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NPL Site Narrative for Del Monte Corp. (Oahu Plantation)
DEL MONTE CORP. (OAHU PLANTATION)
Honolulu County, Hawaii
Federal Register Notice: December 16, 1994
Conditions at Proposal (May 10, 1993): Del Monte Corp.'s Oahu Plantation occupies 6,000 acres in Honolulu County, Hawaii, near the small village of Kunia on the coastal plain of the Island of Oahu. The area surrounding the plantation is used mostly for agricultural and military purposes. Del Monte has cultivated pineapple on the plantation since the 1940s. In pineapple agriculture, fumigants are used to control nematodes that infest the pineapple root. The dominant fumigant used at the plantation from the 1940s until 1983 was ethylene dibromide (EDB).
During the spring of 1980, the Hawaii Department of Health (HDOH) began a program designed to determine whether the fumigants used in pineapple agriculture had contaminated drinking water wells on Oahu. As part of this program, the Del Monte Kunia well was sampled. The well is located on the Oahu Plantation and provided drinking water for the approximately 700 residents of Kunia. Analyses detected two fumigants, EDB and 1,2-dibromo-3-chloropropane (DBCP). On April 25, 1980, HDOH ordered the Del Monte Kunia well removed from service. Water from the contaminated well is sprinkled onto non-crop fields.
Following the discovery of contamination, investigations by Del Monte, HDOH, and the Hawaii Department of Agriculture revealed two sources of contamination: an area used to store drums of fumigant from the 1940s until 1975, and an area near the well where 495 gallons of EDB spilled in 1977. Soils and ground water beneath these sources contained high concentrations of EDB and DBCP, according to over 400 analyses conducted between 1981 and 1991.
Since the discovery of contamination at the Kunia well, Del Monte engaged in remedial activities at the site, including the removal of 18,000 tons of soil, which was spread on a nearby field.
Despite these actions, the Kunia well contains concentrations of EDB and DBCP that are greater than the Cancer Risk Screening levels for these two contaminants.
Status (December 1994): Effective September 6, 1994, Del Monte voluntarily disconnected the Kunia Well from the non-crop irrigation system. Del Monte is working with EPA to develop and implement alternative treatment technologies and a ground water monitoring program.
EPA is beginning the Remedial Investigation (RI) process to determine the extent of contamination at the site and will evaluate all existing site data to determine the need for a baseline risk assessment.
For more information about the hazardous substances identified in this narrative summary, including general information regarding the effects of exposure to these substances on human health, please see the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) ToxFAQs. ATSDR ToxFAQs can be found on the Internet at http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxfaq.html or by telephone at 1-888-42-ATSDR or 1-888-422-8737.