A professional fireworks display company is seeking an emergency permit from the Department of Health to dispose of 5,400 pyrotechnic devices that remain inside the same Waikele storage bunker where five men were killed in 2011 after a fireworks explosion and fire.
Grucci Inc. is proposing to place the devices, or "cakes," in tubes and fire them off once every month for six months in equal increments at a Waianae chicken farm, where the company has performed similar firings before, said Steven Chang, the Health Department’s Solid and Hazardous Waste Branch chief.
That amounts to 900 firework devices or six to seven pallets at each disposal event.
The U.S. Department of Treasury has been storing the confiscated fireworks — remnants from the April 2011 explosion in the storage bunker — as evidence in a case or cases where they had been illegally shipped to Honolulu, Chang said. Once they are no longer needed as evidence by the Treasury Department, they are marked for hazardous waste disposal, he said.
Chang said a commercial license is required to fire them off, and they are similar to the fireworks set off at large displays in Waikiki.
"We’re not looking at this as a fireworks event," Chang said.
The Treasury Department contacted Grucci, which employs experts in handling fireworks, to see what the best way to dispose of them would be, he said.
Grucci’s advice: "The best way is to set them off as they are intended to be set off," Chang said.
Grucci will need to obtain permits from both the Health Department and the Honolulu Fire Department’s Fire Prevention Bureau before proceeding.
Councilwoman Kymberly Pine, who represents the Waianae area, objects to setting off fireworks in an agricultural area and is still gathering information on the proposal.
"I am really tired of people dumping things in my distract that they don’t want, especially dangerous fireworks," she said. "It just seems like an inappropriate place to be disposing of dangerous materials."
"It’s not part of the Land Use Ordinance to blow up fireworks on a chicken farm," she said.
She said some of the surrounding farms have livestock, which are particularly sensitive to loud noises, and the fireworks disposal can have a negative impact on animals.
Pine also said residents received little notification about the proposal except a public notice placed in the legal ads section of Tuesday’s Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
The notice says Grucci and landowner Robert Hoohuli are seeking a 90-day permit for treatment and storage of waste fireworks at 87-879 Paakea Road, and it will allow for ignition of the fireworks.
"They are deemed unsafe, due to shelf life, and are deemed unsafe for long-term storage," it says.
The Health Department intends to issue within 45 days a Hazardous Waste Emergency Permit to the operator and landowner, it states.
The notice says the permit is issued under the authority of the Hawaii Administrative Rules, which allow for the "issuance of temporary emergency permits for non-permitted activities in the event the Director of Health finds imminent any substantial endangerment to human health and the environment."
Inquiries regarding the permit may be directed to Paul Kalaiwaa of the Health Department at 586-4226, it says.
Health Department spokeswoman Janice Okubo said, "It could create noise as well as a visual spectacle, and it’s possible it could be potentially disruptive to the neighborhood."
Health and Fire Department officials have been in "long and exhaustive" conversations with the Treasury Department with regard to these remaining 39 pallets of fireworks marked for disposal, Chang said.
Health officials have suggested shipping them to Nevada, where there are large amounts of fireworks waiting to be destroyed, Chang said.
They have also been in talks with the Environmental Protection Agency, and learned shipping the fireworks out of state could be dangerous because the fireworks are old and unstable, Chang said.
Officials have also suggested different locations, including old quarries. The concerns include fire hazards in dry areas, he said.
"They felt they’ve done similar firings at this location," under the Fire Department’s oversight, he said. "They feel it’s the best place to do it."
However, the Paakea Road site is in a dry area of Oahu — Waianae — and is near homes and farms.
Chang explained how the large amount of fireworks stored in the 1,000-foot-long storage tunnel still remains after the April 8, 2011, explosion that killed five Donaldson Enterprises employees:
"When the explosion occurred, a blast was directed out the front door, like a cannon explosion," Chang said. "It didn’t go farther back in the tunnel," where a large cache of fireworks for disposal remained.
Chang said Donaldson Enterprises employees tried to cut the fireworks open, soak them in diesel, then burn them.
A federal report shows the employees were working outside the storage tunnel, but it started raining heavily so the men brought the materials back inside. A spark of static electricity from any of a number of things may have started the fire, the report said.
