[CPEO-MEF] MUNITIONS, FORMER SITES: Waikoloa (HI) "Ordnance removal workers say job is hazardous, pay is unfair"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Ordnance removal workers say job is hazardous, pay is unfair

By Nancy Cook Lauer
West Hawaii Today
April 28, 2015


They had just come off work. Dangerous work, trudging along with metal detectors, grid by tedious grid, over World War II weapons training sites. It’s hot work, out on the grassy lava fields of Waikoloa, no shade, only the water they can carry, no toilet facilities.

It’s not a job for the faint of heart. Unexploded ordnance that litters former military training sites on many Hawaiian islands is unstable, known to go off without warning. One such occurrence early this month sent two maintenance workers at Makua Military Reservation on Oahu to the hospital with serious injuries.

Eleven people have been killed or injured by old artillery rounds in the state since the 1940s.

Showing equal parts anger and fear, the group of seven, many still in their neon-bright worker shirts, huddled around an outside table at a Big Island Starbucks recently, wanting to share their stories but afraid of getting caught.

…

For the entire article, see
http://www.westhawaiitoday.com/news/local-news/ordnance-removal-workers-say-job-hazardous-pay-unfair

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope Street
Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650-961-8918 or 650-969-1545
Fax: 650-961-8918
LSiegel@cpeo.org
http://www.cpeo.org




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