Fireworks disposal needs regulation

Local company officials face federal charges for allegedly lacking a permit at a Waikele storage facility where an explosion of imported fireworks killed five employees two years ago, but a federal report spreads the blame for the blast. The lack of effective rules for safe fireworks disposal needs to be remedied, and a crucial question remains about how dangerous imported fireworks like those at Waikele were handled by workers lacking expertise.

Five employees of Donaldson Enterprises were killed in April 2011 by an explosion and fire at Waikele Self Storage, in a tunnel converted from a Navy ammunition storage bunker cut into a solid rock hillside. However, neither federal contractors VSE Corp. nor Thomas E. Blanchard & Associates Inc. of Michigan used personnel who had "necessary backgrounds and expertise to recognize the hazards," according to a new report by the federal Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. Instead, they relied on the expertise of subcontractor Donaldson, which also was "insufficient" in analyzing the fireworks hazard.

It’s no wonder, since the board found a lack of regulations or industry standards addressing fireworks disposal. It calls for rules requiring "measures and qualifications when determining the ‘responsibility’ of prospective contractors and subcontractors handling explosives and other hazardous materials."

It’s alarming that no such procedures were already in place, considering the high-risk nature of the task and volatility of the items involved.

The report says aerial shells, black powder and partially disassembled firework tubes were in boxes stacked inside the tunnel inside its entrance at Waikele. It concluded that explosive powder was ignited by sparks from a metal hand truck, the dropping or knocking over of a removable steel lid onto the cement floor, or friction from an office chair rolling over explosive pyrotechnic powder.

The major explosion of government-stored fireworks was neither the first nor the last. In 1980, an explosion and fire at historic Fort Rosecrans in San Diego killed three military technicians from fireworks stored in plastic bags in a military truck. In the Netherlands, 23 were killed and 947 injured when stored fireworks exploded in 2000. Last Fourth of July, a volunteer was killed while helping Lansing, Kan., fire department volunteers dispose of fireworks that had not discharged in a display.

The importation of illegal or "contraband" fireworks has been rising, according to the report. Trade statistics show that 98 percent of all consumer fireworks in the U.S. is imported from China.

The fireworks that exploded at Waikele were among nine separate imports between 2006 and 2012 that were seized entering the U.S. as illegal because they lacked required permits. Consumer protectors who tested shipments in fiscal year 2011 found 37 percent to be noncompliant, most exceeding the amount of pyrotechnic composition.

"These quantities are significant, as these fireworks pose substantial safety challenges once they are seized," the investigation board warned, adding that "a major issue for all entities involved becomes how to properly and safely destroy them."

It should not take deaths or serious injury for this "major issue" to be neutralized by sound safety policies. The Consumer Product Safety Commission says it is engaged in an "exchange of information" with the Chinese on standards. Meanwhile, the report is right in calling for stronger rules for companies contracted to handle explosive and hazardous materials.