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Due to a safety issue tethered to a shore-side dock, the National Park Service last week temporarily suspended its public programs — via U.S. Navy vessels — to the USS Arizona Memorial.
For a period spanning 15 months, from May 2018 to Labor Day weekend 2019, the poignant memorial (a top-ranked visitor attraction) closed to foot traffic due to a repair project for an adjacent dock. In addition to design and construction work, the project included requirements for matters ranging from environmental compliance to unexploded ordnance screening. Let’s hope that this time around repairs will be thorough, but completed at a much faster pace.
Fortified safety plan for Red Hill tanks
The Navy’s latest plan to upgrade the military’s World War II-era fuel tanks at Red Hill, updated after its earlier proposal was deemed inadequate, warrants close scrutiny.
A Navy spokesman said its plan would add safety improvements that are practicable now, with upgrades in the future. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Health must determine if the improvements will be enough to protect the drinking water supply for 750,000 Oahu residents from fuel leaking from the tanks, which sit just 100 feet above the aquifer. They also should consider whether, as some fear, the Navy will drag its feet on more robust protections.
