An elite Coast Guard team that responds to oil and hazardous-material spills has been dispatched to Hawaii to offer its expertise in the response and cleanup of the 233,000-gallon molasses spill reported a week ago in Honolulu Harbor, U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz announced Sunday.
Schatz described the Pacific Strike Team, which is part of the Coast Guard’s National Strike Force, as the “cream of the crop.”
“These are really the all-stars when it comes to disaster response and management, and this is going to be tremendously helpful as we continue to work to get this situation under control,” the senator said Sunday in a phone interview from Washington, D.C.
Schatz said the deployment of the team puts Hawaii in the best position possible to ensure that the harbor’s severely affected marine environment can recover as quickly as possible. Members of the team will work with experts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency who are already on scene.
The spill was reported a week ago today, but Matson Inc.’s incident commander said Saturday that the spilled molasses was likely pumping through a faulty pipe from Sept. 7 around 6 p.m. to the morning of Sept. 8.
Schatz said NOAA and the EPA were brought in Wednesday and that “a more full-fledged federal response” to the Department of Health-led cleanup, including the Coast Guard, mobilized Thursday and Friday.
“I think the seriousness of the situation became more apparent after the first day or two, and we’ve been very pleased with how the federal agencies have mobilized and worked with our state government to get a handle on this problem,” he said. The state Department of Health remains the lead responder.
Preliminary reports Saturday suggested that the contaminated water might be clearing out faster than predicted. Schatz’s office said if that is the case, then the Department of Health and federal response groups would likely move from response to recovery and remediation.
“This kind of spill is unprecedented, and it’s going to require collaboration and innovation in order to get it under control,” he said. “Even the best of the best don’t have a lot of experience with 1,400 tons of molasses.”
Officials have been working under the assumption that the spill can be dealt with only by letting nature dissolve the sugary sludge.
Schatz said his office has also secured federal funding for expenses related to the spill as provided by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, which allows federal agencies to respond directly to releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances.
Officials have hinted that it could take months to come up with a price tag for the response and determine which organizations will be held responsible for footing the bill.
A thorough investigation into what happened, how a similar event can be prevented and what, if any, state or federal legislation is needed regarding the molasses industry is also expected to take some time.
“I think that there’s going to be time to sort out exactly how this happened and how to prevent something like this from happening again, but right now we’ve got to focus on ameliorating the problem in the ocean right now,” Schatz said.
The senator also said he does not have any more information than what has been reported by the media as to what caused or led to the spill.
Schatz said an important aspect to the response besides containing the spill is figuring out what kind of impact it has had on marine life.
Although fish don’t seem to still be experiencing the rapid kill-off exhibited last week, Department of Health officials said Saturday that the dead-fish count had reached 14,000.
University of Hawaii researchers said Friday that all of the coral beds directly below the spill site and the harbor’s west end had died, and it was expected that the coral in Keehi Lagoon, where the molasses plume is drifting, would die in coming days.
“It’s true that it looks better, but until we get real data collected from marine biologists and other scientific experts, we really don’t know what’s happening to the ecosystem, and that’s why we’ve got to get them in the water and collecting information as soon as possible,” Schatz said. “The more urgent question right now is how to prevent this from getting any worse and allow the ecosystem to recover over time.”
