Honolulu Star-Advertiser © Susan Scott
July 1, 1996
Last month, when a pipeline broke in Pearl Harbor, spilling bunker fuel all over the place, most of the comments I heard fell into one of three categories:
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Curses on those oil companies.
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Pearl Harbor is already so polluted, it hardly matters.
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Huh?
It’s easy to blame oil companies for fossil-fuel pollution problems. They’re big, faceless corporations that everyone loves to hate.
But before cursing Chevron for this recent accident in Pearl Harbor, consider the fact that the offending pipeline was feeding the Waiau power plant, one of three on Oahu providing us with electricity. Each of us uses the product of this pipeline. And no matter how scrupulous the safeguards, accidents happen.
And what about Pearl Harbor itself? Is it already a lost cause?
No. Despite its association with World War II devastation, the Navy and runoff pollution, Pearl Harbor remains alive and kicking. The place may not be pristine, but it has still got plenty of wildlife to root for.
Take fish. Pearl Harbor is home to significant numbers of:
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aholehole (Hawaiian flagtails)
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papio (young jacks)
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awa (milkfish)
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awaaua (ladyfish)
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kaku (barracuda)
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amaama (mullet)
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oopu (gobies)
Baitfish such as nehu (anchovies) and goldspotted herring also thrive in Pearl Harbor. Fishing boats with special permits regularly enter the estuary to catch these baitfish, important in the aku pole-and-line industry.
Invertebrates flourish in this harbor too. Opae (native shrimp) need this place where fresh and salt water mix. Like the stream gobies, opae life cycles are the reverse of salmon. Both gobies and shrimp spend their adult lives in fresh water, then migrate to salty areas to spawn. Pearl Harbor offers one of the few places left on Oahu where these animals can reproduce.
Pearl Harbor got its name from its abundant pearl oysters, which became scarce at the turn of the century from overharvesting and muddy agricultural runoff. Now oysters, clams and mussels have come back.
Harvesting Pearl Harbor shellfish, however, is strictly prohibited by the state Department of Health. Even in the best of circumstances, these filter-feeding bivalves can contain lethal bacteria and chemicals from fertilizers and pesticides.
And even though Pearl Harbor itself is doing well, it still receives the damaging results of a lot of human activity from up the valley.
Samoan and bluepincer crabs can be found in good numbers in Pearl Harbor these days. Because the Department of Heath no longer has the money to monitor these crabs’ meat, eat them at your own risk.
Crabs are scavengers and will eat just about anything they come across, including the tissue of dead oysters and clams.
Wjp cares if all these shellfish are thriving if we can’t eat them? The endangered waterbirds who live in the wetland refuges there are sensitive to the health of the estuary.
Pearl Harbor houses one of the few wetland nesting areas left on Oahu for native stilts, coots, moorhens and ducks.
Fortunately, the recent oil spill caused no direct wildlife deaths in the harbor.
It did, however, coat the shoreline and intertidal area around Ford Island and the Waipio Peninsula.
The first phase of the oil spill cleanup is ending. Workers are now making restoration plans and setting up systems for monitoring long-term impacts on fish, shellfish and other wildlife.
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii’s largest estuary, certainly is well worth the effort.