Booking open Available Pune Call Girls Parvati Darshan 6297143586 Call Hot I...
marine pollution
1. *Acknowledgement – Some points and pictures have been taken from internet sources as I acknowledge them.
A.Mohanraj M.A., M.Phil., CCFE., (Ph.D)
Assistant Professor of English,
SBK College, Aruppukottai – 626 101.
A.Mohanraj M.A., M.Phil., CCFE., (Ph.D)
Assistant Professor of English,
SBK College, Aruppukottai – 626 101.
5. Casitas
NOAA Marine debris vessel
Annual collection of 100 metric tons of
debris
July 5, 2005
Debris cleanup ship grounded 7/5/2005
has aboard 30,000 gallons of diesel fuel, 3,000 gallons
of gasoline and 200 gallons of lubricating oil
Petroleum HydrocarbonsPetroleum Hydrocarbons
6. Exxon Valdez (1989)- Prince William Sound, Alaska
• 10 million gallons of oil spilled
• 400 miles of shore line affected
• $3 billion and 2 summers cleaning
7. • The Prestige: a 26-year-old Bahamas-flagged
single hulled vessel
• Sunk with 20 million gallons of viscous fuel oil
• Hundreds of miles of rugged coastline have been
fouled by the stricken Prestige's cargo,
destroying wildlife and wrecking the area's
renowned fisheries and shellfish industry.
Spain November 19, 2002
Lifeboat w/ dead bird
sinking
incident
9. BP offshore drilling rig (Deepwater Horizon)
April 20, 2010; 50 miles off Louisiana
Spilling 5,000 barrels/day = 200,000 gal/day
10. Containing oil spills:
• Floating booms- contain oil and then pump into
other ship
• Burning oil off
• Chemical dispersants
• Bioremediation- bacteria
11. • 100,000 marine mammals & 2 million sea birds die each
year after ingesting or being trapped in plastic debris
• WHOI 1987 survey off N.E. coast of U.S.: found 46,000
pieces of plastic floating on surface
PlasticsPlastics
12. • “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”
• Estimate: 46,000 pieces of floating garbage/mi2
.
North Pacific Subtropical Gyre
14. North Pacific Subtropical Gyre
http://marinedebris.noaa.gov/info/patch.html#6
Great Pacific Garbage Patch- Good Morning America 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLrVCI4N67M&feature=player_embedded
16. Large bird rookery and guano mining
In 1857, reported 800,000 birds.
hypersaline
lake (120-
140o
/oo)
Laysan Island
Marine pollution: nets and plastic debris
23. Nontoxic Chemical SpillsNontoxic Chemical Spills
• Sept. 10, 2013
• 233,000 gallons molasses spilled (1400 tons)
• Matson Pier on the Sand Island side of Honolulu Harbor
westward into Ke’ehi Lagoon
• 30,000 fish dead
24. • PCBs
• DDT
Bioaccumulation biomagnificationBioaccumulation biomagnification
Pesticides, Herbicides & other
organochlorines
Pesticides, Herbicides & other
organochlorines
28. • Tributyl tin (antifouling paint for boats)
• Banned in U.S. 1980s
• Acts as an immunosuppressor
• Accumulations unusually high in small whales
• May be associated with strandings
CopperCopper
29. • Leaded gasoline invented
1920’s
• Enters water from
automobile exhaust, runoff
and atmospheric fallout of
industrial waste and
landfills, mines, dumps
• Leaded gas banned in US
in 1980’s has reduced
pollution in ocean
Bioaccumulation → biomagnificationBioaccumulation → biomagnification
LeadLead
30. Sewage
• Causes disease outbreaks
• Contributes to eutrophication
Point Source PollutionPoint Source Pollution
31. 6/13/2006
Raw sewage dump in Ala Wai. Beaches Close!
48 million gallons
Why?
• 40 straight days of rain
• 42-inch pressurized underground pipe
broke during heavy rains
38. Ocean Dumping
total > 10 million Curiestotal > 10 million Curies
Three Mile Island (‘79) = 17 Curies
Chernobyl (‘86) = 100 million Curies
US
Other
Switzerland
Great
Britain
USSR
46. Types of Non-Point
Source Pollution
• sediments from coastal urban and
agricultural development
• nutrients from detergents, fertilizers, leaky
septic tanks, and domesticated animals
• pesticides (home use, agricultural, & golf
courses)
47. Types of Non-Point
Source Pollution
• automobile wastes such as
combusted motor oil, tire rubber,
brake pad dust, coolant, etc.
• waste water from swimming pools
and aquaculture ponds
54. Munitions Dumping
Millions of pounds of mustard gas canisters were
jettisoned into the Atlantic Ocean off New Jersey (1964)
and elsewhere. (Photo: The U.S. Army)
56. *Acknowledgement – Some points and pictures have been taken from internet sources as I acknowledge them.
Notas del editor
HAWAI'I'S ENVIRONMENTCleanup of '03 oil spill continues
By Jan TenBruggencate Advertiser Columnist
Engineers say they have recovered most of the oil from a massive fuel spill early last year at the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, although it's unlikely they will be able to get it all.
Nearly 100,000 gallons of jet fuel known as JP5 leaked from an underground pipeline on Midway's Sand Island in early February 2003. The spill is blamed on a corroded pipeline fitting that failed due to dissimilar metals being in contact with each other on the fitting.
Crews immediately began digging pits and pumping out fuel that was floating on the groundwater. Later, wells with air-powered pumps were installed around the spill site, sucking the fuel and water into a big above-ground separation tank.
The recovered fuel is burned in an incinerator installed for the purpose. The incinerator also burns the atoll's waste motor oil and is used to destroy the carcasses of dead seabirds and to incinerate wet trash, reducing the amount of material that goes into the island's landfill.
Oil-contaminated soil that was excavated during the recovery process is stored on a concrete platform, where natural oil-eating bacteria and evaporation are being allowed to remove the light oil.
As of early June, the pumping project had brought up 74,000 gallons of fuel. The recovery rate was more than 1,000 gallons a day at the start, but it has dropped off to 8 to 10 gallons daily, said Joey Hickey, Portland, Ore.-based project engineer with GeoEngineers, which was contracted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to conduct the $4.5 million remediation effort.
Hickey said the fuel release has not spread beyond about a one-acre area. The farthest from the spill site that oil has been detected is 120 feet, he said.
Tests in the lagoon indicate no fuel has been released into the water. Albatrosses and other seabirds nest on the ground above the spill site, but wildlife has not been exposed to the oil, he said.
"Our preliminary models show that the oil is moving tremendously slowly (through the coral soil). We have an outer set of wells that have never had any oil," he said.
Ultimately, the GeoEngineers system could recover more oil than was released in the February 2003 spill, said Dan Forney, the Fish and Wildlife Service's regional environmental compliance coordinator. That's because some of the western wells are also recovering oil from an old Navy spill of heavy Bunker C fuel oil.
In some ways Laysan Island is the most fascinating and in some ways the most unfortunate of all the tiny dots of land in the "little end of Hawaii." In former days it supported the largest albatross rookery of the entire chain. Although at no time during its recorded history did it reach an elevation of more than fifty feet above sea level, still in it once grew groves of sandalwood trees, dense thickets of bushes, and native fan palms, beneath whose shade there evolved five species of land birds, endemic to this island and not known elsewhere. And all this on an area of but two square miles of sand and coral.
As a result of all the sea bird life, great beds of valuable guano were deposited. This material was formed by the chemical interaction between coral sand and the droppings of myriads of birds during countless years. Man found that guano was a fine fertiliser for his crops. So when guano deposits were located on Laysan, man soon found the way there to dig and ship it; and, as usual to upset the nicely adjusted balance which Nature had established there.
an extensive subsurface brown plume was observed extending from the Matson Pier on the Sand Island side of Honolulu Harbor westward into Ke’ehi Lagoon
HONOLULU — Officials responding to a spill of 1,400 tons of molasses in Hawaii waters plan to let nature clean things up, with boat crews collecting thousands of dead fish to determine the extent of environmental damage.
The crews already have collected about 2,000 dead fish from waters near Honolulu Harbor, and they expect to see more in the coming days and possibly weeks, said Gary Gill, deputy director of the Hawaii Department of Health.
"Our best advice as of this morning is to let nature take its course," Gill told reporters at a news conference at the harbor, where commercial ships passed through discolored, empty-looking waters.
A senior executive for the shipping company responsible, Matson Navigation Co., said it was taking responsibility but hadn't planned ahead of time for the possibility of a spill.
The state didn't require Matson to plan for the possibility, Gill and a state Department of Transportation spokeswoman said.
Vic Angoco, senior vice president for Matson's Pacific operations, said the company had been loading and transporting molasses at the harbor for about 30 years.
Angoco said the company regrets what happened.
"We take pride in being good stewards of the land, good stewards of the ocean, and in this case, we didn't live up to our standards," he said. "And we are truly sorry for that, we're truly sorry for that."
More fish have died because of the spill than in any other incident in the area, Gill said.
The fish are dying because the high concentration of molasses is making it difficult for them to breathe, said Health Department spokeswoman Janice Okubo.
The spill occurred Monday in an industrial area where Matson loads molasses and other goods for shipping. The harbor is west of downtown Honolulu, about 5 miles west of the popular Waikiki tourist area.
Three days after the spill, several patches of discolored water were clearly visible from across the harbor where Matson operates, and fish were tougher than usual to see.
John Hernandez, owner of a fish broker across the harbor from Matson, said he believed it would take years for the waters to restore.
"Mother Nature and the earth seems to always have to deal with our (mistakes)," Hernandez said.
Downstream from the spill, workers collected dead fish in nets at a small sailing club, placing them in plastic bags and blue plastic tubs. About a half-mile away, recreational fishers tried their luck despite warnings from state officials to avoid eating fish from the waters.
Angoco said Matson temporarily patched the hole and the pipe stopped leaking Tuesday morning. The company was working on a permanent fix.
He said the leak occurred in a section of pipe that was not normally used. But he declined to say how the molasses got into the section of pipe where it eventually leaked, saying the company was still investigating.
Gill said the molasses seeped through a section that was supposed to have been sealed off, into the abandoned part of the pipe and eventually to the water.
As much as 233,000 gallons of molasses leaked into the harbor. That's equivalent to what would fill about seven rail cars or about one-third of an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
Underwater video taken by Honolulu television station Hawaii News Now showed dead fish, crabs and eels scattered along the ocean floor of the harbor and the water tinted a yellowish brown.
The state has been documenting the collected fish and keeping them on ice for possible testing. Officials were also collecting water samples. The data will allow the department to estimate the duration and severity of the contamination.
Matson ships molasses from Hawaii to the mainland about once a week. Molasses is made at Hawaii's last sugar plantation, run by Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. on Maui.
Read more here: http://www.theolympian.com/2013/09/12/2719467/exec-company-had-no-molasses-spill.html#storylink=cpy
Industrial pollution from plastic plant; dumped mercuric chloride into bay
Ingestion of Hg tainted shellfish 43 dead and 700 permanently disabled
Symptoms: kidney damage, neuromuscular deterioration, birth defects,insanity, death
Bay is still unusable for fishing and shell fishing
Surviving victims received $24,200 as settlement
Minimata: the strange disease
20 June 2011
Author:
Becky Allen
Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on linkedinShare on email
Health
Almost 60 years ago pollution from an industrial plant in a quiet corner of Japan poisoned thousands. Minamata shaped the post-war history of a whole nation. Becky Allen reports.
Like many who lived around Minamata Bay, on Japan’s south-western fringe, Hamamoto Tsuginori made his living from the sea.
Those of his neighbours who did not fish worked in the local factory, owned by Chisso Corporation, producing acetaldehyde used to make synthetic resins and dyestuffs.
Tsuginori lived on the southern side of the bay, but kept the family boat in the tiny hamlet of Tsubodan, and usually walked between the two along the railway line.
Following the tracks one July day in 1955, Tsuginori tripped over a rail tie.
“[I thought] ‘That’s strange. Why would I trip on this and fall?’” he remembered.
“Then I fell again at the shore. Nakatsu Yoshio caught up with me from behind and said, ‘Tsuginori, are you feeling funny?’ and it was then that I first realised that the numbness and shaking in my hands was serious.”
He was not the first to suffer such symptoms. But before humans became ill, other changes were noticed in Minamata Bay.
Since the early 1950s, fishermen had found more and more dead fish; sea birds died, and so did pine trees near the shore.
Most bizarrely, local felines developed a strange and fatal malady, nicknamed “dancing cat disease” because of the unsteady gait they displayed before they died.
The disease, when it began affecting humans, was terrifying. Unable to speak or walk properly, sufferers developed tunnel vision — described as like looking down a length of bamboo — and convulsions.
In 1956 a local doctor realised they had an epidemic on their hands. By October researchers at nearby Kumamoto University Medical School had seen 40 patients with what became known as “a strange new disease” (and later, Mimimata disease), one-third of whom had already died.
Not knowing what it was, or how it was caused, health officials isolated victims and disinfected their homes; as fear of a contagious disease spread, sufferers became outcasts in their own villages.
In November, doctors concluded the disease was not infectious and in 1957 the hunt for the cause focused on its link with eating fish from the bay, and with heavy metals.
Manganese, thallium and selenium all fell under suspicion, until a visiting British neurologist examined some of the patients.
Douglas McAlpine’s paper in The Lancet described their symptoms as resembling Hunter-Russell syndrome, or methylmercury poisoning.
As researchers homed in on mercury, used by the Chisso factory in a catalyst for its acetaldehyde process, the plant’s owner became increasingly obstructive.
In four pamphlets issued in 1959 Chisso discredited the mercury theory, blaming ordnance supposedly dumped in the bay at the end of World War Two.
Dr Hosokawa Hajime, director of the hospital attached to the Chisso factory, began his own studies, feeding cats on factory wastewater.
After 12 weeks, cat no. 400 developed convulsions and died. But instead of acting on his findings, the firm stopped him studying the waste.
Working along the same lines Leonard Kurland, a scientist from the US National Institutes of Health, decided to test fish from Minamata.
Chisso blocked his efforts by buying up all the catches from local markets but Kurland obtained samples from the public health office and found them contaminated with methylmercury.
Finally, in November 1959, the Ministry of Health reported: “Minamata disease is a poisoning disease that affects mainly the central nervous system and is caused by the consumption of large quantities of fish and shellfish living in Minamata Bay and its surroundings, the major causative agent being some sort of organic mercury compound.”
Sympathy money
It had taken more than three years to identify the cause of the strange disease, but nailing its source and compensating its victims would take far longer.
In 1959, Chisso offered victims their first meagre compensation. Known as “sympathy money”, adult sufferers certified by the Ministry of Health received 100,000 yen a year (worth £99 at that time) — 30,000 yen for children (£30) and families of the dead one-off payments of 320,000 yen (£316).
Fishermen who were losing their livelihoods fared better.
A series of protests netted the local fishing cooperative 20 million yen (£19,800) from Chisso, which also established a fund to help the fishery recover. But everything the company did was too little, too late.
Following the ministry’s announcement, Chisso unveiled a new waste-treatment system, a cyclator purifier and, in a very modern piece of public relations, the company president drank a glass of the water from it.
But the cyclator was not receiving wastewater from the acetaldehyde process because it had not been designed to remove mercury.
Then in 1965, the disease broke out again, this time in Niigata on the Agano River where a factory owned by Showa Denko also used mercury as a catalyst to produce acetaldehyde.
When the Niigata victims opted to take the firm to court, Minamata followed suit.
Final admission
Not until September 1968, 12 years after the disease was discovered and four months after Chisso stopped using the mercury catalyst, did the Japanese government acknowledge its source: “Minamata disease is a disease of the central nervous system ... The causative agent is methylmercury. Methylmercury produced in the acetaldehyde acetic acid facility of Shin Nihon Chisso’s Minamata factory was discharged in factory wastewater.”
The fight for compensation — in and out of the courts — intensified. In 1973, after a trial lasting almost four years, a group of victims won their case against Chisso in Kumamoto District Court.
The company agreed single payments to certified victims of 16 to 18 million yen (£24,000 to 27,000), but the most dramatic moment of the trial came in 1970.
Dying from cancer, Chisso’s former hospital director Dr Hosokawa Hajime at last revealed the facts surrounding cat 400 and what the company had known more than a decade earlier about the cause of the disease.
Pressure to compensate uncertified victims continued until in 1995 some 11,000 people received 2.6 million yen (£17,615) each and Chisso and Showa Denko set up a fund worth 445 million yen (£3 million) for victims’ groups.
In 2001 the Osaka High Court ruled the Ministry of Health should have halted the pollution in 1959. Chisso was ordered to pay further damages and in 2004 the Supreme Court ordered the government to do likewise.
And in 2010 another 2123 victims, previously unrecognised, each received 2.1 million yen (£14,363) from Chisso and a monthly state allowance of up to 17,000 yen (£116).
Minamata’s costs are hard to calculate. Between 1978 and 2010, bonds issued by the prefectural government to support Chisso totalled 226 billion yen (£154.6 million) .
As well as compensation, the 14-year cleanup of the bay cost 48.5 billion yen and removed over 1.5 million cubic metres of contaminated sludge.
In 1997 nets around the bay were finally removed and fish declared safe to eat.
But not until 1998 did the last pieces of the jigsaw fall into place, when a former union leader at the factory uncovered internal company documents.
Why, people had asked, did the disease occur in the 1950s when Chisso had made acetaldehyde with mercury since 1932?
And why at only one of the six factories using a similar process?
The files showed that in 1951 Chisso had changed the process, substituting manganese oxide for impure nitric acid.
The latter, recycled from elsewhere in the factory, often foamed and the foam, loaded with organic mercury, was discarded.
In addition, the factory used water from the mouth of Minamata River, where salt in the brackish water produced a highly soluble form of mercury.
In the years following the change, organic mercury in factory waste ballooned from under 10kg a year to nearer 100kg a year.
Minamata ruined the lives of its many thousands of victims, but it changed Japanese society too.
US historian Dr Timothy George believes that “a society’s responses to an environmental disaster say a great deal about it.”
In his exhaustively researched book Minamata: pollution and the struggle for democracy in postwar Japan, he argues Minamata represents the Japanese people’s transformation from deferential subjects into citizens.
Pac Baroness – freighter carrying 21,000 metric tons of finely powdered Cu sank in 448 m in 1987 of coast of central CA
Tainted water detected 41km down current of wreck
Major fishing zone for rock cod and Dover sole
THE coral atolls of the Pacific are some of the worst places in which to leave radioactive material, say marine biologists in Australia and France. Some of the islands were for decades used for nuclear weapons tests, and several countries would now like store nuclear waste on others. The biologists say that dissolved radioisotopes enter the food chain in the waters surrounding the atolls five times faster than elsewhere.
Ross Jeffree of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation in Menai collected zooplankton from atolls throughout French Polynesia. He sent them to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Marine Environment Laboratory in Monaco to be analysed for polonium-210, a decay product of radon gas, which is emitted naturally by uranium-bearing rocks.
"At a very low population density, the zooplankton contained enormous amounts of polonium," says Jeffree. Average levels of polonium at the sites sampled were five times higher than any measured previously, the researchers report in Environmental Science and Technology (vol 31, p 2584).
Polonium is removed from surface waters by the rain of faeces descending from zooplankton. "Most are tiny crustaceans called copepods," says Jeffree. "They eat algae which have absorbed polonium, keep some and excrete the rest."
Faecal pellets then take up yet more polonium from the water as they fall. "The fewer zooplankton there are, the less faeces there are, and the longer dissolved polonium stays in the water for the plankton to absorb, so it accumulates," says Jeffree.
Although Jeffree and his colleagues studied a naturally occurring radioisotope, they are confident that the findings will also apply to isotopes from nuclear waste and bomb tests. "Caesium or any other isotope that leaked into the water from nuclear waste would behave similarly," says Jeffree.
Jeffree estimates that radioisotopes accumulate in the marine food chain near coral atolls at five times the rate of those released into temperate oceans. Tropical oceans, especially around coral reefs, have low levels of zoo-plankton because their surface waters contain few dissolved nutrients.
The waters sampled by Jeffree did not include those near the former French nuclear bomb testing sites at Mururoa and Fangataufa. But France admitted in January 1996 that iodine-131 has leaked out of Mururoa. An IAEA team is now testing for radioactive leakage from both sites, and will report its findings next year.
Although France stopped its nuclear weapons tests in 1996, some countries are considering using other atolls as nuclear waste dumps. Last month the trade magazine Nuclear Engineering International reported that an international consortium, led by Russia’s Ministry of Atomic Energy, was discussing the idea of storing spent nuclear fuel on Wake Island, an uninhabited atoll administered by the US Army.
David Kyd, a spokesman for the IAEA in Vienna, adds that the Marshall Islands have signed a deal with Babcock & Wilcox, a power industry engineering firm based in Baberton, Ohio, to look at the feasibility of storing American radioactive waste on the islands. Palmyra Atoll has also been discussed as a possible repository for nuclear waste.
This case primarily concerns approximately 378 acres of coastal property owned by James Pflueger at Pila’a on the Island of Kaua’i, Hawai’i. After purchasing this property in 1997, Mr. Pflueger conducted grading, grubbing and other land-disturbing construction activities on various portions of the property without obtaining a Clean Water Act (CWA) storm water National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit or a CWA section 404 permit for filling waters.These activities included cutting and filling to create new coastal access roads, carving away a hillside to create a 40 foot vertical road cut adjacent to the coast, building dams in streams to create ponds, and grading a coastal plateau. The environmental consequences of this construction activity include massive discharges of sediment-laden storm water in November, 2001 which flowed to the ocean, damaging a beachfront home and the coral reef.The disturbed areas had none of the erosion control measures in place that are required under the CWA and that would have been required to be implemented through a NPDES storm water permit.
Mr. Pflueger also failed to obtain a CWA storm water permit for his construction activities on property near the Kaloko reservoir, mauka of Pila’a. (See Figure 1.) Measures to control contaminant releases to nearby streams were not taken during this construction on the Kaloko site.
At Pila’a, three perennial coastal streams were impacted by unauthorized placement of soil and rocks as fill material.Part of one stream was filled to construct a coastal access road in the stream bed. Two other streams were impounded to form a series of decorative ponds. These alterations diminished the value of the coastal streams as habitat for native aquatic life, such as o’opu, and damselflies.
The settlement resolves multiple enforcement actions taken by federal, state and county agencies, as well as the citizen groups.In December, 2001, the County of Kauai issued a notice of violation to Mr. Pflueger for unauthorized work in a Special Management Area.In 2002, EPA Region 9 and the Hawai’i Department of Health issued orders for violations of the CWA. Also, in 2002, a CWA citizen suit was filed by Earthjustice on behalf of local community organizations, the Limu Coalition and Kilauea Neighborhood Association.
Based on plans approved by EPA and the other parties to this settlement, in September 2004 Mr. Pflueger began to stabilize particularly vulnerable areas of the Pila’a property to reduce the ongoing erosion risks.
There are related State enforcement actions against James Pflueger for his activities at Pila’a.In May 2005 Mr. Pflueger pleaded guilty to ten felony counts in Hawai’i state criminal court and was ordered to pay a $500,000 penalty. In July 2005 the Hawaii Board of Land and Natural Resources fined Mr. Pflueger $4 Million for natural resource damages associated with sediment runoff and its damage to the beach and coral reef at Pila’a.
Settlement Provisions
Payment of Penalties: As a result of the CWA violations described above, under the settlement, Mr. Pflueger will pay fines totaling $2 Million to the State of Hawai’i and to the United States.This represents the largest CWA stormwater penalty for violations at a single site, by a single landowner, in the United States.
Injunctive Relief: In order to repair damage caused by Mr. Pflueger’s unauthorized construction, work valued at approximately $5.3 Million is required under the settlement.The primary components of this work are overall site stabilization to prevent further erosion and restoration of stream segments at three sites on the property. (See Figure 2.)
Click the image for larger version.Figure 2. Aerial overview of Pila’a property showing locations of Gulch 2, Gulch 3, Pila’a Stream, and Eastern Plateau where stabilization and restoration work will be done.High Resolution (PDF 1 page 14 M)
Site Stabilization - Under the settlement, work will continue to stabilize portions of the property vulnerable to erosion.This will include completion of a soil “nail wall” to stabilize a 40-foot cliff adjacent to the Pila’a Bay shoreline.Erosion control will be maintained on roadways and trails that are used on the property.Terracing slopes, and planting and maintaining vegetation cover will be used to control erosion at other sites, including a barren ridge at the eastern shoreline of Pila’a Bay.For all required vegetation, the settlement requires the control of invasive plant species and use of native trees and shrubs.
On the Kaloko site, stabilization measures are being constructed and vegetation planted to control storm water runoff from the site.This work is scheduled to be completed in October 2006.Stream Restoration - Under the settlement, channel restoration will be done in the three streams that were modified by Mr. Pflueger. Gulch 2 - In this stream, Mr. Pflueger built an access road over parts of a stream and installed a culvert to redirect the stream.Restoration activities are designed to return the stream to its natural state.The access road will be removed.Establishing native plants along the stream is a component of the restoration. This work is scheduled to be completed in March, 2007.
Click the image for larger version.Figure 3. Aerial photo showing Kalihiwai beach and stream where cesspool closures and conversions will be done as a Supplemental Environmental ProjectHigh Resolution (PDF 1 page 21 M)Gulch 3 – Mr. Pflueger filled portions of this stream by constructing dams and installing PVC outlet pipes to create a series of seven ornamental ponds. Under the settlement, three dams will be removed, thus eliminating three ponds.The original stream bed will be reconstructed, restoring this part of the stream to its natural state. At the upper four ponds, the PVC conduits will be removed, and dams will be lowered so that the ponds are smaller and the stream flows on the surface between the ponds. Native plants will be established along the stream as part of the restoration work, which is scheduled to be completed in October, 2007.
Pila’a Stream – Mr. Pflueger’s construction activities included construction of a dam which created a new lake in Pila’a Stream. Under the settlement, sediment from this lake will be removed, and the streambed will be reconstructed to restore it to its natural state. Revegetation with native plants will be part of the Pila’a Stream restoration, which is scheduled to be completed in August, 2007.
All work on these waterways will be followed by monitoring of stream conditions and vegetation to ensure that performance criteria in the consent decree have been met.
Supplemental Environmental Project: In addition, Mr. Pflueger will implement a Supplemental Environmental Project to improve the environment in a beach community near Pila’a Bay.In this project, Mr. Pflueger will spend approximately $200,000 to replace cesspools used for wastewater disposal at individual homes located near the beach in Kalihiwai.(See Figure 3.) These wastewater improvements will make the water in Kalihiwai Stream and Bay safer for swimmers.
Significance
This Consent Decree, the first combined Federal, State, County and citizen environmental enforcement action in Hawaii, represents a significant deterrent to others who disregard Federal, State, and local permit and erosion control requirements. It is a landmark settlement with $2 Million penalty, the largest CWA storm water penalty imposed to date in the United States for a single site and single landowner, including extensive repair and restoration work costing approximately $5.3 Million, and a supplemental environmental project for $200,000.
This settlement will reduce erosion at Pila’a, restore perennial stream systems, including surrounding native plant habitats, and will lead to cleaner safer streams and coastal waters, as well as healthier reefs.
Top of page
Marine Debris
We can all help our ocean friends
The dramatic and destructive impacts of ocean dumping are illustrated by these mind-boggling statistics:
During the one-day Hawaii beach cleanup in October 1995, 3,564 people covered 82 miles of beaches. They picked up 32,200 pounds of garbage from our beaches.
On Maui alone during the 1995 cleanup, 724 volunteers covered 16.2 miles, picking up 100,381 bags of debris. In addition, each year between 1987-1994, the military, Pacific Whale Foundation, Community Work Day and the Protect Kahoolawe Ohana removed between 6-8 tons of debris from a single uninhabited beach on Kahoolawe.
People dump more than 14 billion pounds of garbage each year into the world's oceans.
People dump more than 650,000 plastic bottles into the oceans each day.
People dump an additional 100,000 metric tons of mono-filament lines and fishing gear into the ocean each year. Worldwide estimates of lost netting translate this amount into anywhere from 12,400 to 135,000 miles annually.
Plastics make up most of the debris collected during beach cleanups.
Cigarette butts were the most abundant debris item collected in 1995.
The U.S. produced six billion tons of plastic disposable packaging in 1986. Plastic package manufacturing increases four to six percent each year.
The U.S. produces twice as much plastic as it does steel, copper and aluminum - combined. Plastic production has doubled since 1975. Oil is the main ingredient of plastic.
The EffectsWhat happens to our ocean's wildlife through our use and disposal of plastics? These statistics tell the sad tale:
At least 50 different seabird species are known to ingest plastic debris, primarily Styrofoam pellets.
An extremely high incidence of young turtles fall prey to ingested plastics. Young turtles commonly mistake floating debris for food. The debris accumulates in the open ocean drift lines (formed by winds and currents) where young turtles forage for plankton.
About 30,000 northern fur seals die each year from getting tangled in lost nets and plastic debris. This represents a four to eight percent decrease in the population each year.
Thousands of commercial shrimp fishermen - from North Carolina to Texas - catch nearly 50,000 endangered sea turtles in their nets each year. About 12,000 turtles die as a result.
The endangered Hawaiian Monk Seal is observed entangled on its haul-out and breeding beaches every year. Lisianski Island, in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, has the greatest accumulations of netting debris in the leeward islands. It is the primary monk seal birthing and weaning area. Weaned monk seal pups are observed entangled the most.
A 1980 Fish & Wildlife service study showed 45 of 50 albatrosses (90 percent) on Midway Island had plastics in their intestines.
Sea-borne plastic is deadly to marine life. Whales, dolphins, turtles and seabirds have died from ingesting or getting tangled in all types of common plastic products:
Balloons
Six-pack holders
Strapping and packing materials
Fishing lines and nets
Plastic debris eaten by marine life can clog the digestive tract, causing starvation.Sea turtles mistake plastic bags for jellyfish, and birds eat bits of Styrofoam. When fish, turtles, and birds ingest plastic, it blocks their intestines. They slowly die of starvation.Plastic debris is like a silent time bomb, waiting to kill marine life.Plastic persists in the environment: it does not decompose (break down) for hundreds and hundreds of years. What plastic breaks down into is smaller and smaller pieces of plastic - which are increasingly attractive to smaller and younger sea life.You Can Help! Here Are Some Suggestions:
Participate in the nation-wide beach clean-up held every October.
Don't litter.
Help clean up our beaches.
Dispose of your garbage properly.
Don't take your groceries home in plastic bags.
Purchase items in bulk instead of small, convenience sizes.
Recycle (reuse) boxes, envelopes, newspapers and packing materials.
Purchase items packaged in card board or paper instead of plastic or styrofoam.
Take cans, bottles, used motor oil, batteries and newspapers to recy cling centers.
Recycle stationery and paper by using the backs for lists and scratch
Hold onto your balloons! paper.
Buy recycled products.
Hold onto your balloons! NEVER release balloons on purpose - they eventually pop, and may end up in the ocean where they can be mistaken for food by hungry turtles and other marine life.
The U.S. Army has admitted to dumping 30 million kg (64 million pounds) of chemical weapons alone into U.S. waters between World War II and early 1970s. But that’s only tip of the iceberg because the Army also says years of record have gone missing.
These weapons of mass destruction virtually ring the country, concealed off at least 11 states – six on the East Coast, two on the Gulf Coast, California, Hawaii and Alaska. Few, if any, state officials have been informed of their existence.
More Munitions Found At Hawaii's Ordnance Reef, ENS, 03/29/07
Source: Environment News Service
03/29/07
HONOLULU, HAWAII - Preliminary data from a study of military munitions dumped in the sea off the west coast of Oahu 60 years ago show they pose no immediate danger to the public or the environment. Nine clusters of munitions not previously identified were found near shore in addition to about 2,000 munitions found in the area by U.S. Army divers in 2002.
Requested and funded by the Department of Defense, DoD, the study was conducted in response to the concerns of local communities. Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, the University of Hawaii, and the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources participated.
The University of Hawaii research vessel Klaus Wyrtke heads out to the study area. (Photo courtesy NOAA)
For two weeks in June 2006, scientists combed an area of five square nautical miles off Pokai Bay, just offshore of the town of Waianae, known locally as Ordnance Reef. This reef lies in water approximately 10 to 70 meters (40 to 225 feet) deep.
The survey team deployed a remotely operated vehicle and trained scuba divers to collect water, fish and sediment samples for analysis by scientists at the University of Hawaii and two independent laboratories. They used seafloor mapping and imaging equipment to determine the boundary of the munitions area and the presence of explosives and metals.
Ninety-six sediment samples and 49 fish were collected and all were analyzed for metals. All of the fish and a portion of the sediment samples were also analyzed for explosives. Water samples were collected and processed for salinity, dissolved oxygen, pH and temperature.
The survey verified the presence of munitions ranging from small arms projectiles to large-caliber artillery projectiles and naval gun ammunition. About 100 previously undiscovered munitions were found in nine clusters near shore.
No explosives or related compounds were detected in the fish samples taken during the survey. With the exception of copper, metal levels in sediment samples from the study area were low overall.
Naval ammunition found on Ordnance Reef (Photo courtesy NOAA)
Most munitions were covered with coral growth and provided some of the only refuge for fish on the otherwise uncolonized hard bottom, said Ordnance Reef survey chief scientist Michael Overfield, a marine archaeologist with NOAA's National Marine Sanctuary Program.
"We weren't able to establish a total count because of the condition of the munitions," Overfield said in a media briefing by teleconference. "They are covered in coral and blended into the environment out there, which is teeming with sea life," he said. "We didn't want to disrupt the corals to see how many munitions were underneath."
The munitions were found in depths ranging from 24 feet to the maximum depth of the study area, 300 feet. Scientists did not detect the presence of the explosives cyclonite, RDX, trinitrotoluene, TNT, or tetryl during the sampling effort. A related munitions compound, dinitrotoluene, DNT, was detected in four sediment samples - three near munitions and one that is not associated with munitions.
Munitions found on Ordnance Reef (Photo courtesy NOAA)
J.C. King, assistant for munitions and chemical matters with the U.S. Army, said the military will "work closely" with federal agencies, Hawaii state agencies and local communities to determine what to do next, but that no immediate cleanup is planned.
"The final report is now being analyzed by government and military agencies," said King. "Once their analyses are complete we will understand better what the data means and what response might be required. We have asked for their assessments to be provided by the end of next month. We will finish our process by late summer."
The Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine, the Navy Environmental Health Command, and the Defense Department's Ordnance Security and Safety Agency are among the military divisions reviewing the report.
The federal Agency for Toxic Substances will be working with the military on assessing potential risks and validating the military assessment, said King.
Overfield and King both said it is safe to fish, to swim, and to dive on Ordnance Reef. "These munitions have been there for more than 60 years," said King, who is a diver.
King said the Defense Department is required by Congress to do an inventory of munitions dump sites in U.S. waters 200 miles off the coasts of the USA and territories by 2009. Military analysts are now assessing the precise locations but King said two will be in the Hawaiian islands, two will be in Alaska, one in the Atlantic, and one in the Pacific.
Naval Station Pearl Harbor on the Hawaiian island of Oahu (Photo courtesy U.S. Navy)
He said one of the Hawaiian locations is probably going to be just south of Pearl Harbor. This summer, based on funds obtained by Senator Daniel Inouye, a Hawaii Democrat, King said University of Hawaii scientists are looking at a site south of Pearl Harbor yet to be defined, where chemical munitions were disposed.
Chemical munitions were dumped off Pearl Harbor in several places, King said - one 10 miles out, one five to six miles out, and one just two miles out in water 1,500 feet deep. "Mustard agent was found in 1999 just south of Pearl Harbor in very deep water," King said.
"The Waianae work gives us a basis of understanding," he said. "Whether the Waianae survey will be used is yet to be decided."
At the time the munitions were dumped at Ordnance Reef and elsewhere, it was common practice and was not illegal. From the early 1700s, it was acceptable to use the ocean to dispose of munitions, King explained. In 1971, Congress passed a law against munitions disposal at sea.
The Defense Department has its own Three Rs that the members of the public should know when encountering munitions underwater or anywhere else, said King. They are - Recognize, Retreat, and Report to 911 so that specially trained military personnel can respond to the situation.
After 12 dives six miles south of Pearl Harbor, University of Hawaii and Army researchers using deep-diving submersibles and remote underwater drones still have not located the main site of chemical munitions believed to have been dumped there during and after World War II.They have found "numerous munitions of varying types, mostly conventional," said J.C. King, assistant for munitions and chemical matters in the office of the deputy assistant secretary of the Army for environment, safety and occupational health, in an e-mail yesterday.He said of munitions recorded by high-definition video cameras are "multipurpose (conventional or chemical)."The Army has contracted the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory submersibles Pisces IV and V to explore the ocean bottom in an area dubbed "Hawaii-05" by the Army. The 2 1/2 -week project will end March 19.Seventeen dives by the submersible and an additional six by remotely operated vehicles are planned.The purpose of the $3 million Army project is to determine the risks of some 600 tons of chemical weapons dumped there. The Army plans to test water and sediment samples taken from the muddy bottom.King said, "The goal is to assess the impact of the munitions on the ocean environment and the impact of the ocean environment on munitions."The Pearl Harbor site is one of three off Oahu where the Army dumped 2,558 tons of chemical agents, including blister agents lewisite and mustard gas and blood agents cyanogen chloride and hydrogen cyanide. The practice of ocean dumping was banned in 1972.The largest dump is reported to be in area 10 miles west of the Waianae Coast.The Army has said it believes 16,000 M47-A2 bombs containing 598 tons of mustard gas were dumped at "Hawaii-05" around Oct. 1, 1944. Each chemical bomb weighs 100 pounds and is nearly 32 inches long.Most of the dives are at about 1,500 feet.King has been a passenger on at least two of the dives."As expected," King said, "the munitions are meters apart and generally of the same type (e.g., a series of .50-caliber boxes, a series of projectiles). This is expected because ship loads would have been from storage, and we generally store and transport these same munition types together."4,220 tons of hydrogen cyanide were dumped somewhere off Pearl Harbor in 1944. During that year, the military also dumped 16,000 100-pound mustard bombs "about five miles off of O'ahu."
In 1945, off Wai'anae, the Army dumped thousands of hydrogen cyanide bombs, cyanogen chloride bombs, mustard bombs and lewisite containers. Charts identified some as being in 1,600 feet of water.
