After the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, debris from the bombed Navy facility and waste from the war effort went to a dump site nearby: Makalapa Crater, now the site of Radford High School. Military records show that as many as 1,000 trucks daily hauled debris from the harbor to the crater, where the Navy operated a salvage yard and waste dump, burning refuse and burying the rest.
That’s now a problem for the students and faculty at Radford High, where leftover Navy detritus — including vessel and vehicle parts, weapons casings and unknown quantities of toxic materials — lies buried under athletic fields and parking lots.
The risk of toxic or hazardous materials under Radford’s lower campus has been apparent to the military for more than a decade now — at least since 2013, when Radford began renovating its running track and fields, exposing waste from the dump that includes concerning levels of arsenic, lead and mercury. While the Navy undertook “expedited” action to remove contaminated material and remediate a portion of Radford’s athletic complex, completing that work in 2016, it has stepped aside from further responsibility. The torch was passed to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) in 2015. And under that agency’s watch, crisis-level problems have again developed.
This is an issue that needs to be addressed — now — because it negatively affects Radford students’ educational experience and prevents them from making full use of their campus. USACE has slow-rolled its testing and analysis over the past several years, and has yet to create a plan or commit to a timeline for remediation of the site. Its lack of urgency is apparently due to the fact that since no unexploded weaponry is likely buried at the site, there’s no immediate danger to the school commu- nity — as long as nothing is disturbed.
Meanwhile, as Radford staff and the state Department of Education (DOE) chafe under the do-not-disturb order, a myriad of problems have developed: Sinkholes are opening around Radford’s athletic practice fields, and they can’t be fixed. Cracked parking lots can’t be repaired. Aging portable classrooms cannot be replaced.
“We can’t even dig down to fix our sprinkler heads. We can’t change the plumbing,” Radford Principal James Sunday lamented. “We can’t schedule any projects in that area.”
This is where the Navy, Department of Defense (DoD), Hawaii’s congressional delegation and the DOE must come in. From these bodies, it’s high time for a leader or leaders to emerge to demand that USACE accelerate this process — and that immediate remedies are offered to the school and community to reduce the risks, sacrifices and blows to school sufficiency they have suffered since 2013.
USACE was made responsible for environmental cleanup activities in 2015. It completed a “preliminary assessment” in 2016, then moved on to a “remedial investigation” in 2017. That process is still underway — seven years later.
A final investigation report is due by the end of 2024. But that’s where movement stops, at present. There’s no projected timeline for cleanup and remediation, no official commitment to act.
In June, Radford athletic director Kelly Sur notified USACE that a sinkhole was developing near the ewa goalpost of the school’s upper playing field, stating, “This needs to be corrected ASAP.”
USACE project manager, Lt. Cmdr. Matty Haith, responded, “USACE does not have the authority to address maintenance issues. … Statutory authority is related to remediation. … Until the feasibility study is complete and proposed plan adopted, and remediation begins, there is little I can do.”
But if USACE can’t step outside its lane to help the school community, which responsible party will step up?
It’s incumbent on the DoD to infuse USACE with a sense of urgency, and Hawaii Congressman Ed Case, who represents Pearl Harbor, must assist in pressing for this. The Navy, which touts its “deep and abiding relationship” with Radford High, named for Navy Adm. William Radford, must also step forward, if not out of legal obligation, then for honorable reasons.
Intervention by DOE Superintendent Keith Hayashi also must facilitate development of alternatives for the school and seek assistance from the DoD until remediation can be completed.
Clear communication and a commitment to a timeline for corrective action are sorely needed.
Principal Sunday had it right when he said, “Someone has to kickstart this thing. We need to start talking about how to fix the area once and for all to make it safe.”
USACE has been charged with determining the scope of contamination, and creating a plan for cleaning it up. But almost a decade after those orders were made, that plan hasn’t been made.
It all would be laughable, except that this slow-rolling crisis has negatively affected class after class of Radford students, along with their teachers. For many years now, they’ve deserved better.
