{"id":63973,"date":"2015-09-21T12:00:10","date_gmt":"2015-09-21T11:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=63973"},"modified":"2015-09-19T17:25:37","modified_gmt":"2015-09-19T16:25:37","slug":"hawaii-5-million-gallon-oil-plume-beneath-pearl-harbor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/09\/hawaii-5-million-gallon-oil-plume-beneath-pearl-harbor\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawai\u2019i: 5 Million Gallon Oil Plume beneath Pearl Harbor"},"content":{"rendered":"

18 Sep 2015 – <\/em>For decades, leaks from Pearl Harbor’s fuel tanks and other sources have been collecting beneath the ground\u00a0near the naval base’s Halawa gate.<\/p>\n

Hawaii News Now has obtained records issued by\u00a0the Navy that indicate\u00a0that the subsurface\u00a0oil plume there now contains more than 5 million gallons of fuel.<\/p>\n

That’s roughly half the volume\u00a0of Alaska’s Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 and nearly 200 times the size of last year’s leak at the Navy’s Red Hill underground fuel facility.<\/p>\n

\"030131-N-5884W-019<\/a>

Partial view of Pearl Harbor with Arizona Memorial on foreground. Pearl City, Honolulu, Hawai’i. (U.S. Navy Photo by Mate 2nd Class Carol Warden)<\/p><\/div>\n

“This is the most egregious, the most harmful environmental issue there is,” said environmental activist Carroll Cox.<\/p>\n

“Oil should not be in the ground, diesel should not be in the ground because they are contaminants.”<\/p>\n

The\u00a0plume lies under a maze of utility lines, making access\u00a0extremely difficult. Estimates for the clean up costs run in the tens of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n

Details about this massive oil reservoir have been leaking out slowly. State Rep. Chris Lee, chair of the House Environmental Protection Committee, said this is the first time he’s heard of the Pearl Harbor plume.<\/p>\n

“I think the most important thing is transparency. This is something that has been happening for years both for this incident and others,” said Lee, D-Kailua.<\/p>\n

“We need to know if there is a risk posed by these tanks and others around the state because we need to stop this before (another)\u00a0leak happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the leaks is well documented. In 2007, a\u00a0tank\u00a0at the base\u00a0lost nearly 360,000 gallons of diesel fuel.<\/p>\n

The Navy deployed oil containment booms and dug more than a dozen monitoring wells and collection trenches. None of the diesel reached the shoreline.<\/p>\n

The Pearl Harbor plume is mostly bunker fuel, which is a heavy, tar-like substance\u00a0that’s used by ships. It also contains weathered jet fuel and diesel.<\/p>\n

Because bunker fuel is so heavy, the state Health Department doesn’t think the oil\u00a0is moving and won’t seep into the water soon. But if it does, it could cause significant environmental and marine damage.<\/p>\n

Unlike lighter products like gasoline or kerosene which float to the surface, bunker fuel sinks and can cover marine life and coral, just like the 2013 molasses spill in Honolulu Harbor.<\/p>\n

_________________________________<\/p>\n

Copyright 2015\u00a0Hawaii News Now<\/a>. \u00a0All rights reserved.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 hawaiinewsnow.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

18 Sep 2015 – For decades, leaks from Pearl Harbor’s fuel tanks and other sources have been collecting beneath the ground. Five Million Gallons are roughly half of Alaska’s Exxon Valdez spill in 1989. “This is the most egregious, the most harmful environmental issue there is,” said environmental activist Carroll Cox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63973\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}