This is a topic I hate to even get into, especially with my two grand Children in the post below innocently eating their Mango and enjoying life. We in Hawaii are not immune to all these disasters and maybe even more prone if a Hurricane comes to town or a Tsunami hits.
I was talking one day with some contractors that were digging close to K-Mart by the Dairy Road intersection and they told me that they hit the brackish water table after only a few feet and then had to pump water to do their work. The thing that was most disturbing is that they say it had a strong odor of petroleum products such as gas and oil.
With our tanks located next to Kahului Harbor and pipes run underground to fill the tanks from the ships, how likely is it that either there are leaky tanks or leaky pipes already discharging there stores into our brackish water system.
In todays Sunday Maui News there was a story after over a month of dealing with the BP oil spill, about a leak in a pipe owned by Chevron. This pipe located in Utah, near Salt Lake City spilled 50 gallons per minute of crude oil into a Red Butte creek. It had flowed as far as Jordan River and into the City's Liberty Park Pond. They claim it was only 400 to 500 barrels total, but we all know how up front BP was about their oil spill.
Apparently "only" 150 duck and geese were affected. Around 75% were Canadian Geese. They plan to clean them all up, so there's not much to worry about.
It seems to me that if a ship, pipe or tank of any oil or gas were to leak into the ocean off Kanaha, Kanaha Wildlife Refuge or the Harbor, we would have a pretty big clean up and even further losses to our already dwindling supply of marine life in these areas. Don't worry a good shower should clean up the wind and kite surfers. They may need new rigs and all the action could help "stimulate" the economy, if the State and County were able to get reimbursed for their efforts.
I wonder how much the latest Pali fire cost in total for our already hard hit State and County financial system.
Probably just have to tax the remaining workers to make up for it.
Like I said, I hate to delve into these things and apparently no one does until it's too late. I want my Grand Children to have a chance to see Maui as it is. They will never see it as I did, but what's left needs to be protected.
