Residents blast fireworks plan

A government contractor will find another site to dispose of 39 pallets of commercial-grade fireworks from a Waikele storage bunker after Nanakuli residents voiced strong opposition to setting them off on a property in their rural neighborhood.

"We have no other choice," Michael DeSousa, director of risk management, Mission Readiness Group, for URS Federal Services Inc., told the Hono­lulu Star-Advertiser on Tuesday night. "We’ve been told to reconsider. We have to reconsider."

DeSousa was referring to state Deputy Health Director Gary Gill’s remarks at the end of Tuesday’s Nanakuli-Maili Neighborhood Board meeting in which he told angry community members he would urge the contractor to find another disposal location that is more appropriate. If that fails, he would set a public hearing on the matter before a decision is made.

The neighborhood board voted unanimously to oppose disposal of the fireworks in the area. Most of the 120 people in attendance opposed setting off a portion of the 5,400 pyrotechnic devices once every month for six months.

The devices are a second set of fireworks, confiscated by the federal government and stored five years ago deeper in the same storage bunker where a fireworks explosion and fire killed five men in 2011, Gill said.

They were seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection for being mislabeled as 1.4G consumer-grade fireworks, when they were actually more potent 1.3G commercial-grade fireworks, and taken into the custody of the U.S. Treasury Department, which contracted URS, said Steven Chang, chief of the state Health Department’s Solid and Hazardous Waste Branch.

DeSousa, dispatched by URS’ Virginia office to address the concerns of the Nanakuli residents, did little to allay their fears and concerns when explaining the plans by URS’ subcontractor Grucci Inc., a professional fireworks display company.

"Grucci selected this site because it had been used in previous years for New Year’s displays," DeSousa told the residents.

Nanakuli-Maili Neighborhood Board member Patty Teruya said: "We’re not going to support it.

"These are homes that can light up fast. You label these as explosives. You insult my community. It’s an insult you propose something like this. … We’re not a dumping ground on the Waianae Coast."

Dixie Kalamau, a 76-year-old Nanakuli resident, said before the meeting: "I like know why. What they going to move to Nanakuli next? We have PVT (landfill for construction and demolition and solid waste material). We have the landfill (Waimanalo Gulch Landfill, Oahu’s only solid-waste landfill). Illegal fireworks?"

She said a health official said the fireworks disposal would last only 25 minutes. "What does he mean? It’s OK? To me, it’s not OK. Period.

"Whatever happened in a bunker can happen here," she said. "Same thing."

Farmers expressed concerns that the large amount of fireworks would startle livestock, chickens and pets, cause them to bolt and affect egg production. Others were concerned about the health and safety of residents, including children and kupuna, renters who live on the property and homes all around.

Some suggestions for disposing of the fireworks were detonating them in a nearby quarry, putting them out on a barge, soaking them in salt water and taking them to a military site for detonation or a munitions dump.

DeSousa said Grucci’s plan was to remove the fireworks from the bunker where the fatal explosion took place, store them in another bunker at the same Waikele facility, and truck 900 devices at a time to the proposed private property at 87-879 Paakea Road. The 1-inch-diameter tubes, 10 inches high, would be electronically fired up about 25 to 50 feet high, after 8 p.m.

"It will roughly take seven minutes to burn out 900 cakes," he said.

DeSousa said residents had a misconception that it would be stored at this location.

However, the public notice published Oct. 14 is for "an emergency permit for treatment and storage of waste fireworks to Grucci Inc., operator, and Robert Hoohuli, landowner," immediately followed by the Paakea Road address.

The notice makes no mention of storage continuing at Waikele, only that they are currently stored there and need to be disposed of due to shelf life.

Neighborhood board members asked the Health Department to come to the community directly prior to publishing a public notice on such matters.

Chang said the department has dealt with munitions disposal by the military, including the Army, which brought in special equipment from the mainland to detonate a large amount of devices, but that equipment was returned.

He said the Health Department is looking into detonating the fireworks at Schofield Barracks, but that would require the Army to accept it.

He said in police-confiscated fireworks, the usual method is to put them into a 55-gallon barrel and explode them.

A 2013 federal report on the 2011 explosion and fire that killed five Donaldson Enterprises Inc. workers said the company obtained a 90-day emergency hazardous waste disposal permit to destroy the fireworks, which is what Grucci is seeking.

The report said that while the Health Department requested Donaldson’s disposal plan, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board found no evidence Health Department personnel conducted additional analysis to better understand Donaldson’s plan.