EPA sending $1.3M here for cleanup

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is releasing $1,317,000 to assist Hawaii in the assessment and cleanup of underground petroleum storage tank leaks.

According to a written statement from the EPA, leaking underground storage tanks can contaminate an area's drinking water when “;petroleum and other hazardous substances seep into the soil.”;

The funds will be specifically used to fix federally regulated tanks under conditions where the owner or operator is unknown, unwilling or unable to finance the cleanup.

For more information, visit www.hawaii.gov/health/environmental/waste/ust/index.html.

Internment sites get funding

CHEYENNE, Wyo. » The National Park Service has awarded nearly $1 million in grants to increase public knowledge about detention of Japanese-Americans during World War II and to help preserve internment sites.

The largest of the 19 grants, $282,000, is going to an organization that is building a museum at the former Heart Mountain Relocation Center outside Powell in northern Wyoming.

Also receiving grants are programs at the Manzanar and Tule Lake relocation centers in California, Honouliuli Internment Camp on Oahu, Fort Lincoln Internment Camp in North Dakota, Kooskia Internment Camp in Idaho, Crystal City Internment Camp in Texas and Central Utah (Topaz) Relocation Center.

UH regents choose new leaders

The University of Hawaii Board of Regents has elected Howard Karr as chairman and Dennis Hirota as vice chairman.

Karr, a retired bank executive, joined the Board of Regents in 2008 after working at First Hawaiian Bank for 29 years as administration and finance group vice chairman and the executive vice president and chief financial officer of BancWest Corp.

Karr is also involved in numerous nonprofit organizations, including the Aloha United Way, Hawaii Medical Service Association and Special Olympics of Hawaii.

Hirota joined the Board of Regents in 2008 and serves on Central Pacific Bank's board of directors and as president of Sam Hirota Inc., a 45-year-old civil engineering and surveying consulting company.

New commander takes Shafter post

Brig. Gen. Michael Terry will assume command tomorrow of the 8th Theater Sustainment Command and U.S. Army Hawaii at Fort Shafter.

Terry has been the commanding general of U.S. Army Security Assistance Command at Fort Belvoir, Va., since September 2007. He will replace Maj. Gen. Raymond V. Mason, who will become deputy chief of staff for the Army Forces Command at Fort McPherson, Ga.

Terry graduated from the University of Scranton, and his first assignment in 1979 was as a supply officer with the 25th Infantry Division. In 2001 he was selected to command the 64th Corps Support Group of the 13th Corps Support Command at III Corps. He was named commanding general of 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) at Fort Hood in Texas in 2005.

The 8th TSC is the command responsible for logistics in the Pacific Theater, providing food, bullets, maintenance, transport, engineering, personnel and military police support to war-fighters from Alaska to South Korea.

NEIGHBOR ISLANDS

Maui Land, county in spat involving well

WAILUKU » Maui Land & Pineapple Co. is at odds with Maui County over a water well the company drilled in Piiholo.

Under a 2006 agreement, the company was to turn the well over to the county to own and operate in exchange for 75 percent of the water pumped.

But County Water Director Jeff Eng says the county cannot accept the well because it does not yield enough water to meet the commitments made in the agreement.

ML&P Senior Vice President Ryan Churchill says the company has completed the well and is working with the county to complete the terms of the agreement.

The state Commission on Water Resource Management says pump tests done last year showed the well's maximum yield was 1.2 million gallons of water per day.

The company's target had been 2 million gallons.