BY ERIN MILLER WEST HAWAII TODAY ADVERTISING emiller@westhawaiitoday.com Keahole Point Fish LLC, the successor to Kona Blue Water Farms, confirmed Thursday one of the company’s vessels had a small oil spill at Honokohau Harbor late last month. Paddler Shannon Nakaya
BY ERIN MILLER
WEST HAWAII TODAY
emiller@westhawaiitoday.com
Keahole Point Fish LLC, the successor to Kona Blue Water Farms, confirmed Thursday one of the company’s vessels had a small oil spill at Honokohau Harbor late last month.
Paddler Shannon Nakaya contacted West Hawaii Today Thursday about the spill, which she observed while paddling from the harbor along the shore fronting Kaloko-Honokohau National Historic Park. She said she’d tried, unsuccessfully, to reach Kona Blue officials via the company’s website, which is still up and running, nearly two years after the company sold its offshore operations to Keahole Point.
Tim Gregg, facilities manager for Keahole Point Fish, said one of the company’s boats had a broken oil line Dec. 23, draining oil into the bilge.
“The skipper inadvertently hit ‘auto’ on the bilge,” Gregg said. That discharged an undetermined amount of oil into the harbor.
The crew immediately began cleanup, using an absorbent boom kept on board, and notified a U.S. Coast Guard officer stationed at the harbor.
“We’ll probably get a notice of citation and a little fine,” Gregg said.
A Coast Guard official was initially unaware of the incident and was unable, initially, to provide additional information about the spill.
In general, Lt. Cmdr. Bill Taylor said, anyone who sees or suspects a chemical spill should contact the National Response Center at 1-800-424-8802. Tips provided to the center will be reported back to the appropriate response agency, Taylor said.
Gregg said the December spill wasn’t the only one since Keahole Point Fish purchased the operation. They had another, small leak, in which they lost about two cups of oil. The equipment is aging and sometimes springs a leak, he said. The company replaced hydraulic oil with food grade oil, he added.
“We’re really concerned about how we’re perceived in the harbor,” he said.
Nakaya said the Dec. 23 incident left a sheen of oil about three-fourths of the way across the bay fronting the national park.
“We kept paddling and we couldn’t get away from it,” she said.
She said she was concerned about the casual manner in which the fish farm employees seemed to be responding to the spill.
“They know there is a problem because they had these absorbent things,” she said.
Her ultimate concern, she said, is protecting the harbor and the marine life.
“I like that our harbor doesn’t look like the Ala Wai canal,” she said.
