Kauai herbicide
spill investigated

By Anthony Sommer
Star-Bulletin

LIHUE -- A state Agriculture Department investigator is on Kauai trying to determine whether improper handling of an herbicide caused the evacuation of more than 900 students and staff from a Hanamaulu school on Tuesday.

Pesticide expert Glenn Sahara of Hilo was called in to check out a spill on Amfac/JMB's Lihue plantation, only 600 yards from King Kaumualii Elementary School. Sahara interviewed Amfac employees yesterday.

More than 50 students and two adults were treated and released at Wilcox Memorial Hospital. One student was admitted overnight for observation and then released.

School staff members were allowed to return to the school Tuesday afternoon and yesterday was a normal school day, school officials said.

Amfac officials have not returned telephone calls seeking information.

Hazardous materials experts from the Kauai Fire Department believe an Amfac crew flushing a chemical called pendimethlin, sold commercially as Prowl, caused the fumes that blew onto the school ground.

Fire Capt. Myles Moriguchi said Tuesday that Amfac workers told him the chemical was flushed out of a tanker truck being used to fill a helicopter spraying Prowl far away from the school.

Normal tradewinds would have blown the fumes away from populated areas but breezes were variable Tuesday. Moriguchi said when he was at the spill site the wind was from the north, blowing directly at the school.

The state Health Department was called in, but the case was turned over to the Agriculture Department as soon as it was believed a pesticide was involved.

Bob Boesch, head of the state Pesticide Division, said Prowl is a relatively new herbicide that has been gaining in popularity. Unlike herbicides such as Roundup, which kill growing weeds, Prowl kills the sprouts of weeds as soon as they emerge from their seeds.

He said it is not as likely to leach into the groundwater supply as many other herbicides.

Almost all herbicides create the same symptoms in humans -- headaches, nausea and breathing difficulty, Boesch said.