Editorial

Are We Killing Our Kids? Groundwater Merits Better Protection

Is Hawai`i’s groundwater safe?

The question cannot be answered with an unqualified yes or no. In all too many areas of the state, some pesticides continue to leach into aquifers, decades after the pesticides have been banned. Others that are known to pose risks to groundwater safety (atrazine first among them) remain in heavy use.

Still other pesticides may be used in limited areas, but can nonetheless harm local water supplies. For example, alachlor, a herbicide used on corn in Waimanalo, turned up in a Board of Water Supply well in 1994, at concentrations at or near the federal maximum contaminant level. (The well has since been pulled out of service.)

Across the state, wells have been closed or expensive treatment methods have had to be installed to keep levels of contaminants in municipal supplies below safe drinking water standards. The total cost to the public — never yet calculated — would have to include costs of developing new water sources to replace those lost to contamination, as well as past and future costs over the last 14 years (at anywhere from 5 cents to 9 cents per 1,000 gallons) of treating water to rid it of such contaminants as DBCP, EDB, and TCP.

Yet in all the debates over pesticide usage in Hawai`i, these costs have not entered into the equations. For seven years on Maui, for example, pineapple growers argued that their economic benefit from the use of DBCP outweighed any health benefit that would be derived from banning the chemical’s use. Similar arguments were used to prolong the use of heptachlor and EDB in Hawai`i.

If there was any economic benefit from these decisions (and we presume there have been), they have not been used to offset the real environmental and health costs. So that a few millions of dollars could go to state’s largest agricultural corporations, Hawai`i residents are having to pick up the environmental tab, which, accumulating for the last 15 years and running into the future for at least that long, could easily add up to hundreds of millions of dollars.

Progress, of a Sort

Past regulation of contaminants faced a number of constraints. First, there was the inability of easily available testing methods to detect the presence of chemicals below a certain level. Then, too, there was the rather limited scientific knowledge of the effects of the contaminants on human health. Usually, if a chemical was known or suspected to be cancer-causing, it was more easily banned, with most other health effects regarded as short-term or reversible. Finally, there was the political constraint: economically powerful growers had politically powerful friends who were willing to use that power to affect pesticide policy. Absent aggressive opposition from a well-informed, articulate public, the growers usually were able to carry the day in matters of pesticide regulation.

Several of these constraints have been removed. Testing for the presence of contaminants down to the part-per-trillion level is routine, with even more sophisticated testing possible. This technological change theoretically allows maximum contaminant levels to be revised downward, should scientific studies point in that direction.

That leads to the second point: the frontiers of scientific knowledge about the health effects of many pesticide formulations advance almost daily. Since 1992, a new theory to explain the workings of many of these chemicals in the human body has been developed. By mimicking the activity of the body’s own naturally produced hormones, these chemicals can disrupt the workings of the body’s endocrine system, which governs growth, reproduction, and other vital functions. If a chemical’s potential to interfere with the body’s endocrine system is used as a basis for regulating exposure, one might reasonably expect (and hope) to see maximum contaminant levels made even more stringent.

But the political constraint remains. Despite the shift of the dominant agricultural businesses into other economic endeavors (resorts and housing, to name but two), agriculture continues to enjoy strong political support. Through a federal Department of Defense appropriation (arranged through Hawai`i’s senior senator), efforts of farmers to diversify the state’s agriculture are receiving a multi-million dollar boost. Any impediment to that, such as a move toward tighter pesticide restrictions, would probably be strongly opposed.

Yet, as lessons of the past amply show, economic benefit is a poor reason to ignore or discount legitimate concerns over the effects of agricultural chemicals on the health of Hawai`i’s residents.

Future Issues

In light of ongoing water contamination, the state Department of Health must be able to provide concerned residents with easily understood and comprehensive lists of contaminated wells. In the past, the department produced maps showing areas where contaminants had been found, but the maps were missing such key information as the sensitivity of the tests used and the precise location of the wells.

The Department of Health is preparing new water-contamination maps, which are scheduled to be released later this year. We hope they will take to heart some of the criticisms of their past efforts and look forward to seeing the maps receive broad distribution.

But one can also ask why the Department of Health has not done any follow-up studies of the people at Kunia Camp, exposed for more than three years to high levels of EDB and DBCP in their drinking water. A study done in 1981 was suggestive of possible health effects and recommended follow-up work. Nothing has been done.

In the past, it has been argued that the Department of Agriculture is too closely tied to the agricultural community to serve as its regulator as well. In the area of pesticide regulation, the department appears to be making a conscientious effort, but in face of the daunting problems posed by the growth of diversified ag, it faces an uphill battle. Its files of warning notices and enforcement efforts suggest that its present level of enforcement and monitoring is woefully inadequate to prevent future problems ranging from worker health to water contamination to pesticide residues on marketed produce.

It may be time, also, to place more stringent rules on what can be used in Hawai`i. At the moment, growers can ask the state to approve for local use any chemical registered for use with the Environmental Protection Agency, and chances are good the Department of Agriculture will license it for use here. California has a far more restrictive approach, which bars use of chemicals that have a tendency to leach into groundwater supplies. That might be a good model for Hawai`i to emulate.

Finally, the state must make a serious effort to move agriculture away from its dependence on chemical pest control and in the direction of low-input, sustainable agriculture. This will not happen, though, without incentives and education of both buyers and sellers of produce. Consumers need to learn that fruit can be at once wholesome and blemished; sellers need to know that produce grown without chemicals has a ready market.

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The HELCO Decision : What Does It Mean?

On a three-to-two vote, the Board of Land and Natural Resources denied the application of Hawai`i Electric Light Company to expand its power plant at Ke`ahole, Hawai`i. Or did it?

HELCO claims it didn’t. Any decision short of a four-vote majority, it claims, misses the legal mark necessary for the board to take “action.” Therefore, HELCO argues, inasmuch as the board has failed to “act” within the required time frame on HELCO’s application, it can go ahead and bring in the heavy equipment without further by-your-leave from the Land Board.

While the courts might bring some finality to the issue, neither the Land Board nor HELCO has any announced intention to take the matter before a judge. The situation remains unsettled — and unsettling. Perhaps the Legislature, if it can be distracted from its unproductive preoccupation with same-sex marriage, can find time to clear up the statutory fog.

In the meantime, the BLNR will remain a highly valued venue for potential developers of Conservation land. Rather than seek redistricting of their property by the state Land Use Commission (requiring affirmative approval of at least six members), they might do well to follow HELCO’s lead. Win over just three BLNR members (only two if you can disqualify a third), and you’re home free.

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Many Thanks

Heartfelt appreciation is extended to the following for their generous recent support:
Paul and Tanya Alston; Denise Antolini; Margaret Aurand;

Paul Banko; Maile and John Bay; Christopher Bouslog; Harold Bronstein; Jeff Burgett;

Barbara Campbell; Kimo Campbell; Ed Clark; Sheila Conant; Mary M. Cooke; Lloyd Cotsen;

Gavan Daws; Frances Delany; Fred Dodge; Leo Drey; Anne Earhart; Mary Miho Finley; David

Frankel; Claudine [check] Gilles;

David Hagino; Chauncey Hew; Lela Hubbard; Robert Irvine; Casey Jarman and William

Gilmartin; Lenore S. Johnson;

Annette Kaohelauli`i; Jeanne Kaplan; Po`omai Kawananakoa; Harvey and Mary King; Ken and

Patty Kupchak; Sylvia Krewson-Reck;

Doug Lamerson; David Lassner; David B. Lee; Dr. and Mrs. Thomas McMillan; David Matthews;

William S. Merwin; Cindy Moeckel; Mina Morita; Mike Morton; William Mull;

Richard Poirier; Eliot Porter; Thane and Linda Pratt; Conrad Roland; Louis A. Rose; Diane

Shepherd; Marilyn Simpson; Hoppy Smith; Hugh Starr; Bill Stormont;

Fay Warshauer; Masako Westcott; Deborah Woodcock; Alan Young; Alan Ziegler.

Volume 6, Number 12 June 1996