[CPEO-MEF] Hundreds to be laid off as Kahoolawe work ends

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Hawai'i
HONOLULU STAR-BULLETIN
Hundreds to be laid off as Kahoolawe work ends
By Gary Kubota, gkubota@starbulletin.com
Thursday, November 20, 2003

WAILUKU >> Some 350 Kahoolawe cleanup workers -- to be laid off by the
largest U.S. Department of Defense ordnance-clearing project -- are
expected at a job fair 8 a.m. to noon tomorrow at the Maui Beach Hotel.

State labor officials on Maui said it will be the largest layoff in
recent years; the last large layoff on Maui was in 1999 when Pioneer
Mill Co. Ltd. in Lahaina shut down its operations and laid off 147
full-time and seasonal workers.

The Parsons-UXB Joint Venture workers on the cleanup authorized by
Congress in 1993 include clerks, heavy equipment operators,
archaeologists, environmental specialists and surveyors.

James Froneberger, project manager for Parsons, said this is the first
job fair he has seen in his 10 years of experience.

Froneberger said most ordnance-clearing jobs usually take from three to
nine months rather than several years as on Kahoolawe.

He said about 150 workers will be laid off Jan. 5-6, including those
clearing ordnance.

Froneberger said the last day of work is March 12, and the remaining
workers will be doing various tasks, such as shipping out materials,
conducting quality-control inspections and posting warning signs to
establish ordnance clearance boundaries.

During the joint venture's more than five years of work clearing 75
percent of the surface of the 28,000-acre island, 92,000 pieces of
unexploded ordnance -- ranging from bullets to 2,000-pound bombs -- were
disposed of, the Navy estimated.

This article can be viewed at:
http://starbulletin.com/2003/11/20/news/story12.html

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