DU HI

by Alan D. McNarie

"We don't want to be doing this," says Holualoa resident Shannon Monkowski. "I just want to make sure that the air in my home is not contaminated with radioactivity."
Monkowski and her husband, Gunter, had been using two Gamma Scout radiation counters to constantly monitor background radiation for over two weeks at their home. The couple emphasizes that they're amateurs, their readings are preliminary, and that they would prefer the State Department of Health to be doing this job. Thus far they've found the background radiation in the area generally varies from around 5 to 25 counts per minute. But both meters have simultaneously recorded several spikes in the 50s-more than twice normal.
Their concern was sparked by two incidents: on April 23, visiting anti-DU activist Leuren Moret measured a 92 CPM spike in South Kona; and during a protest on the Saddle Road May 29, Monkowski recorded five radiation spikes over 40 cpm (including one at 75) over 3 1/2 hours.
Some residents suspect that the Army is using, or has used, depleted uranium munitions at Pohakuloa Training Area, and that wind-born particles are reaching inhabited regions.
During a meeting of concerned citizens in Waimea, Kyle Kajehiro, Program Director of the American Friends Service Committee on O'ahu, charged that the military had a long history of hiding its use of DU. The Army denied using DU rounds on that island until documents revealed that a cleanup of unexploded ordinance at Schofield Barracks had been delayed by the discovery of "DU and chemical weapons."
Kajihiro says the Army didn't admit the DU use-not even to the officially sanctioned Native Hawaiian cultural monitors-until activists announced it at a press conference.
He also noted that in 2000 the Army said it didn't have DU in its arsenal within the Pacific Command Area.
According to the May 11 Honolulu Advertiser, an "army spokesman" said the spotter rounds "were used at Schofield Barracks and possibly at Makua Military Reservation and Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island," and that the army planned to survey for DU remnants in all three areas this summer.
In addition to the DU discovered at Schofield Barracks, there was the underestimation of DU in Okinawa and the Navy's accidental firing of two DU rounds into the Waianae mountains-again, not revealed until activists confronted the military with the documents.
Russell Takata, head of the state DOH's Division of Noise, Radiation and Indoor Air Quality Branch, told HIJ that the activists' readings were far below the recognized threshold of danger to the public. But Dr. Lorrin Pang, the DOH's Maui County district health officer who, as a private citizen, is advising the Hawai'i Island citizens' group, argues that low-level radiation may be even "more dangerous," since high levels of radiation kill cells outright, but low levels can simply mutate the cells' DNA without killing them.
State responds
The DOH sent Radiation Section Supervisor Jeff Eckerd to investigate after the initial report of a radiation spike. On May 18 and on June 19, Eckerd took background radiation readings at various West Hawai'i sites, including the Girl Scout camp on the Saddle Road below Pohakuloa, at Konawaena High School, and a point near the Kona Community Hospital. He found no abnormal readings. Eckerd said he monitored the Girl Scout camp for 45 minutes and spent 15 minutes at each of the other sites.
Conditions may have been just right for a high reading during the Saddle Road protest-Kona winds gusting off the firing range. Eyewitnesses say a dust devil blew through the area at about the time of the highest radiation spikes.
HIJ asked Eckerd what the chances were of being "in the right place at the right time" when he was only at a location for 45 minutes once a month.
"I'll be honest with you. It's hard," he admitted. He's planning monthly visits to Hawai'i Island to improve those chances, and "Depending on time and resources, we may increase it."
The DOH and the civilians are using different types of radiation meters, making comparisons difficult. Takata claimed that the DOH's sodium iodide-based machines are more sensitive, and so normally read higher, than the activist's Geiger-Muller-tube-based machines (the classic "Geiger counters"). But with either system, Eckerd said, "Usually, if you get a reading that's two to three times above the normal background radiation, that's an indication that there may be something there."
"It's possible that if the wind is in their direction and there's a lot of dust, they could get more terrestrial radiation [naturally radiation from the soil]," he said. Yet he admitted that in over four years of measuring background radiation in Hawai'i, he'd never seen counts of two to three times normal.
"We do have concerns also," Eckerd said. He noted that the state is not allowed to test for radiation directly on military bases, and that DU was "under the sole authority of the NRC." But he said that the state was working with both the Army and the NRC to get a testing regimen going, perhaps as early as this month.
Our data
"Unmasked: the Lowdown on Depleted Uranium in Hawai'i," (HIJ, 06/30; also published in Honolulu Weekly), reported that Honaunau farmer Doug Fox took the reading in South Kona that started the furor. But Fox says Moret took the reading, using a borrowed Digilert 50 Geiger counter, and Fox can't vouch for the data's accuracy.
Two weeks after the Saddle Road protest, HIJ borrowed the same Digilert 50 that Moret used, and spent the night at Mauna Kea State Park, where the protest took place. We took nearly 12 hours of readings; the meter never read higher than 26 CPM. But instead of the gusty Kona winds that were occurring the day of the protest, the winds were predominantly trades. We also took readings in Volcano, Kurtistown, Kaumana and downtown Hilo, to establish benchmark normal background radiation. All of those readings were in the 4-25 CPM range.
"We're a little bit beyond machine error now," believes Pang of the reported Saddle Road spike. He's working with the citizen's group to get better data. The first step was to run two machines side by side for two weeks to make sure that they were getting the same readings. The next step is to mask one detector with a piece of paper.
DU emits primarily alpha radiation particles. While those particles can do tremendous damage if inhaled or ingested, most substances can stop them-even a sheet of paper. The Geiger-Muller tubes in the activists' counters have an end covered a thin layer of mica, which alpha particles can penetrate. If one machine has a paper barricade and the other doesn't, and the readings differ, it indicates the presence of alpha particles-and probably of DU.
Pang also recommends continuous monitoring both upwind and downwind of Pohakuloa. If radiation spikes occur downwind but not upwind, that's a good indication of where the radiation is coming from.
Monitoring will require more volunteers, plus money for more radiation meters. The group is appealing for both. Those who wish to help can call Barbara Moore at 328-2159.

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