Hawai’i Is Left in Dark on Plans For Cross-Pacific Plutonium Shipments
U.S. Representative Neil Abercrombie is concerned that shipments of highly radioactive plutonium to Japan could devastate Hawai’i. To head off the prospect of “floating Chernobyls”- Abercrombie’s term – sailing into Honolulu Harbor, he placed into the House-passed energy bill a provision that puts U.S. ports off limits to any plutonium-bearing ship bound for Japan so long as the casks in which the plutonium is packed do not meet standards set by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Plutonium is an extremely radioactive element. As people familiar with the Karen Silkwood case may recall, her exposure to plutonium would have eventually taken her life had she not been killed in a suspicious car accident.
Nearly all plutonium is the product of human-induced nuclear chain reactions. In the United States, plutonium is used to produce nuclear weapons. While plutonium can be extracted from spent nuclear fuel and used as the primary fuel in some commercial reactors, this is not done in the United States, where worries over the proliferation of plutonium killed proposals to do so.
Japan, however, is planning an ambitious program to convert many of its commercial nuclear reactors to plutonium-fueled facilities. Japan has a limited plutonium processing capability of its own; until Japan expands that, it intends to pay France to extract plutonium, a by-product of nuclear reactions, out of spent nuclear fuel rods taken from Japanese power plants. Japan proposes to ship the plutonium – 30 or more tons of it – back home. (France is insisting that Japan also take back the highly radioactive waste left over after the plutonium is extracted. Those shipments are not planned to begin for some years; however, they, too, will be extremely hazardous and, in addition, the amount of waste will be far greater than the amount of plutonium.)
Because Japan obtains uranium fuel from the United States, Washington has the power to withhold approval of Japan’s disposition of the spent fuel, including the plutonium. In 1987, when Japan proposed to fly the plutonium from France to Japan, the United States, concerned over the prospect of plutonium dispersing into the atmosphere, vetoed the idea.
Japan went back to the drawing board, and the result is the current plan to ship the plutonium by sea. The first shipment is to occur sometime in early fall. Of concern to Abercrombie, several U.S. environmental and non-proliferation groups, as well as at least two Japanese environmental organizations, is the fact that Japan will be putting the plutonium in casks that fail to meet safety standards set by the NRC.
Unseaworthy Casks
Two of the organizations most outspoken in their opposition to the shipments are the Nuclear Control Institute and Greenpeace International. They base their concerns in part on a study they commissioned by FCO Engineering, Inc., of Annapolis, Maryland. Among other things, FCO Engineering compared the design specifications of the casks to be used to actual conditions known to have occurred in accidents at sea.
“Marine accidents involve significant forces and outcomes that appear to exceed the limits of the standards to which the casks are designed,” the ECO report states. “Shipboard fires routinely exceed 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit or nearly 1,100 degrees Centigrade; have average durations of nearly one day but often extend over a period of days and sometimes weeks. The capsizing or sinking of vessels is hardly an unknown event especially with smaller vessels. Such events can result in immersions to ocean depths of thousands of meters.
“Some of the documentation reviewed, notably the Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories study and the Large and Associates’ study, conclude that the casks would not survive a major marine accident. Some of the Failure mechanisms for the casks that are described are the sinking of the casks in deep water and the resulting collapse of the cask due to hydrostatic pressure; the exposure of the casks due to internal pressures; and the crushing of the cask due to the cask being directly or indirectly subjected to the kinetic energy of a collision.”
The report concludes: “Based upon the documentation furnished, there is no substantive evidence to support any claim relative to the integrity of a cask exposed to the consequences of a maximum credible marine accident.”
Seeds of Destruction
Because the plutonium-bearing ships might make a tempting target for hijackings by terrorists or nations wanting instant nuclear-bomb capability, Japan’s proposed shipping routes are secret. The U.S. State Department is kept apprised, but ports along the proposed routes (such as Honolulu), which might be entered as havens in the event of an accident at sea, are not being informed as to Japan’s emergency plans. According to the Nuclear Control Institute, this is a breach of a provision in the U.S.-Japan nuclear cooperation agreement that obligates Japan to make emergency port call arrangements with nations along the routes before any shipments proceed.
Japan will be shipping the plutonium, a metric ton at a time, in a specially built, double-hulled ship, the Pacific Crane, outfitted with extra fuel tanks that, Japan’s spokesmen say, will allow non-stop voyages from France to Japan. Escorting the ship will be a Japanese cutter, the Shikishima, armed with 20mm cannons and 20mm machine guns. By contrast, the only previous sea shipment of plutonium from France to Japan – consisting of 440 pounds -was escorted by warships from the French and U.S. navies.
Moreover, it is not clear that the plutonium will be used once it arrives in Japan: the private owners of Japan’s uranium-fueled nuclear power plants may be reluctant to undertake the expensive changes required to shift to plutonium fuel. According to the Nuclear Control Institute, Greenpeace International, and Japan’s Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center, Japan’s own small reprocessing plant continues to recover more than enough plutonium to meet the needs of research at its one breeder reactor.
Paul Leventhal, of the Nuclear Control Institute, told The Washington Post: “The mere acquisition of large amounts of this” – plutonium – “is seeding the world with the means of its destruction. What we are talking about is global commerce in atom bomb material.”
A Cloak of Secrecy
Governor John Waihe’e has indicated his concerns. In a statement released in early June, he stated that the State Department had briefed his staff on the issue, “at the insistence of Senator Inouye.”
“Unfortunately more questions were raised by those briefings than were answered,” the statement read. “The federal administration appears to have given much more thought to possible terroristic action than they have to the environment. I don’t think they understand that the ocean connects, feeds, and supports all island people. In the name of national security, the program is cloaked in secrecy and we don’t even know if Hawai’i is a possible emergency port or not.”
The statement listed five major concerns: inadequate environmental review of the transportation plan; a lack of independent testing of the casks; no provision to notify Hawai’i or other local jurisdictions if Japan’s plutonium shipments pass through their waters; not knowing whether Hawai’i or other Pacific Islands have been designated as safe havens or emergency ports, and under what conditions safe haven maybe sought; and, finally, no plan for notification or training of local personnel in case of an accident.
Also, Waihe’e is attempting to get the same coalition of western governors that stopped the previous shipment plan to lobby against the new proposal also. At the annual meeting of the Western Governors’ Association last month, he sponsored and won adoption of a resolution opposing shipments of plutonium across the Pacific. On another front, Harold Masumoto, director of the Office of State Planning, has written Secretary of State James A. Baker, expressing concerns that the plutonium shipments, as Japan is proposing to conduct them, may violate the federal Coastal Zone Management Act.
“The State of Hawai’i is increasingly concerned over the proposed plutonium shipments to Japan,” Masumoto wrote in a letter dated June 17, 1992. Under provisions of the CZM Act, Masumoto requested what is called a “federal consistency determination” on the matter of whether the transportation plans are “consistent with state and federal coastal protection laws”.
Quoting further from Masumoto’s letter:
“Because plutonium is extremely hazardous, if plutonium is released into any area of the Pacific Ocean the potential is great for a catastrophic effect on Hawaii’s coastal zone and its resources. The Pacific Ocean is an ecosystem in its entirety. There are biological, physical, hydrological, chemical, and climatological relationships between the entire ocean and the state of Hawai’i….
“Many of Hawai’i’s resources, such as migratory fish, are not restricted to state waters and maybe contaminated by plutonium spills or leaks. If the fish are not killed by the plutonium, other fish and humans may be contaminated through the food chain. The humpback whale is a federal and state listed endangered species, which is migratory through state waters and can be adversely affected by plutonium. Natural factors such as currents, waves and wind can bring plutonium into state waters.”
A report in “Nuclear Waste News” of June 4, 1992, stated that a spokesman for Senator Daniel Akaka said the senator would fully support retention of the Abercrombie amendment in the final energy bill. The report added: A spokesperson for Senator Daniel K. Inouye… said the senator has no plans, as yet, to champion the Abercrombie amendment during the conference.”
Maui Residents Up in Arms Over A&B Plans for North Shore
If Alexander & Baldwin has its way, the lands along Hana Highway between Pala and Maliko Gulch will soon be sprouting houses instead of cane. The first major development, of about 500 houses, is planned to be built on a total of 100 or so acres between Paia and Ho’okipa. And without so much as one public hearing having occurred, the first increment, which A&B is calling the Makana subdivision and which is to consists of 104 market-priced houses on 24 acres, has received virtually all of the required permits. All that is needed before groundbreaking is approval of drainage plans.
Just how A&B managed to get this far without a public hearing is something many people in the Pala-Haiku area have been asking lately. The answer they’ve been given is, in a word, “variances.”
According to the Blue Ocean Preservation Society, a non-profit organization that has sounded the alarms over the A&B development, the land proposed for the Makana subdivision “had once been set aside by the county for low-cost housing.”
The society continues, in a special newsletter it published on the subject: “Because of the serious drainage problems associated with this land, it was traded with A&B for the land on which the Skill Village project now exists. The Makana site, however, was never down-zoned. The present plans for the Makana development are proceeding despite previous concerns regarding drainage problems and, most significantly, include no low-cost housing.
“Despite decisions by the county Planning and Public Works Departments that the Makana development should go through publicly assessable rezoning procedures, A&B was able to obtain variances from the Board of Variance and Appeals to build according to dense R-1 zoning standards. Subsequently A&B obtained other variances allowing the building density to increase by providing less than the required 50-foot minimum lot frontages and even allowing triple flag lots on cul de sacs.”
The first variance was granted in December 1990. In April of 1991, the Maui County Planning Commission granted the Makana subdivision a Special Management Permit Over the strenuous objections of Paia residents, the commission did not require A&B to prepare either an environmental assessment or a fuller environmental impact statement.
Concerns have been raised over the possible increased traffic that the Hana Highway will bear if these houses are built. To this, A&B has responded by saying traffic on the highway has actually been declining in recent years – a finding that runs contrary to most people’s experience – so that their new houses will not make traffic any worse than what it was some years back.
Concerns have been expressed also over where the houses will be getting their water. Maui County is hard-pressed to provide water to existing houses. Adding 500 houses, or even 100, might be expected to place additional stress on water supplies.
Most of all, however, concerns have been raised over the impact of the subdivision on nearshore water quality. The Makana area serves now as a natural drainage basin. When it is paved over, runoff is planned to be diverted into a storm sewer. Makai of Hana Highway, the sewer would run under an existing street, Lee Place, emptying into the ocean through a 4-foot-by-8-foot box culvert.
Robert and Virginia Karpovich, who live along Lee Place, have expressed their worries about the impact of the proposed drainage system in letter after letter to public officials. Quoting from one such letter:
“Makana necessitates an 8-foot drainage outfall into a small, pristine bay, which has primarily been used for family fishing, diving, picking of opihi, limu and tako for decades. The site of the culvert is a county-designated access and the only access of record to this bay.”
The Karpoviches tirelessly point out that Maui County is plagued already with algae blooms along the western shore, which, they note, “may be related to non-point source pollution from channelization of runoff and sewage injection systems.”
“It seems ludicrous to begin this type of development on the North Shore without a clearer picture of the impacts of channelized runoff.”
The Makana subdivision and the adjoining 72-acre project may be just the first of many more to come. The Blue Ocean Preservation Society newsletter reports that A&B has retained a Honolulu firm – Townscapes, Inc. – to develop plans for 20,000 acres of A&B land from Kahului up to Pukalana, and east as far as Pauwela.
On June 17, a covey of top A&B officials (including Meredith Ching, vice president for natural resources, and Robert Sasaki, president of A&B Properties) and corporate lawyers flew to Maui to attend a meeting of the citizens advisory committee working on revisions to the Paia-Haiku Community Plan at the Haiku Community Center. The committee, led by Chairman John Bose, followed its regular agenda for the first 90 minutes. The floor was turned over then to A&B officials.
Terry Carlone, a spokesman for A&B Properties, stated that the company was evaluating the best use of its 70,000 acres on Maui. In the Paia-Haiku area, he said, the company sought to provide a range of housing for Maui residents that would, among other things, “compliment the rural character” of the area and address “environmental concerns and objections.”
Carlone was questioned about runoff and drainage problems associated with the Makana development. “We’ll commission a study by a marine biologist who’ll look at offshore impacts,” he answered. He indicated the company would commission a study of drainage alternatives also.
Despite the promise of studies (and rumors, so far unconfirmed, that A&B would be increasing lot sizes to conform to R-1 zoning), A&B Properties President Sasaki stated that the company was still proceeding with the Makana subdivision. When asked how subdivisions conformed with the goal of retaining the rural nature of the area, he stated candidly that they “do not meet our concept of a rural community.”
At the Haiku meeting, A&B unveiled schematic drawings of villages that it suggested might be appropriate for developing its North Shore property. Each village would be at the center of a 300-to 600-acre tract. Small commercial centers and 200 to 500 units of housing would be clustered together, with the outlying areas being suitable for some agricultural use.
A&B’s lands on South Maui may soon be carved up into subdivisions as well. A report in The Maui News of June 12 states that A&B is planning to develop a 650-acre housing project mauka of Ma’alaea. The report quotes Tom Witten of PBR Hawai’i, a consultant to A&B, as saying plans for the project, which is to include a golfcourse, are still being formulated, with the required state and county approvals being four to six years away. Approval would be needed by the state Land Use Commission, the county Planning Commission, and the County Council.
A Green Governor?
Governor John Waihe’e has signed a bill requiring solar water heating units to be installed in a fraction of houses built with the help of state funds. The bill is an anemic version of legislation that was vetoed last year. He signed also: a bill to limit the liability exposure of owners of land crossed by trails in the state’s Na Ala Hele program; a bill to make environmental assessments provisional pending a 30-day public comment period; and a bill requiring glass be used as a supplement aggregate in asphalt applied to state roads.
The governor vetoed a bill to require preparation of an environmental assessment or environmental impact statement for any project in the Special Management Area or affecting critical habitat for endangered species. Other vetoed bills would have prolonged a study of the need for a department of environmental protection and required the state’s daily newspapers to use at least some recycled paper in their press runs, provided it was available at a roughly comparable price.
Ulveling Unveiled
By now, most readers will know that Roger Ulveling, former director of the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, received a no-bid contract worth $35,000 just days after stepping down from his position in January of 1991. The contract called for him to prepare a report on alternative energy in Hawai’i. Circumvention of the bidding process was justified, the Public Utilities Commission said, because of the pressing need to have the study in hand.
Environment Hawai’i has finally been allowed to view the Ulveling report, which was submitted November 26, 1991, but which the PUC insists has not yet been officially released. Indeed, the report may never be released. A spokesman for the PUC indicated that Ulveling’s report was actually for in-house reference. Here, then, is a brief description of the reports contents.
The report circumvents any discussion of geothermal energy or nuclear energy. Likewise, it does not deal with energy alternatives available to the transportation sector. Among the options that are discussed are fuel cells, wave energy, photovoltaic systems, wind power, ocean thermal energy conversion, biomass (including H-POWER), hydro-electric energy, and solar-thermal systems.
Ulveling’s approach is to consider which of these options can provide “utility-scale” power. “Because 70 percent of electricity sold is consumed outside the home,” he explains, “home installations will not accomplish a major replacement of fossil fuel fired electricity generation. Thus, larger installations, such as utility scale installations, are required if we are to make progress in meeting state goals for increased use of alternate energy.” Any alternative that falls short of meeting 5 to 10 percent of an islands’ peak capacity demand is not “utility scale,” by Ulveling’s measure.
The report breaks no new ground in discussions of energy alternatives. His discussion of problems in the development of alternate energy relies heavily on interviews with unidentified sources in what he terms the “energy community” – a group that includes Big Five executives, “alternate energy executives, a university energy researcher, a utility company executive, and a government official.” No one representing a consumer standpoint or environmental concerns is included.
Ulveling regards H-POWER approvingly and rises to its defense. “Since H-POWER became operational, the City and County of Honolulu has begun a recycling program. In recent months, people have been complaining that burning municipal refuse is wasteful and that we should do more recycling. The fact is that this plant is the largest single addition to alternate energy in the state of Hawai’i and it is working well.”
OTEC is among the “Feasible” utility-scale options identified by Ulveling. “The state and federal governments have expended over $23 million in an effort to develop open-cycle OTEC and to demonstrate its commercial viability,” he writes. “Progress has not been as fast as expected.”
The notion of an inter-island power grid is resurrected by Ulveling, who writes: “Hawai’i is to make progress toward the objective of reduced oil dependence, an inter-island grid must be developed to permit the development of alternate energy on the neighbor islands that can help to reduce the oil consumed for production of electricity on O’ahu.”
His ideas as to how to implement an alternate energy strategy resemble nothing so much as the state’s past efforts to spur geothermal energy development: “The first step is to establish firm goals and appropriate time frames for meeting them… It might be done… a) by an executive order imposing it on all levels of government and all agencies within the state to enforce in their respective areas, or b) by establishing a new statute requiring that energy goals be set, that they be set by a certain date and that they be the basis for approvals of energy projects at all levels of government in the state.”
As the World Burns: Soaps in the CD
Plans to build “Lanikai Hale,” the enormous dream house of Las Vegas hotelier Ralph Engelstad and his wife, Betty, have not advanced far since our last report ([url=/members_archives/archives_more.php?id=813_0_32_0_C]April Update[/url]). The court-awarded permit expired in March of this year; attorneys for the Engelstads have requested what amounts to an indefinite extension.
At the June 12 meeting of the Board of Land and Natural Resources, the Lanikai Association, opposed to any construction on the so-far vacant, steep-sloped Conservation District land owned by the Engelstads, asked the Board to defer any decision on the extension. The Association based its request on information it had just received regarding the Engelstads’ battle with the City and County of Honolulu concerning permits for construction in the city’s Special Management Area. (The city Department of Land Utilization determined last August that the Engelstads would need to prepare an environmental assessment prior to issuance of an SMA permit to do grading work; the Engelstads’ attorneys were unable to get Donald Clegg to back down and so they filed a complaint in court for declaratory relief; that complaint was thrown out as untimely in an order issued March 20 by Judge Francis Yamashita; in April the attorneys appealed the lower court decision to the Supreme Court; opening briefs are due in July.)
DLNR staff have recommended that the Engelstads’ permit be extended two years. The Land Board deferred any action on the permit extension request until the next O’ahu Board meeting, on July 24.
The Board has not acted yet on either application for an after-the-fact Conservation District use permit filed by George Isaacs and the Puakea Bay Ranch Owners Association. (For background on these permit applications, consult the January and March [url=/members_archives/archives1992.php]1992[/url] issues of Environment Hawai’i.) One application – for the private park – has been withdrawn; a staff planner at the DLNR’s Office of Conservation and Environmental Affairs says the department is attempting to pursue enforcement actions to resolve the matter of violations. (The park was built years ago without a permit; the application was made to bring the park, owned by the Ranch Owners Association, into compliance with Conservation District rules. When that turned out to be difficult – following a long, rancorous public meeting on the Big Island in April – the permit application was simply withdrawn.)
The permit application of Isaacs for after the-fact improvements at his house, which looms atop the cliffs at Puakea Bay, is the subject of an ongoing contested case.
One of the longest-running sagas in the OCEA’s files concerns the efforts of D.G. “Andy” Anderson’s aunt and uncle, Mae June and Adrian Brash, to resubdivide their property at Pu’u Kakea on Tantalus, overlooking Honolulu. The first application to rearrange lot boundaries was made in 1971. They got a permit at that time, but it expired without the Brashes having made any effort to follow through. In 1981, the Brashes reapplied for the same permit. They got several extensions, but Board patience ran out in 1988, and the permit once more expired.
In 1989, the Brashes, with Anderson’s support, filed yet another permit application – this time seeking to trade part of their land for an adjoining state parcel. Public outcry put a quick end to that proposal, but the Brashes did end up with a third permit to consolidate and resubdivide their land. As a condition of that permit, the Board stated that the Brashes could sell one lot, which would give the Brashes’ heirs money to pay future inheritance taxes on the property.
Once more, the Brashes fell behind. In July 1990, they were requesting another extension, which was granted. The Board gave them until June 15, 1991, to submit final subdivision plans and letters of approval from city agencies; they had until December 15,1991 to initiate construction. Before all else, they were to place conditions of Board approval “in recordable form as a part of the deed instrument.”
On October 8, 1991-four months after the June deadline – plans showing the new lot boundaries were submitted to the Office of Conservation and Environmental Affairs. They were approved by Roger Evans, OCEA administrator. About the same time, ads began appearing around town showing not one, but two lots available for purchase at Pu’u Kakea. Lot 4 was described as “2 plus acres on the rim,” with an asking price of $1.9 million. Lot 5, consisting of three-quarters of an acre, was for sale for $950,000.
There is no indication that the Board – or indeed anyone at the DLNR- authorized any extension of the June deadline. There is no record of the conditions of Board approvals being placed in recordable form at the Bureau of Conveyances. There is no record of the Board reconsidering its decision to allow just one lot to be sold.
Maybe now, more than two decades after the matter was originally placed before the Board, no one cares any more what the Brashes do with their land.
Water Plan Update Hearings Scheduled
The state Commission on Water Resource Management is updating the Hawai’i Water Plan. Public informational meetings will be held on all islands in July. Public hearings will be held in September. For a full schedule of the meetings (14 in all), write the Commission at P.0. Box 621, Honolulu 96809, or call 587-0225 (O’ahu).
Also, the Commission has recently begun publication of “Water Resource Bulletin,” which provides a listing of applications for permits for well construction, pump installation, water use, and stream channel alteration. Readers interested in receiving this should notify the Commission.
Chidiac Back in Lap Of Land Use Commission
The Land Use Commission has been told it must have still more hearings on the Charles Chidiac’s application for land redistricting at the Ka’u site of his proposed Hawaiian Riviera Resort. On June 15, 1992, Third Circuit Presiding Judge Shunichi Kimura, following a hearing on the appeal of parties opposed to last year’s decision by the LUC to approve Chidiac’s resort, determined that the LUC had not considered the full impact of the development on the customs and traditions of the people residing up the coast at Miloli’i.
The court remanded the case to the LUC, which was instructed to “determine the impact of the reclassification on the traditional lifestyle of the native Hawaiian fishermen and residents of Miloli’i.” Although Kimura denied “all the remaining points of appeal,” parties involved with the case are hopeful that the LUC itself will interpret the judge’s mandate liberally and allow evidence to be presented on other matters pertaining to Chidiac’s ability to develop the resort in the fashion he proposes.
The final decision and order of the LUC that granted Chidiac’s requested upzoning of the land required Chidiac to return to the LUC with a financial plan. At the time of the LUC approval (May of 1991), Chidiac’s agents had represented to the LUC that the financial plan could be ready within weeks. Chidiac has yet to submit any such plan to the LUC.
Another condition of LUC upzoning was that Chidiac submit annual progress reports. The first such report was due in early June. To date, that report, too, has not been provided to the Land Use Commission.
Kimura’s decision marked the second time in as many weeks that Chidiac lost a round in court. On June 8, a contract archaeological firm hired by Chidiac, International Archaeological Research Institute, Inc., was awarded by default a judgment of $8,690.84 against Chidiac and Palace Development Corp., which he controls. The amount originally owed was $7,931, with accrued interest of $295.51. Attorneys’ fees, court costs, service of process and the like account for the remainder.
From Pork Barrel To The Sugar Bowl
In the April issue of Environment Hawai`i, focusing on the resort development planned by Hamakua Sugar Company, it was noted that President Bush had targeted for rescission a $1.3 million “job retention grant,” through the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to be used by the Hamakua Coast sugar mills to offset costs of cleaning cane wash water. Thanks to the efforts of Senator Daniel Inouye, that money was restored (along with other Hawai’i-based federal projects having a total value of more than $100 million).
Volume 3, Number 1 July 1992