SOURCE: Laurel Douglass (douglassl001@hawaii.rr.com)
SUBHEAD: In the 1960's Agent Orange was used the north shore and then disposed of in the ocean.
By Michael G. Sheehan, Sr. on 23 November 2013 in Island Breath - (hanaleirivermichael@gmail.com)
Image above: Brain Howell mixes up a batch of "Agent Orange". In his words "It takes a steady hand to mix the hazardous chemicals...". That's not really funny - or Agent Orange - but it is pesticide about to be applied to Kauai in 2009. From (http://www.flickr.com/photos/inter-island_helicopters/3774704474/in/photostream).
Personal Discussion with Ah Ming Fu, former Princeville Ranch Manager, Hanalei, Kauai, disclosed that he and other employees of the Ranch ( owned by Lihue Plantation) assisted the University of Hawaii Agriculture Experiment Station at Wailua Kauai, with air and ground applications of Agents Orange and other "colors" on the resort properties in Princeville, Kauai, in the middle and later 1960's.
He said at the end of the spraying experiments the remaining 12-15 barrels of chemicals were rolled over the hillside adjacent to the Po'oku Heiau overlooking the Hanalei Valley Taro fields. Eugena Chow added: Hi Michael.
Thanks for your voicemail message regarding a request to investigate possible agent orange contamination in north Kauai. Please forward any information you have on the matter to Fenix Grange at HI Department of Health, (808) 586-5815, fenix.grange@doh.hawaii.gov and myself, chow.eugenia@epa.gov. We will review the materials and get back to you.
Thanks, Eugenia (415) 972-3160
See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Agent Orange on Kauai 7/10/11 .
SUBHEAD: In the 1960's Agent Orange was used the north shore and then disposed of in the ocean.
By Michael G. Sheehan, Sr. on 23 November 2013 in Island Breath - (hanaleirivermichael@gmail.com)
Image above: Brain Howell mixes up a batch of "Agent Orange". In his words "It takes a steady hand to mix the hazardous chemicals...". That's not really funny - or Agent Orange - but it is pesticide about to be applied to Kauai in 2009. From (http://www.flickr.com/photos/inter-island_helicopters/3774704474/in/photostream).
6 comments :
My name is Sheridan Collins. I rode on Hanalei beach with Kaipo Chandler many, many times. I lived in the Wailua River Lots with a canal coming off the river behind my house. I have been deathly ill with all the weird Vietnam vet illnesses. I am 61 now and still very ill. sheridan616@gmail.com
Aloha Sheridan,
Sorry to hear of your illness. I don't know if you have seen what else concerning this subject is out there. Check out:
http://m.thegardenisland.com/news/local/fate-of-contaminated-dirt-stirs-up-controversy/article_14967c24-e2c1-11e1-be17-001a4bcf887a.html
http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2011/07/agent-orange-on-kauai.html
Do you have more information or details on what happened to you?
Juan Wilson IB Publisher
Thank you and thanks for the information. If you go to my Facebook page (under Jane Sheridan Collins) the whole story is in my bio. I did not know what was wrong with me or what caused all the bizarre illnesses until 9/10. I always knew something happened on Kauai when I was a teenager. I did a google search "Kauai toxic chemicals" and it all popped up.
I worked in surveying and engineering so I plotted maps of the sprayed area above Wailua. They are posted in the photo section of my FB page. Only a person familiar with the old names of places would be able to figure it out. Starting with references to Kapaa as the place the spraying took place. Kapaa was the mailing address. It is clear that the spraying was done over the river and after the USArmy issued the order in Vietnam to stop spraying if wind conditions exceeded 10mph due to drift. I did some research and found the average trade wind speed is 19mph. There is more about the insidiousness of this in the FB bio.
I have a very interesting US Army report here that was written in 1969 regarding the Kauai "tests" - way after everyone knew what was going on. It is clearly a cover your ass type of document. It was found in the Vancouver public library by a man who was poisoned as a child in Gagetown. I made a hard copy of it in case it all disappears. The descriptions in the report detailing the way plants are killed is chilling and remarkably like what happened to my health.
I also took a look at the Kapaa watershed because I was swimming at Waipahee 2 or 3 times a week during the dumping. It also drains out of the sprayed area. My boyfriend at the time lived up above Opaekaa Falls. His mother is Kathleen Peters who was the librarian at the college. I have not spoken to him, but he looks pretty bad in his FB photo.
I have found references to all my high school friends on the internet. All except one named Francis Danari. He got home from Vietnam only to be poisoned more. Another close friend was Roy Takatsuki who is a licensed contractor on Kauai now. It must have been one of his close relatives who died in 1981 as a direct result of operating a dozer during the so called tests. It is hard to tell if any of these people are ill.
I contacted a Hawaiian woman on the Maoliworld website. She told me that she got sick when she was living behind the Sleeping Giant, but thought her husband had caused the illness when he came home from Vietnam. This woman told me she still has relatives living behind the mountain and they all get very ill periodically and lock themselves up in a bedroom with a tv. That is behavior very familiar to me.
Thanks for your research. If you know of any settlements, please let me know. I am currently living in northern New Mexico (no ag chemicals are used here) @ 7,500' elevation in an uninsulated house with no running water.
Whatever happened with the investigation into this? Did DOH and EPA visit the site?
Here is what I found out so far from Fenix Grange.
From: Grange, Fenix [mailto:fenix.grange@doh.hawaii.gov]
Sent: Monday, September 23, 2013
To: Theresa Menard
Cc: Young, Laura L
Subject: RE: Spots Filling Up Fast - Register Today for Hawaii Brownfields Forum
Aloha Theresa,
While we have spoken to many people with second hand knowledge of these activities, and to property owners in the area, we have yet to find anyone with specific enough locational information to make sampling feasible. Current or historic photos of the barrels you describe would also be helpful. In general, we need to pinpoint the concern to area the size of a football field or less to effectively sample the soils. If you have any specific location information that could help us, please contact Laura Young at the email above. We have investigated, sampled and cleared the old Kauai Agricultural Research Station on east Kauai where testing of Agent Orange occurred.
Fenix Grange, Supervisor
Site Discovery, Assessment and Remediation Section
Hazard Evaluation and Emergency Response Office
Hawaii Department of Health
808-586-5815
fenix.grange@doh.hawaii.gov
From: Theresa Menard
Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2013
To: Grange, Fenix
Subject: RE: Spots Filling Up Fast - Register Today for Hawaii Brownfields Forum
Hi Fenix,
I saw your name listed in this eyebrow raising link about Agent Orange on Kauai. http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2011/11/agent-orange-on-kauai.html
I was wondering if there was ever any follow up as to whether any barrels of Agent Orange were found on the ground below Pooku Heeia near Hanalei.
Thanks for any info you can share on this.
Theresa
The Wailua Wildlife Refuge was an EPA Superfund site. However, unlike other EPA Superfund sites, most of the information was purged from the EPA website. The whole mess was turned over the the State Dept of Health which is a joke. When the barrels and one gallon containers of dioxin were found buried on the banks of the Wailua Reservoir, they were put in a shipping container and left somewhere down by the beach for years. This resulted in a 1.8 million dollar fine against the University of Hawaii - one of the biggest fines in EPA history. As a retired senior civil construction inspector I have a lot of questions about this. Who did the work and how were the craftworkers protected? Who managed the cleanup and how could the poison be left without proper disposal? There would have been a substantial pay item for getting the dioxin off the island to Johnston Atoll where the dioxins were incinerated. Was that company paid for this and how did it go unnoticed when it didn't happen? Of course there is residue. Dioxin molecules bind to clay molecules. Red volcanic clay is the soil of Kauai.
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