Project Overview
Historical research shows that the Armed Forces disposed of conventional military munitions in Hawaiian waters off O‘ahu between 1920 and 1951. It also shows that the Armed Forces disposed of chemical munitions and containers of bulk chemical agent (referred to as chemical warfare material or CWM) off O‘ahu between 1933 and 1946. The Department of Defense (DoD) is interested in developing an understanding of the potential impact of sea-disposed military munitions, including CWM on human health and the environment. In support of this DoD interest, the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Environment, Safety and Occupational Health (ODASA-ESOH) under the National Defense Center for Energy and Environment (NDCEE), issued Concurrent Technologies Corporation (CTC) Task No.: 0496 under Contract W74V8H-04-D-0005 for the Hawai‘i Undersea Military Munitions Assessment (HUMMA). CTC contracted the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa (UH) to perform the required assessment. The contract was awarded in October 2007.
ODASA-ESOH is the technical monitor for the HUMMA Program. HUMMA’s objectives are to (a) develop a cost efficient and effective survey and assessment strategy for evaluating whether sea-disposed military munitions have had or have the potential to significantly impact human health and the environment; and (b) test the survey and assessment strategy at a single site. HUMMA‘s goals include determining the location of discarded military munitions (DMM) at a sea-disposal site (Site HI-05) that is located approximately 5 miles south of Pearl Harbor, and evaluating the environmental conditions of the area.
The Armed Services had policies and regulations that governed the sea-disposal of excess, obsolete or unserviceable military munitions. The Armed Forces sea-disposed excess, obsolete or unserviceable munitions, including CWM, in coastal waters off the United States prior to 1970, at which time it discontinued this practice. Congress subsequently prohibited sea-disposal of waste materials into the ocean in 1972.
The majority of military munitions were sea-disposed at depths in excess of 600 feet. Although records of these operations and disposal sites are incomplete and scattered throughout the National Archives and other information repositories, DoD has undertaken a significant archival research effort to determine or validate the exact locations of sites that contain sea-disposed military munitions, and to identify both the types of munitions sea-disposed and any other DoD-related material disposed at these sites. HUMMA supports the DoD in complying with the requirements of Public Law 109-364, Section 314 (Research on Effects of Ocean Disposal of Munitions).
As a part of this effort, the Army, working with the UH and Environet, a Hawaii based environmental consulting firm, selected a historic sea-disposal site (HI-05) in the vicinity of the entrance of Pearl Harbor off O‘ahu. CWM is known to have been disposed at HI-05, which is within close proximity to the UH home port.