Inventory of Formerly Used Defense Sites - Site 3A No. H09HI0467

Abstract

Environmental surveys for the selection of new dredge spoil disposal sites undertaken in 1975-1977 in the offshore waters just south of Honolulu and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, led to the inadvertent collection of significant quantities of unexploded military ordnance. Several researchers and crew members were seriously injured by leaking, canisters of toxic liquids believed to be mustard gas and some 1500 pounds of unexploded ordnance were recovered in bottom trawls. In the interest of determining if additional ordnance was present in the offshore waters, and the responsibility and possible need for cleanup action, an inventory of the sea floor was initiated using side-scan sonar and video photography of the two sites where unexploded ordnance had been recovered.