Activist, state crew clean up majority of Styrofoam debris

A state work crew on Monday began picking up large and tiny remnants of a floating dock system that washed ashore at Kalaeloa last weekend and turned a leaf blower into a vacuum cleaner to collect the smallest bits of Styrofoam from endangered plants and tide pools.

Environmental activist Carroll Cox began collecting 4- to 5-foot-long sections of wood, Styrofoam and concrete on Friday when he first spotted the busted-up floating dock system as it began hitting the beach.

After getting an emailed suggestion from a Maui landscaper on how to pick up the smallest pieces of Styrofoam, Cox bought a $300 leaf blower from Home Depot on Monday, reversed its blast and began sucking up Styrofoam from tide pool crevices, plants and from buried beneath the sand. He even saw crabs pushing pieces of Styrofoam out of their holes, which Cox helped vacuum.

Cox showed a crew from the state Department of Land and Natural Resources how efficiently the leaf blower worked on Monday and the crew immediately bought its own pair of leaf blowers, Cox said.

“The pieces are so small that you can’t rake them up,” Cox said. “This is the only way. … You don’t cause any damage to the native plants because it doesn’t have enough suction to damage anything and very little sand gets in because it’s heavier than the Styrofoam.”

DLNR spokeswoman Deborah Ward estimated that the cleanup crew collected enough material Monday to fill the back of a small pickup truck.

“We’re vacuuming the smaller pieces to get as much as possible off of the beach,” she said.

The pieces of wood, concrete and Styrofoam that made up the floating dock look similar to the system that broke apart last year at the Keehi Marine Center when Japan’s tsunami reached Hawaii, Ward said.

But it’s difficult to determine whether the dock came from Keehi, nearby Pearl Harbor or somewhere else, Ward said.

Cox planned to return to Kalaeloa this morning with the leaf blower he bought with donations.

Cox estimated that he and the state crew could easily clean three-fourths of all of the debris by the end of today.

“I’ll definitely be back,” he said. “We made a substantial dent.”

DLNR Director William Aila Jr. collected debris Saturday night and turned in a bag full of Styrofoam to state health officials Monday.

But the Health Department is not equipped to test the material to see if it poses a hazard to humans or marine life, spokeswoman Janice Okubo said.

After a weekend full of frustration about the lack of cleanup, Cox on Monday had high praise for Aila and his department.

Cox said: “He responded, he listened and they (DLNR cleanup crew) weren’t embarrassed about my suggestion (about the leaf blower). They went out and bought some and started working. You can’t ask any more than that.”