the US Territory of Guam come into play if the US gave up Hawaii and it was no longer a part of the US to defend?
For multiple reasons. Firstly, it's going to be impossible for the Chinese to actually hold Hawaii if Guam and it's related island chain is under US control and operational militarily. Fully impossible.
Second, if the Chinese indeed managed to fully take Hawaii, Guam becomes completely indefensible. So the US is essentially obliged not to let Hawaii come into Chinese hands or it's entire military position crumbles.
Thirdly, an invasion would be obvious and Guam is in a really good position to deny it.
While it's part of the US? Yes. If it were independent? Things get a lot iffier. Enough "investment" money can corrupt small governments a lot more readily than a small government in a big one, and a full takeover may be unnecessary for quite some time.
This is, of course, orthogonal to the problem of whether it ought have such independence in an abstract, principled sense of things.
The good news would be that they would no longer be subject to the Jones Act and could freely trade with the US mainland using normal boats like everyone else does.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNqozQ8uaV8
Just because someone else would steel it, does not mean it belongs to you. What is this...kindergarten level morality.
It could be because I didn't make that claim of keeping it because someone else might take it. I only pointed out that someone will likely want it absent a US presence due to its strategic location.
Right...
Quite the strawman there.
Both private and public disasters can be attributed to either willful negligence, incompetence, or some combination of the two. In all cases there needs to be accountability via strong oversight and enforcement mechanisms.
Is it? I see it constantly on HackerNews posts, and it gets no pushback.
Generally, incompetence through complacency or lack of motivation or something like that. Though I’m sure you weren’t actually looking for an answer.