The state is awaiting an internal investigation from the city regarding unauthorized stockpiling on land near the Waipio Soccer Complex.
The question is who allowed such activity to go on for years.
The city is in the process of clearing the site, but an environmental watchdog wants more than just an investigation.
Tires, metal, concrete, appliances and asphalt. A plot of land, near the Waipio Peninsula soccer complex was never intended to look like this.
The city which leases the land from the Navy says it discovered the unauthorized storage and stockpiling of materials last fall and notified the Department of Health and the Navy.
"We found there was quite a bit of materials that had accumulated there, there were about over 43 piles of stockpiled material," said Steven Chang.
At the time of the discovery, in November 2011, Mayor Peter Carlisle held a press conference to announce it, and said some of the materials could have come from city projects. Carroll Cox with Envirowatch says documents show the stockpiling was happening for years and the city should have been aware.
"The activities were in violation of the lease condition that the Navy had leased this land to the city since 1999," said Carroll Cox.
At this point, the city believes the materials may have been stacking up since 2008, but is investigating who allowed this to happen.
Testing was done of soil samples, and the city is in the process of clearing the site and hauling the piles to the PVT landfill.
"Nothing was deemed to be hazardous but some of the stockpiles of soil that contained higher levels of oil and gas and petroleum type products so you wouldn’t want to use that in your front yard," said Chang.
"The diesel, oil, gasolines that were in the soil, the xylene and benzene, are of great concern when they are just laying out in the environment," said Cox.
The Navy wants the city to conduct more sampling of the site to determine if any environmental remediation is required, once all the material is cleared.
"We’re looking forward to seeing how it happened and mainly we’re looking to make sure it doesn’t happen again," said Chang.
"What we need is a prosecution, fining someone," Cox said.
The city says the investigation is ongoing and will take appropriate action when it is determined who is responsible.
See the original article at: KHON2 Local News
