Pearl Harbor is listed as one of the contaminated areas by the US environmental protection agency. It is also important to know that there is a naval site enacted in the Pearl Harbor region (epa.gov). Given the fact that Pearl Harbor is currently a military site, there are toxic materials that have to be transported in and out of the naval region. The EPA has listed some of the contamination and risks as soil, organic compounds, and petroleum hydrocarbons among other things. Give that some metals are solvents, there is a high risk skin infection in case of a direct contact with the waste. According to the EPA , there is “mercury-contaminated sediments dredged from the harbor and there has been oil spills in the region epa.gov).” This means that the area is contaminated and not safe for the public health.
Given that mercury is harmful to any living thing, fish in the water are prone to die as a result of this waste. On the other side, the toxic materials may result to chemical poisoning to the community living around the Pearl Harbor including the islands surrounding the area such as Honolulu and Hawaii (epa.gov). In addition, the toxic materials in the water degrade soils and the waters in the affected region. This is a huge back lash in the region because the surrounding islands depend on agriculture as their way of life. This shows that this predicament affects the people in the region.
Given that the EPA has drafted the Pearl Harbor region as a contaminated site, the government is trying to clean-up the area so as to reduce the health risks out bounding from the toxic materials dumped and spilled in the waters (epa.gov). Waste minimization and treatment are among the key ways to reduce toxic materials in the waters. Waste minimization is one of the ways to reduce chemicals in the rivers because the community at large can decide to not dump waste in the waters. Thus, the Pearl Harbor region is a working progress but given the community involvement in the project, dumping toxic chemicals will reduce environmental degradation.
References
"Pearl Harbor Naval Complex." Superfund Site Overview , Pacific Southwest, US EPA. US Environmental Protection Agency, n.d. Web. 23 Jan. 2014. <http://yosemite.epa.gov/r9/sfund/r9sfdocw.nsf/vwsoalphabetic/Pearl+Harbor+Naval+Complex?OpenDocu
