Editorials
Monday, December 7, 1998

Landfill may be best
solution for waste

MEDICAL and health officials have halted dumping of chemotherapy waste in a landfill in Makakilo until they can address community concerns about the operation. The area's neighborhood board is scheduled to discuss the issue next Wednesday evening.

Sen. Brian Kanno, who represents Makakilo, had requested that the disposal operations be halted until plans were discussed with the community. Kanno noted that the Department of Health approved the operation in August but the community wasn't informed until Nov. 25.

Evidently the department dropped the ball on giving adequate notification, but the operation appears to be both necessary and safe. The landfill alternative was chosen after Castle Medical Center stopped burning chemotherapy and pathological waste from Oahu's other hospitals at its incinerator. Neighborhood opposition to the burning prompted that decision.

Since then the Healthcare Association of Hawaii, representing hospitals and nursing facilities, has been searching for a solution to the disposal problem. Recently hospitals began sending chemotherapy waste to the landfill, including empty IV bags, tubing, syringes, empty vials, disposable gowns and gloves. The hospitals have rented freezers to store pathological waste.

Bruce Anderson, the Health Department's deputy director for environmental health, says the landfill is probably the best option for disposing of chemotherapy waste. He said most of the waste is inert plastic material that caused concern at Castle because of the possibility of toxic gases when it is burned.

Anderson says other materials disposed of in the landfill probably pose more of a risk than the chemotherapy waste but are managed in a way that doesn't pose health problems.

This should be explained fully to the neighborhood board members and interested residents before the operation proceeds. The materials must be disposed of somehow and there seems to be no acceptable alternative.

Pearl Harbor attack

HOW much did Washington know about Japan's plans to attack Pearl Harbor, and when did the government know it? On this 57th anniversary of the attack, those questions have been reopened by new disclosures regarding the Japanese Imperial Navy's codebooks.

As reported by the Star-Bulletin's Burl Burlingame, historians who have reviewed recently declassified documents in the archives of the National Security Agency say the United States apparently knew far more about Japanese intentions before the Pearl Harbor attack than was previously disclosed.

The official and generally accepted version for more than half a century was that the Japanese codes were too detailed and complicated to understand prior to Dec. 7, 1941, but were cracked in time for the Battle of Midway in 1942.

That view has been contradicted by the new disclosures, which show that the codebook was smaller and probably easier to crack than previously admitted. The government, said historian Mark Willey, lied "systematically and over a long period of years, trying to minimize speculation that (the codes) could have been read" in advance of the attack. The problem for the government, Willey explains, is that "to admit we read the code is to admit we knew Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked on Dec. 7."

Another historian, James Delgado, said, "This suggests strongly that the government might have had advance warning of the attack -- or at least was capable of knowing."

A third historian, Larry Cott, cautioned, "It's one thing to break a code. It's another to understand it, to learn what things mean by inference."

Until more documents are declassified, how much the government really knew about the Japanese plans probably will remain unknown. The question has major political ramifications. The Roosevelt administration was accused of virtually inviting a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor by withholding intelligence from Army and Navy commanders in Hawaii in order to pull the country into World War II.

As we observe the 57th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, that issue, so vital to an understanding of the disaster, has yet to be resolved.

Raising park fees

THE National Park Service has learned that people are willing to pay higher fees to visit the parks. The result is that many parks have the money to make needed improvements. This is true of two national parks here, Hawaii Volcanoes and Haleakala.

A new fee program was introduced in 1996 in response to complaints of deteriorating facilities. Eighty percent of the money collected at a particular park must be returned to that park and used for repairs, maintenance and other improvements.

A study by the General Accounting Office found that one year after fees were raised revenues at the parks, wildlife refuges and other affected sites nearly doubled, increasing from $93 million to $179 million.

In Hawaii, the Volcanoes park raised fees per car from $5 to $10 and per person from $3 to $5. Despite the increase, the number of visitors grew from 1.2 million in 1996 to 1.8 million in 1997. The park received $2.1 million more in fiscal 1998.

At Haleakala, fees increased from $4 to $10 per car and from $2 to $5 per person, but the visitor count also increased and the park received an additional $1.7 million.

Volcanoes park officials are using the money for sanitary toilets, picnic tables, trash cans and signs. Haleakala is replacing its entrance station and upgrading wayside exhibits.

This is a lesson for Hawaii state and county officials. People are willing to pay a reasonable charge for government services, particularly when they can see that the money is being used for their benefit. User fees are often an acceptable alternative to higher taxes.

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John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher

David Shapiro, Managing Editor

Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor

Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors

A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor