Hawaii
Austin visits Hawaii amid military families’ distrust after fuel spill
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HONOLULU — U.S. Protection Secretary Lloyd Austin visited Hawaii this week amid lingering group frustration and mistrust after jet gas from a army storage facility final 12 months spilled into Pearl Harbor’s ingesting water, poisoned 1000’s of Navy, Military and Air Drive households and threatened the purity of Honolulu’s water provide.
Austin traveled to the Purple Hill Bulk Gas Storage Facility within the hills above Pearl Harbor on Friday and met the commander of the joint job pressure in control of draining its tanks so it may be shut down.
He additionally met with a number of households affected by the gas spill and Hawaii state officers, the army stated in a information launch. The conferences have been closed to the media, and Austin didn’t maintain a information convention afterward.
Outdoors Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam, a number of dozen protesters held indicators saying “Navy Lies” and “Shut Down Purple Hill.” Folks driving by — together with many exiting the bottom — honked in assist.
Samantha McCoy, whose husband is within the Air Drive, stated her household suffered migraines, rashes, pores and skin sores and gastrointestinal issues that solely subsided after they moved out of army housing final month.
She referred to as on Austin to make extra medical care out there to households.
“It took 4 months of each day migraines to even get a referral to a neurologist. And that’s actually unacceptable,” she stated on the protest.
Cheri Burness, who lives in Navy housing, received’t drink the faucet water in the home she shares together with her sailor husband and their two teenage kids as a result of she doesn’t imagine that it’s protected 10 months after the spill.
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Her household has spent $3,000 of their very own cash to put in filters on all of the taps in the home to allow them to bathe, brush their enamel and wash their dishes. She spends $70 to $100 a month to have water delivered to their residence for ingesting. In addition they use bottled water.
She recalled how Navy leaders initially advised Pearl Harbor water customers their water was protected to drink after the November spill. The Navy solely advised individuals to cease ingesting their faucet water after the state Division of Well being stepped in.
The Navy later flushed clear water by way of its pipes to cleanse them. In March, the state Division of Well being stated the faucet water in all residential areas served by the Navy’s water system was protected to drink.
However Burness stated she by no means obtained to see the reviews for her home after it was examined. She was solely advised her water was good.
“I don’t belief them as a result of trigger they did nothing to point out me that it ever was fantastic,” Burness stated in a phone interview.
A Navy investigation launched in July confirmed a cascading sequence of errors, complacency and a scarcity of professionalism led to the gas spill, which contaminated faucet water utilized by 93,000 individuals on the Navy’s water system.
Almost 6,000 sought medical consideration for nausea, complications and rashes. Some proceed to complain of well being issues.
The army put households up in motels for a number of months, however stopped paying as soon as the well being division cleared individuals to renew ingesting their faucet water.
Kristina Baehr, an legal professional with Texas-based Simply Properly Regulation, sued the federal authorities final month on behalf of 4 households however stated she shall be including extra people from among the many 700 purchasers she represents. Burness and McCoy are amongst her purchasers.
“They didn’t warn them to cease ingesting it, and 6,000 individuals went to the emergency room,” she stated. “Then, many of those individuals have solely gotten sicker over time.”
Baehr stated her purchasers weren’t amongst these chosen to talk to Austin. If they’d such a chance, she stated they’d inform him to have officers cease saying nobody is medically affected by the spill and that there are not any long-term results.
They might additionally encourage him to supply applicable medical care to households, protected housing as a result of households declare the houses weren’t correctly remediated, and compassionate reassignment to different bases to all those that ask.
“Lots of people are nonetheless caught within the homes that made them sick,” she stated. “So, it’s quite simple, let individuals out of the homes that made them sick and repair the homes in order that they’re protected for the following individuals.”
The spill upset a broad cross-spectrum of Hawaii, from liberals to conservatives and veterans to environmentalists. Many Native Hawaiians have been angered given the centrality of water in Hawaii’s Indigenous traditions. It has additionally elevated deep-seated mistrust of the U.S. army amongst many Native Hawaiians that dates to the U.S. military-backed overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893.
Dani Espiritu, who was additionally at Friday’s protest, stated the army was taking dangers with Native Hawaiian lives, land and tradition.
“All of our cultural practices are tied to aina,” she stated, referring to “love of the land,” a central tenet of Hawaiian considering. “And in order you poison aina and jeopardize the well being and well-being of communities, you’re additionally jeopardizing each conventional observe which might be tied to these locations.”
The army plans to empty gas from the tanks by July 2024 to adjust to a Hawaii Division of Well being order to close down the ability.
Honolulu’s water utility and the Sierra Membership of Hawaii have expressed issues concerning the menace Purple Hill poses to Oahu’s water provide ever since 2014, when gas leaked from one of many storage tanks. However the Navy reassured the general public that their water was protected and that it was working the storage facility correctly.
— Related Press author Mark Thiessen in Anchorage, Alaska, contributed to this report.
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HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – The FAA is investigating a Southwest aircraft bound for Lihue suddenly dove 4,000 feet in a minute just 400 feet above the ocean.
Bloomberg News reported the incident first and said the plane came within 400 feet of falling into the ocean.
On April 11, the aircraft headed for Lihue ended up flying back to the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport.
Retired Pilot Patrick McNamee analyzed the flight map on Flight Aware and said weather conditions made it difficult for the plane to land safely on Kauai.
“So, they could only descend to 400 feet off the water in order to take a look to see if they can get in. In this case, they descended 400 feet, they could not find, or they couldn’t see through the clouds to land,” said McNamee. “So, they went around, and I think that scared the passengers.”
A Southwest memo to pilots said a less-experienced first officer inadvertently pushed the control column forward, then cut the speed, causing cockpit alarms to go off before the captain ordered an aggressive climb.
“I don’t believe that anything was unsafe in this. It might have been a little aggressive, but when you do go around in an airplane, you use full throttle, and it’s like taking off again,” said McNamee. “So here you are coming, coming in for a landing, descending, and when you can’t see the runway, you have to go around; when you have that power, it’s a very, very aggressive feeling.”
“It pushes you back in your seat, the nose goes up, and it climbs away from the ground,” McNamee said. He can see how that could have contributed to the scare factor.
However, there have been other incidents that have made people hesitant to fly.
In 2022, eleven people were seriously injured on a Hawaiian Airlines flight from Phoenix to Honolulu following severe turbulence.
“After hearing about that one, I’ve been more conscious of making sure I have my seatbelt even when I’m just sleeping on the plane,” said Brenna Cregge of Mililani.
In a separate flight, a United Airlines flight made a steep dive after taking off from Maui’s airport.
Southwest released the following statement.
Nothing is more important to Southwest than Safety. Through our robust Safety Management System, the event was addressed appropriately, as we always strive for continuous improvement.
Copyright 2024 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.
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