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What’s red, alight
and blew all over?
Manana dirt

By Leila Fujimori
Star-Bulletin

Pearl City residents and businesses are seeing red -- red dirt, that is.

Construction of a new road above Pearl Highlands Center has kicked up a lot of dust, staining tables red at Sam's Club, clogging air-conditioning filters and getting into houses.

The cleanup has caused the shopping center's water bill to double since construction began.

"It's a very big dollar item," said Rod Haraga, an engineering consultant hired by the city.

Haraga reported to the Pearl City vision team Monday that the city has received 40 complaints so far.

And the building of a four-lane 3,800-foot spine road is just the beginning of an industrial-commercial development on the 109-acre, old Navy Manana storage site, just above Kamehameha Highway on the ewa side of Waimano Home Road.

City officials want to develop medical facilities, day-care centers, restaurants and specialty shops. They are putting in a city bus depot, a park with softball fields and other recreational facilities, a youth center and corporation yards for transit services, parks and recreation and the Board of Water Supply. Residents had rejected proposals for residential and cemetery uses.

The road will connect the intersection of Moanalua and Waimano Home roads with Acacia Road near the Pearl Highlands Center.

One woman asked if every homeowner with a dust problem would have to each file a complaint.

Haraga explained that the city is trying to reduce the dust damage by providing window dust screens to area residents and businesses. But personnel at the nearby Navy fire station say it's too hot to use the screens, Haraga said.

Contractor Goodfellow Brothers Inc. has hired a firm to control the dust by hydro-mulching the area, monitoring the air, encircling the entire construction area with a dust screen and screening all catch basins to prevent runoff into Waiawa Stream.

But Manana resident Vicki Lebowitz said Acacia Road is so dusty, "your car's filthy right after you drive through."

Haraga told the Pearl City group the contractor is responsible for the dust, not the city.

Rep. K. Mark Takai (D, Waimalu, Newtown) questioned why claims must be filed against the contractor and not the city saying, "It's city property. . . . It's dust owned by the city."

Marvin Char, acting chief of the city Civil Design and Engineering Division of the Department of Design and Construction, said information should be given to Haraga, but claims must be made with the contractor.

He clarified Haraga's role as liaison with the community, the contractor and the city.

But Al Fukushima, the Pearl City Neighborhood Board chairman, said Haraga's firm promised that if problems worsened, it could stop construction.

Councilman Mufi Hannemann questioned the city administration for sending Haraga instead of department heads to answer the community's concerns.

"It is not normal city process to hire a consulting firm," Char said. But because the city considers the project and neighborhood concerns important, he said it hired KFC Engineering Management Inc.

KFC's Haraga "can make sure the contractor is not ignoring you," Char said.

Those with a red-dirt problem or any concern with the construction project, can call Haraga at 479-7952.