Replacement well in Kunia Village also found to be contaminated with PFAS
Meanwhile, Hawaii’s Department of Health
relaxes PFAS action levels
By Pat Elder
May 1, 2023
Kunia Village residents have been drinking poisonous water believed to be contaminated by the Army for a very long time.
After drinking water supplied by the Army was found to have dangerous levels of PFAS, the back-up well used by the Kunia Water Association also supplied contaminated drinking water. Well #4 was hurriedly used to provide drinking water to the 650 residents of Kunia Village, an agricultural community ten miles northwest of Pearl Harbor. Total PFAS topped 70 parts per trillion, while PFOS and PFOA were many times over an EPA advisory. Well #4 is owned by Island Palm Communities, LLC.
In January, the village’s primary drinking water well, Kunia Village Well #3, owned by the Army, was found to have 265 parts per trillion (ppt) of total PFAS with a concentration of 50 ppt for PFOS and 27 ppt for PFOA. Although the EPA does not regulate PFAS it says water should not be above a fraction of 1 ppt for the two compounds. Both wells have now been shut down.
According to the Star Advertiser, since April the Army has been supplying the community with water from yet another well about two miles away that serves Schofield Barracks, Wheeler Army Airfield and Helemano Military Reservation. That well is also undergoing testing for PFAS.
The Army has refused to admit it is the source of the contamination. It says the water is safe to drink. Residents should demand independent testing. The Army has no credibility and should not be providing water to civilians. The DOH has no credibility, either.
Kunia Village is an affordable housing development for agricultural workers. The Kunia Water Association started delivering 5-gallon jugs of bottled water to residents for drinking, cooking, and oral hygiene in early April, three months after the Hawaii Department of Health (DOH) reported the dangerous levels.
The PFAS in Kunia’s water likely comes from five Army installations in the immediate vicinity (Schofield Barracks, Wheeler Army Airfield, Camp Stover, Kunia Military Reservation, and Helemano Military Reservation). These bases send their wastewater to the privately owned Schofield Barracks Wastewater Treatment Plant. The tainted waters are re-used for agricultural purposes, potentially causing groundwater and surface water contamination. Wastewater treatment plants don’t treat for PFAS.
According to the Department of Planning and Permitting, City of Honolulu (2015), the primary components of the existing potable water system were Wells #3 and #4, an air stripping tower, a 305,000-gallon tank, distribution pipelines from the wells to the stripping tower, and transmission and distribution pipelines to service Kunia Village and the commercial buildings. Both wells and the distribution system to the air stripping tower were operated through Second City Property Management, a contractor for the Kunia Water Association.
The purpose of the air stripping tower is to remove contaminants (Trichloroethylene and 1, 2, 3 Trichloropropane) in the water discarded by the Army at the nearby facilities. The stripping tower is not designed to remove PFAS. All costs associated with this tower and its ancillary equipment, including operation and maintenance costs, are borne by the Army.
Air strippers simply transfer contaminants from one medium to another. There is no destruction of the contaminants. It’s a nightmare scenario for PFAS and it is being played out across the country. The risks of emitting deadly carcinogens into the air must be carefully evaluated and managed. The air stream (or off-gas) ought to be treated before it is emitted to the atmosphere, especially in the case of PFAS.
Air stripping is effective only for water contaminated with volatile organic compounds, (VOCs). Air Strippers won’t work for a host of contaminants, including the munitions, radionuclides, and inorganics also believed to be recklessly discarded by the Army. Air strippers are only partially effective in removing fuels and semi-volatile organic compounds.
PFAS, Trichloroethylene, and 1, 2, 3 Trichloropropane are used to clean engine parts. The carcinogens are routinely sent down the drain from hangers and machine shops. Now that the military is no longer using PFAS in the firefighting foams during routine exercises, the most prevalent source of contamination occurs from the liquid effluent and sludge generated by wastewater treatment plants. These materials are liberally spread throughout Oahu. PFAS never goes away. It will harm generations to come.
This illustration from the Navy in Maryland is instructive in driving home the point that PFAS contamination of the environment is largely about the wastewater treatment plants.
This graphic from the Naval Research Laboratory - Chesapeake Bay Detachment shows a stream running through the base from the northwest to the southeast. See how the levels of PFOS in the stream jump from 137 ppt to 1,230 ppt as the stream passes by the outfall of the base’s wastewater treatment plant, shown by the red X.
Kunia Village in the 60’s.
Well #3 was the main source of potable water for Kunia Village and agricultural irrigation water for the entire area. Well 4 was mainly used to supply the agricultural irrigation system. However, the well was used to supply the potable water system when needed.
The Hawaii Department of Health (DOH) has refused to launch an aggressive PFAS testing regime in a variety of environmental media – like wastewater treatment plants, soils, agricultural produce, surface waters, fish, landfill leachate, and the air. They’re behind the times. Either they don’t want to know the bad news or they don’t want to share it with us. The DOH mirrors the DOD in this regard. Heads should roll. We can’t do much about the 800-pound gorilla, but the state apparatus can be moved to resist this madness - and this is where our focus ought to be.
This is how the Star Advertiser described the story, “Kunia Village’s other drinking water well, Kunia Village Well 3, tested positive for the chemicals in January and the community has been relying on bottled water for weeks after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last month proposed strict limits on the contaminants.”
This is misleading. The DOH published the damning results in January and told residents to buy water filters. The paper did not say the Army was responsible for the contamination. Apparently, the Star Advertiser copies and pastes from DOH press releases and calls them news items. The EPA didn’t have anything to do with it. The state was called out and embarrassed in front of the country for allowing these poor folks to drink poisoned water.
The Army has been poisoning its own soldiers and their dependents with a host of deadly contaminants here and around the world for many generations. This is not a big deal to the Army command as long as it’s kept quiet, and it doesn’t cost too much money. That’s how they think. They’re on a mission and we’re in the way.
Kunia Village is entirely different. They are civilians!
They never joined the Army.
Things may be changing, however. The Army Recruiting Command is increasingly concerned about the reluctance among youth in certain communities to enlist in the Army because of health concerns associated with contamination on bases. The Army is in crisis because fewer want to join. The number of potential recruits familiar with the long-term health effects of burn pits and other service-related illnesses is rapidly rising and these potential recruits don’t want to have anything to do with it.
There has been a rapid proliferation of Facebook groups started by veterans who have been sickened by contamination on military bases. More than a thousand people who served at the Army’s Fort Ord in California have been sickened by diseases believed to be associated with their service. See the Cancer and illnesses from Fort Ord, CA military base Facebook page.
This is all having an impact on recruitment and retention. (See my book on military recruiting.)
The Army may eventually be forced to clean up its act rather than pretending to do so! Maybe there is hope for Kunia Village.
When the goin’ gets tough…
The Hawaii Department of Health has relaxed its Environmental Action Levels (EALs) on PFAS. It’s not clear what an EAL is, although the DOH says it is used in decision making throughout the environmental hazard evaluation process. The Hawaii DOH could do a much better job explaining the regulatory process to the public. They should start by laying everything out in parts per trillion rather than scientific notation.
When the drinking water levels at Kunia Village in January far exceeded the EALs, for PFOA, PFAS, and PFHxS nothing happened, aside from the state telling people to take care of themselves. Maybe this is what an EAL is for.
This chart captures the EAL’s set by the DOH in December 2022 and amended in April 2023. There are two sets of data for 19 individual compounds. The average compound had its EAL doubled. Kunia Village Well #4 has levels of 7.8 ppt for PFOA and 14 ppt for PFOS, so they would both have exceeded the 2022 EALs shown here, but neither would exceed the new, less stringent thresholds.
This is the stuff of lawsuits over loved ones who have suffered and died.
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We shouldn’t be drinking water containing any of these chemicals. Hawaii is dumbing it down. It’s not good.
Massachusetts will shut down a well if the sum of these six PFAS compounds exceeds 20 ppt: PFHxS, PFHpA, PFOA, PFOS, PFNA, and PFDA. Many are advocating for much stricter limits. In Hawaii the non-mandatory EAL’s for these six total 193.4 ppt.
HI EALs for MA 6
PFHxS 77
PFHpA 77
PFOA 12
PFOS 7.7
PFNA 12
PFDA 7.7
Total 193.4
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Hawaii could learn a lot from Massachusetts. These chemicals are killing us and we must control them – all of them as a class.
PFAS may be defined as substances that include any member of the class of fluorinated organic chemicals containing at least one fully fluorinated carbon atom.
Fully fluorinated means a carbon atom in which all the hydrogen substituents have been replaced by fluorine.
I’m afraid humanity has met its match here.
Who said this and what chemical was she referring to, in 1962?
“If we are going to live so intimately with these chemicals—eating and drinking them, taking them into the very marrow of our bones—we had better know something about their nature and their power.”
Financial support from the Downs Law Group makes this work possible.
The firm is working to provide legal representation to individuals with a high likelihood of exposure to PFAS and other contaminants.
Interested in joining a multi-base class action law suit pertaining to illnesses stemming from various kinds of environmental contamination? Join the Veterans & Civilians Clean Water Alliance Facebook group.
(2.4 K members and growing rapidly.)