EPA: toxic chemical found in Wahiawa and Aiea aquifers is a “likely human carcinogen”

The EPA released a new health assessment for the toxic contaminant tetrachloroethylene – also known as perchloroethylene, or perc, as a “likely human carcinogen.”  PERC is a contaminant found at military sites in Hawai’i including the Schofield / Wahiawa aquifer (a former Superfund site) and the former Aiea Laundry site, a Navy superfund site across the street from Aiea Elementary School and next to a Catholic Church.

CONTACT:

Latisha Petteway (News Media Only)

petteway.latisha@epa.gov

202-564-3191

202-564-4355

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 10, 2012

EPA Releases Final Health Assessment for Tetrachloroethylene (Perc)

Public health protections remain in place

WASHINGTON – Today the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) posted the final health assessment for tetrachloroethylene – also known as perchloroethylene, or perc – to EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) database. Perc is a chemical solvent widely used in the dry cleaning industry. It is also used in the cleaning of metal machinery and to manufacture some consumer products and other chemicals. Confirming longstanding scientific understanding and research, the final assessment characterizes perc as a “likely human carcinogen.” The assessment provides estimates for both cancer and non-cancer effects associated with exposure to perc over a lifetime.

EPA does not believe that wearing clothes dry cleaned with perc will result in exposures which pose a risk of concern. EPA has already taken several significant actions to reduce exposure to perc. EPA has clean air standards for dry cleaners that use perc, including requirements that will phase-out the use of perc by dry cleaners in residential buildings by December 21, 2020. EPA also set limits for the amount of perc allowed in drinking water and levels for cleaning up perc at Superfund sites throughout the country, which will be updated in light of the IRIS assessment.

“The perc health assessment released today will provide valuable information to help protect people and communities from exposure to perc in soil, water and air,” said Paul Anastas, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Research and Development. “This assessment emphasizes the value of the IRIS database in providing strong science to support government officials as they make decisions to protect the health of the American people.”

The toxicity values reported in the perc IRIS assessment will be considered in:

  • Establishing cleanup levels at the hundreds of Superfund sites where perc is a contaminant
  • Revising EPA’s Maximum Contaminant Level for perc as part of the carcinogenic volatile organic compounds group in drinking water, as described in the agency’s drinking water strategy
  • Evaluating whether to propose additional limits on the emissions of perc into the atmosphere, since perc is considered a hazardous air pollutant under the Clean Air Act

The assessment replaces the 1988 IRIS assessment for perc and for the first time includes a hazard characterization for cancer effects. This assessment has undergone several levels of rigorous, independent peer review including: agency review, interagency review, public comment, and external peer review by the National Research Council. All major review comments have been addressed.

EPA continues to strengthen IRIS as part of an ongoing effort to ensure the best possible science is used to protect human health and the environment. In May 2009, EPA streamlined the IRIS process to increase transparency, ensure the timely publication of assessments, and reinforce independent review. In July 2011, EPA announced further changes to strengthen the IRIS program in response to recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences. EPA’s peer review process is designed to elicit the strongest possible critique to ensure that each final IRIS assessment reflects sound, rigorous science.

More information on the perc IRIS assessment:http://www.epa.gov/iris/subst/0106.htm

More information on perc: http://epa.gov/oppt/existingchemicals/pubs/perchloroethylene_fact_sheet.html

More information on IRIS: http://www.epa.gov/IRIS

New ‘Star Wars’ missile defense and satellite communications center finished in Wahiawa

Source: http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/101248944.html

$25M Navy satellite center passes muster in Wahiawa

By Star-Advertiser staff

POSTED: 09:44 p.m. HST, Aug 21, 2010

The Naval Facilities Engineering Command Hawaii said it completed final building inspections for a $25.4 million satellite communications center at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam’s Wahiawa Annex.

The Army’s 53rd Signal Battalion will use the new 28,244-square-foot Wideband Satellite Communication Operations Center.

Keys to the building were “unofficially” turned over to senior members of the Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command on June 25, the Navy said.

“This new state-of-the-art building will enable the company’s world-class satellite communications support to the warfighter” said Capt. Daniel Zisa, commander of D Company, 53rd Signal Battalion.

The Navy awarded the firm-fixed price design-bid-build contract to Watts Constructors LLC of Honolulu in December 2008.

The facility was required to incorporate environmentally sustainable elements and is a prototype for other satellite operations at locations including Fort Detrick, Md.; Fort Meade, Md.; and Landstuhl Heliport, Germany, the Navy said.

The satellite communications center is the second of three major communications facilities the Navy is developing at the Wahiawa Annex. The others are Naval Computer and Telecommunications Area Master Station Pacific’s Daniel R. Healy Communications Center, named after a Pearl Harbor-based SEAL who was killed in Afghanistan in 2005, and the Hawaii Regional Security Operations Center.

Navy will test its “Giant Voice” in Wahiawa

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20091023/BREAKING01/310230020/+Giant+Voice++system+to+be+tested+in+Wahiawa

Posted at 12:51 a.m., Friday, October 23, 2009

‘Giant Voice’ system to be tested in Wahiawa

Advertiser Staff

The Navy says it will conduct an operational test of its “Giant Voice” mass notification system at its Wahiawa annex today at 1 p.m. The announcement on the public address system will be audible to those who live or work near Naval Computer and Telecommunications Area Master Station Pacific in Wahiawa.

The short announcement will be preceded with the words “test test test,” followed by a warning tone and then close with “test test test.”

The system provides base-wide siren signals and prerecorded and live voice messages for emergency situations. Routine tests are periodically held.

Two Military Men Crash in Wahiawa, one injured

Man is in critical condition after crash near Whitmore Village

By Star-Bulletin staff

POSTED: 02:52 p.m. HST, Sep 26, 2009

A passenger in a sports utility vehicle was seriously injured early this morning when the vehicle struck a utility pole beside Kamehameha Highway near Whitmore Village.

A Honolulu Fire Department crew worked for about 30 minutes with extrication tools to remove the 24-year-old man who was pinned in the Cadillac Escalade. He was listed in critical condition at Queen’s Medical Center.

Police said the 26-year-old driver of the Wahiawa-bound vehicle fell asleep and the vehicle drifted off the road in the 5:30 a.m. accident near the intersection with Kaukonahua Road.

The driver was treated for minor injuries at Wahiawa General Hospital and arrrested on charges of negligent injury and operating a vehicle under the influence.

Police said the roadway was wet and that alcohol was a factor in the accident. Both men wore seatbelts and it was not known if speed was involved.

Traffic investigators said the men were both in the military.

Source: http://www.starbulletin.com/news/breaking/61960777.html

Soldier stabs man helping wife of stabber

Victim says he helped wife of stabber

By Nelson Daranciang

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Oct 25, 2008

An 18-year-old man limped into court yesterday and testified that a Schofield Barracks soldier stabbed him six times early Sunday after he tried to help the soldier’s wife start the couple’s pickup truck outside a Wahiawa bar.

The soldier, Sgt. Tohama James Ramage, 30, is charged with attempted murder.

Following a preliminary hearing yesterday, Judge David Lo ordered Ramage to stand trial for second-degree murder in state Circuit Court. Ramage remains in custody unable to post $30,000 bail.

Hapakela Pancho said he was in the parking lot fronting the Top Hat Bar on Kamehameha Highway when a woman asked for help starting her truck. The woman told him she was having a fight with her “old man” in the bar and that she wanted to leave but he did not, Pancho said.

Pancho said he could not start the truck and that as the woman was stepping into a car with two other women, Ramage arrived and started arguing with her. When he went to shake Ramage’s hand and tell him everything was fine, Ramage told him to back off, took a knife out of his pocket and swung it at him, Pancho testified. He said the woman then gave Ramage a bigger knife from inside the truck.

“I tried to leave but he ended up rushing me,” he said.

Pancho said he raised his right arm to block the knife and was stabbed in the hand and forearm. He wore a bandage on his right hand in court yesterday.

Pancho said Ramage tackled him, stabbed him in his left hip and waist, then stabbed him on the left side of his head and neck. He said one stab wound came within a half-inch of his lung.

Pancho said the injuries to his waist and hip prevent him from putting weight on his left leg when he walks.

An ambulance took Pancho to the Queen’s Medical Center in critical condition. Hospital officials released him the next day.

Source: http://www.starbulletin.com/news/hawaiinews/20081025_Victim_says_he_helped_wife_of_stabber.html

Soldier accused of stabbing Wahiawa man

Soldier Appears In Court Over Wahiawa Stabbing

Attack Leaves Victim In Critical Condition

POSTED: 2:20 pm HST October 22, 2008

HONOLULU — An Army sergeant accused of stabbing an 18-year-old man multiple times in Wahiawa made his first appearance over the case in court Wednesday morning.

Sgt. Tahoma James Ramage, 30, is a charged with second-degree attempted murder.

The Schofield Barracks-based soldier is being held on $30,000 bail.

The attacked happened just after midnight Monday at the intersection of Kamehameha Highway and Olive Avenue, police said.

The victim was last reported to be in critical condition.

Source: KITV.com

Child prostitution in Wahiawa – driven by military demand?

Wednesday, June 20, 2001

3 teens caught in prostitution sting

The youngest arrested is a 13-year-old girl from Wahiawa

By Nelson Daranciang
ndaranciang@starbulletin.com

Donovan Dela Cruz was shocked to learn that three teenagers were arrested this weekend for prostitution in Wahiawa.

“What is this world coming to? That’s disgusting,” said Dela Cruz, chairman of the Wahiawa Neighborhood Board.

Police on Saturday arrested a 15-year-old Wahiawa boy, a 14-year-old Waianae girl and a 13-year-old Wahiawa girl at Lakeview Circle just off Wilikina Drive.

Police released the teenagers into the custody of their parents.

“There’s a reason there are underage girls prostituting themselves in Wahiawa,” said Kelly Hill. “There’s a demand for child sex.”

Hill is executive director of Sisters Offering Support, a private, nonprofit organization that provides prostitution prevention and intervention programs through education and awareness.

She says a big factor in the demand is the large, established transient male population nearby at Schofield Barracks.

As if to emphasize that point, just after the teenagers were arrested, two military men were arrested in the same spot soliciting an undercover policewoman posing as a prostitute.

The U.S. Defense Department in 1996 announced a program of anti-child prostitution briefings for members of the military.

The briefings are offered to soldiers when they arrive for duty at Schofield Barracks, said Capt. Stacy Bathrick, Army spokeswoman.

But Hill claimed that End Child Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking, a national anti-child prostitution organization, has said the Defense Department has been unable to determine how many servicemen have heard the briefing.

Hill said the national organization found service members who never even heard of the program.

Donovan said he was shocked not just by the age of the teenagers, but also the location of their arrest.

He said most street prostitutes can be found on Olive Avenue, but they have become less visible since the city designated Wahiawa a “prostitution-free zone.”

The designation imposes a mandatory 30-day jail sentence on offenders caught a second time within the zone’s boundaries.

Saturday’s arrests were the result of a sting operation prompted by community complaints, police said.

Hill said she cannot remember the last time juveniles were arrested for street prostitution. But she says thousands of minors are involved in some form of prostitution on Oahu.

“I hope they’re going to be referred to us for help,” said Hill. “I just hope that with this arrest involving minors, people realize we need to be getting the perpetrators.”

Source: http://archives.starbulletin.com/2001/06/20/news/story7.html

Wahiawa tries to eliminate prostitution

Monday, July 10, 2000

Wahiawa tries to eliminate prostitution

A bill being considered would make it a prostitution-free zone

By Pat Gee
Star-Bulletin

Police Sgt. Fay Tamura thinks streetwalkers will find it harder to do business in Wahiawa if the City Council passes a prostitution-free zone bill.

But two Wahiawa pastors aren’t convinced, saying it would just force prostitutes to take their trade elsewhere.

If the bill passes, enforcement could be stepped up and prostitutes would face harsher penalties in the so-called prostitution-free zones. The bill would designate Wahiawa, the Ala Moana area and downtown Honolulu as such zones. Waikiki was designated a prostitution-free zone last year.

Tamura, who has been in charge of the prostitution unit in Wahiawa for two years, said adding the “geographical restriction” would allow a judge to put prostitutes in jail without bail for up to 30 days, as well as ban their return to the district for six months.

The Wahiawa Neighborhood Board launched a campaign two years ago to rid the town of streetwalkers, especially in residential areas, according to Chairman Ben Acohido.

“A family was driven from the neighborhood” because of the prostitution, he said.

Community members took to walking alongside prostitutes to discourage solicitation.

Although the problem eased temporarily, the activity “is still prevalent,” said police Maj. William Gulledge.

The two officers said many of the streetwalkers are transvestites.

If a prostitution free-zone “is what the community wants, we’ll support it,” said Lt. Rich Pease, pastor of the Salvation Army church on California Avenue. “But it’s not the answer to the problem. They’ll just relocate. We have to provide them some sort of program to change their lifestyle.”

The Rev. Michael Henderson of the New Life Body of Christ on Kamehameha Highway agreed. “We think what they’re trying to do is commendable, but we need to come up with alternatives. It’s no solution to the problem to just try to make them go away,” Henderson said.

“A lot of them don’t want to be in” (the business, but) “have to survive and have no place to go. We hope to have a house for them, a transition building, a safe environment, so they don’t have to go back to a drug-infested home or bad environment.”

Henderson also disputed the perception that the military is the main source of clientele. About half are local people, he said, adding he’s seen them in the early morning or late at night when he’s at the church youth center on California and Walker avenues.

At community meetings, he said he’s asked if anyone would offer a job to a prostitute as an alternative, but “there were no takers.”

Mary Patterson, who manages the Mango Marketplace, bordered by California Avenue and Mango Place and Street, doesn’t think prostitutes create a major problem for the complex. But “customers don’t like it” when they enter the stores, and she thinks business would improve if they were banned.

Patterson says she has to clean up a lot of rubbish every morning, but “I can’t say who’s doing it.”

Marketplace owner Lucky Cole said prostitutes “definitely create a security problem.” He said he would probably open his stores later than 7 p.m. if they did not come out around 8 p.m.

A spot survey of bars in the area indicated owners weren’t bothered by prostitutes.

“If a person comes into my place I cannot refuse service as long as they behave,” said Rosa’s bar owner Victor Garo.

“They’re just as human as anybody else, but I’d rather not have them in here. I can survive without them.”

Source: http://archives.starbulletin.com/2000/07/10/news/story9.html