Island Watch

At Del Monte Superfund Site, More Contaminated Areas Are Found

On December 16, 1994, the Del Monte pineapple plantation on O`ahu was formally added to the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Priorities List — otherwise known as the Superfund sites. The designation was made primarily because the groundwater at Kunia Camp, south of Wahiawa, had become contaminated with dibromochloropropane (DBCP) and ethylene dibromide (EDB), fumigants now banned but used at the plantation from the 1940s until 1983.

Further surveys of the plantation done following the listing have identified still more potentially contaminated sites — this time on land north of Wahiawa, on O`ahu’s central plain. A pesticide rinseate disposal area, a drum disposal area, and two former underground-storage-tank sites have been found so far on land that Del Monte leased from the Galbraith Trust.

The suspected contamination was behind the veto by Governor Ben Cayetano of a land exchange approved by the 1995 Legislature involving some 2,100 acres of Galbraith Trust land for 500 acres of land in Kapolei that the state had purchased from the Campbell Estate. In his veto message of June 19, 1995, the governor said: “If the state were to proceed with the exchange, as the new owner of part of the Del Monte Superfund site, it would be liable under the Superfund law for the costs of clean-up. Region IX of EPA has already begun enforcement action against other potentially responsible parties, Del Monte Fresh Produce (Hawai`i), Inc., Del Monte Corporation, Dow Chemical Company, and RJR Nabisco Holdings.

“The value of the Galbraith Estate land is unquestionably lessened because of its new status as a Superfund site; proceeding with the exchange can no longer be done consistent with the legislative intent of [the vetoed] Act 177, that the exchanged lands be of substantially equal value. Instead the exchange would expose the state to enormous liability.”

Senate Bill 1320, which would have reduced the use of herbicides in maintaining public roadsides, was vetoed by Governor Cayetano. Here are his reasons, as set forth in his statement of objections to the bill: “This bill mandates the counties to refrain from using herbicides and to implement integrated vegetation management programs for public roadside maintenance. However, the bill does not appropriate any such funding to the counties to implement the programs. As such, this appears to constitute a violation of Section 5 of Article VIII of the Hawai`i Constitution, which requires the state to share in the cost of new programs mandated to the counties for implementation.

“This bill does not contain definitions for ‘nonchemical methods’ or ‘integrated vegetation management program.’ Further, the bill is not clear as to how government agencies may satisfy the preconditions permitting herbicide use. For example, it is not clear what type of public notice is required and what type of precautions must be taken to avoid (1) run-off from entering an open body of water or drinking water source and (2) direct exposure to children and pedestrians.”

The Perreira Ranch lost its lease of state-owned land at Ma`alaea, Maui, after Annette Perreira-Niles was convicted on animal cruelty charges for letting cattle starve to death there. However, the Perreira Ranch continued to rent, on a month-to-month revocable permit, about 16 acres of state-owned pasture land in Kula, adjacent to land owned in fee by the Perreiras and used as a feedlot.
On June 23, 1995, the Board of Land and Natural Resources was asked by Mason Young, administrator of the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Land Management, to authorize cancellation of that permit. “A recent inspection of the subject area revealed that the property has been overgrazed by the permittee’s cattle,” Young said in his report to the board. Pictures Young handed out to the board showed land utterly barren of any vegetation.

Board members appeared dismayed. Perreira-Niles said that the condition of the land was partly a result of having had to move, on short notice, cattle from the Ma`alaea area to Kula, and partly a result of an ongoing drought. When rains returned, she said, so would the grass cover.

The board was not moved. The four members present voted unanimously to cancel the permit, and Perreira-Niles was instructed to put up a fence between her fee-simple land and the state land to prevent any further use of the state-owned parcel.

Attorneys with the Maui County Corporation Counsel’s office have been giving legal advice to the Pueo Coalition, a group formed to advocate lengthening of the runway at the Kahului airport. According to an article in The Maui News of July 7, Mayor Linda Lingle told members of the Maui Visitors Bureau that the county attorneys were meeting with the private group, “so when the other side is moving legally,” supporters of the project will be able to have legal issues addressed. The county’s attorneys were, she said “serving as a resource for the coalition.”

Corporation Counsel J.P. Schmidt then defended the practice to The Maui News, saying his office helped people with queries all the time, “whether it’s Pueo or the people in the Sierra Club.” Leaders of the Sierra Club on Maui, when reached by Environment Hawai`i, could not recall ever seeking any assistance from the county.

Jimmy Rust, a leader of the Pueo Coalition, said in a letter published in The Maui News that his group and the county “are allies in this cause. We both view the runway extension as a vital part of the community’s infrastructure and progress. As allies, it is natural that we share our resources to achieve this very important goal.”

Isaac Hall, an attorney representing several individuals and groups that have sued the county and state over the runway expansion plans, expressed anger over the use of public money to aid a private group. “That is an illegal expenditure of public money. This is a breach of the public trust and taxpayers have a right to be reimbursed.”

Volume 6, Number 2 August 1995