HONOLULU (AP) — A government contractor will not dispose of seized fireworks in a west Oahu community. ADVERTISING HONOLULU (AP) — A government contractor will not dispose of seized fireworks in a west Oahu community. A spokesman for URS Federal
HONOLULU (AP) — A government contractor will not dispose of seized fireworks in a west Oahu community.
A spokesman for URS Federal Services said Wednesday the company will find another site other than private property in Nanakuli to dispose of 5,400 pyrotechnic devices seized because they were labeled consumer grade rather than the more powerful commercial grade.
At meeting Tuesday night of the Nanakuli-Maili Neighborhood Board, residents protested a plan by subcontractor Grucci Inc., a professional fireworks display company, to fire off 900 fireworks once per month for six months on property near a chicken farm. The Department of Health afterward asked the company to consider changing locations for the disposal.
“We have no other choice,” said Michael DeSousa, director of risk management, Mission Readiness Group, for URS Federal Services. “We’ve been told to reconsider. We have to reconsider.”
The nine pallets of devices are a second set of fireworks confiscated by the federal government. They are stored in the same bunker where a fireworks explosion and fire in 2011 killed five men.
DeSousa attended the Nanakuli meeting but did not allay fears by residents.
“Grucci selected this site because it had been used in previous years for New Year’s displays,” DeSousa told the residents.
Grucci planned to truck 900 devices at a time to the property on Paakea Road. The fireworks tubes would have been electronically fired 25 to 50 feet high after 8 p.m., DeSousa said.
“It will roughly take seven minutes to burn out 900 cakes,” he said.
Farmers said the blasts could cause livestock to bolt and diminish egg production from startled chickens.
Steven Chang, chief of the state Health Department’s Solid and Hazardous Waste Branch, said the department previously has dealt with munitions disposal by the military. Fireworks could be detonated at Schofield Barracks, he said, if the Army gave its permission.
