CRAIG T. KOJIMA / STAR-BULLETIN
Workers inspect washers with a Lumex mercury vapor analyzer
at the Puuwai Momi mercury spill area yesterday. The parking lot
is filled with garbage bags filled with clothing.

Mercury cleanup
may last through
weekend

The process includes using
hot air to vaporize the metal

---

By Mary Adamski
Star-Bulletin

STATE EFFORTS TO CLEAR mercury from a Halawa neighborhood are still under way 12 days after the contamination was discovered.

Clothing, toys and other possessions of Puuwai Momi residents were being processed through a commercial dryer yesterday to vaporize traces of the liquid metal.

Only one of the 260 units is still considered a "hot spot." The family was relocated to another apartment in the public housing complex. The liquid element mercury was so imbedded that floorboards must be removed and replaced, said state Department of Health spokeswoman Janice Okubo.

Of all the residents tested by health officials and private physicians, only one person was found with mercury contamination, Okubo said, but it was not considered a high enough level to require medical treatment.

Nearby Makalapa Community Park was expected to reopen today. The cleanup there involved spreading a sulfur compound, which reacts with the mercury to render it nonvolatile, Okubo said.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials this week surveyed the source of the mercury, an abandoned water pumphouse on state land near Pearl Harbor.

The agency will undertake decontamination of the pumphouse site, but it is not yet known what that will entail, said spokesman Alex Kufel. "At this point we are defining the scope of the cleanup."

Children from the neighborhood told officials they had carried the slippery, silvery liquid metal away from the pumphouse over the past two months. Last week, a state crew built an 8-foot, barbwire-topped fence around the building.

The pumphouse and adjacent abandoned warehouse are on former Navy land that was transferred to the state in 1962. It was held by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources until last year, when it was transferred to the state Department of Defense in preparation for a land swap. The property will be returned to the Navy in trade for a Richardson Park site to be used for a state Veterans Center.

Most Puuwai Momi residents were allowed to return to their apartments by last weekend after mercury was scraped and vacuumed up by technicians from Pacific Environmental Corp.

But many of their possessions remained out of their hands, bagged and stashed in barrels until they could be cleared through the dryers. The work was expected to continue through the weekend.

Bob Hall, executive assistant with the Housing and Community Development Corp., said state risk-management personnel were at the complex this week recording claims from people whose possessions were taken away in the cleanup. Carpets and several washers found to contain mercury residue were removed. Officials said it may cost less to replace them than to remove the toxic metal.