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Friday, December 31, 2021

SO HOW WAS 2021?


      From Worldometer (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):


         DAY   USA    WORLD   Brazil     India      South Africa

June     9    1093     4732         1185           246            82
July    22     1205     7128         1293         1120          572
Aug    12     1504     6556        1242           835          130
Sept     9     1208      6222       1136          1168            82
Oct     21     1225      6849         571           703            85
Nov    25      2304    12025        620           518           118
Dec    30      3880    14748       1224          299           465
Jan     14      4142    15512       1151           189           712              
Feb      3       4005    14265       1209          107           398
Mar     2        1989      9490        1726          110           194
April   6          906     11787         4211          631            37
May    4         853     13667         3025        3786           59 
June   1         287    10637         2346         3205            95
 July   7          251      8440        1595           817            411
Aug    4          656    10120        1118            532           423 
Sept   1        1480    10470          703           505           235
        22       2228      9326          839           279           124
        29        2190      8859         643           309           108
Oct    5        1811       7495          686           285          103
          6        2102       8255         543           315            59
        12        1819       7544         201           249             37 
        19        2005      7528         401           160             80 
        27       1594       8671         433           734              62 
Nov   3        1436       7830        186           458             23
        10        1493      8366         264           362             48
        17        1416       8440        374           470              11
Dec    1        1633      8475         266           477             28 
          8        1324       7894         231           159             36
        15         1690      8233         227           343            54
        16           997      7115         173            391            36
        17         1653      7359         126            289           35 
        22         1634      7686         137            434           99 
        29         1777      7393         147            268           81
        30         1354      6758         154            220         126

Summary:
  • Good drop in new deaths for the USA.
  • However, another new record for new cases:  572,028 (new cases/million:  1713)
      • New York  71169 (3650)
      • Puerto Rico 14,331 (4215)
      • New Jersey  35,175 (3952)
      • Rhode Island  3918 (3696)
      • DC  2,242 (3201)
      • Hawaii  3484  (2489)
      • Georgia  24,420 (2304)
      • Idaho  924 (513)
      • Wyoming  (683)
    • #2  France  206,243  (3149)
    • #3  UK  189,210  (2766)
    • #4  Spain  161,688 (3485)
    • #5  Italy  126,888  (2104)
    • #6  Canada  39,836 (1043)
    • #7  Argentina  50,506 (1102)
    • #8  Germany 41,820 (497)
    • #9  Turkey  39,681 (463)
    • #10 Greece  35,580 (3454)
    • Japan  (3.7)
    • China (0.14):  However, the city of Xian, with a population of 13 million, suffered less than 1000 new cases this whole month and the city was locked down ten days ago.  Getting food is a problem.  Look up and you'll see Hawaii just yesterday had 3484 cases with a population (1.4 million) about 1/10 of Xian.  The mayor of Honolulu Rick Blangiardi told us to be careful.  That's it.
The sad bottom line is that U.S. states and Puerto Rico would rank #1-#4 in cases/million for the entire world.

The Delta variant was first identified in India late in 2020 and Omicron in southern Africa late in November of this year.  Delta is twice as contagious as the previous strains.  However, the Omicron variant is a little more than four times more transmissible than Delta.  Yet, Omicron has 40% fewer hospitalizations than Delta.

There were 385,000 COVID-19 deaths last year and, so far, with one day to go, 460,712 this year.  Relative to other deaths, in 2020 and the beginning of 2021:



The deaths/day for the U.S. was around 4,000 soon after the Christmas of 2020.  The rate is less than half now than during that period a year ago, so that gold bar is now below Heart Disease and Cancer.

While Peru has the highest number of COVID-19 deaths/million at 6.0:
  • World  0.7
  • USA  2.5
    • New York  3.1
    • Southern states around 3.0 and higher, with Mississippi at 3.5
    • California  1.9
    • Hawaii  0.76
    • Vermont  0.75
  • India  0.34
  • Pakistan 0.13
  • Countries of the former Soviet Union generally between 3.0 and 4.0, with Bulgaria at 4.5
  • Russia 2.1
  • UK  2.1
  • South Africa 1.5
  • South Korea  0.13
  • Singapore 0.14
  • Japan  0.15
  • China  0.03
This Omicron variant has made the more expensive N95 mask popular.  A few points to remember:
  • N95 and KN95 masks are about the same.  
    • The major difference is that most of KN95 masks come from China and might not actually pass certain standards.
    • Not for children and facial hair.
    • Only for one time wear.  Do not wash and reuse.
    • Should cost less than $5/mask, and around $3 is about right.
  • The Omicron variant is 0.15 micrometer (or micron) in diameter and these masks only filter out 0.3 micrometer and larger.  So why bother?  This virus is usually attached to droplets which are 0.3 micrometer and larger.
  • Cloth masks are not as effective.  
    • This is scary, but while a virus is 0.1 micron in diameter, the holes in a cloth mask are usually from 5 to 200 micron in diameter.  Stopping a virus is like using a chain link fence to stop mosquitos.
    • Yet, it is not that simple,  or bad, for cloth has layers, plus the virus is attached to droplets which can stick to the material.
    • Woven cotton at 100 threads per inch is best.
    • Simple T-shirt material has been shown to be functional.
    • Don't use coffee filters as a layer.
    • Keep in mind that the potential of infection and seriousness of illness increases with how many organisms reach your lungs.  A cloth mask will reduce the number of viruses.
  • See if you understand these graphs (article):
  • Of course, cloth masks are washable.
  • There is also the matter of comfort.  N95 and exercising might be a problem for some.
  • You can wear two masks.
  • You should also wear goggles, for a virus can enter the body through the eyes.
  • Best to wear a mask with a face shield, something I've been doing since March of 2020...sometimes.
  • Then, you can use a much more expensive respirator with oxygen supply.
The year 2021 started with a coup attempt by outgoing President Donald Trump. By then, most of those with any kind of sanity had left his cabinet, and the only ones left were plain kooky.   Read my posting of January 7.  How did the coup fail?  And there have been worst leaders in history.

Some highlights of the year:
  • June 26 is a posting worthy of reading about Maurice Hilleman, who with his team developed vaccines for two previous pandemics in four months.
  • It was also in June that we were notified Blue Revolution Hawaii was selected to host a TEDx event to link with the COP26 Global Warming Summit in Glasgow Summit.
  • In August came the Delta variant.
  • Now that our cruise line had cancelled our 2022 world cruise, I came up with a plane/ship global adventure to also take in the Dubai World Expo.
  • My photographic highlight of the year was a green flash from my apartment on December 20:

Here is a graphic summary of the U.S. economy and greenhouse gas emission comparison with other economies:


Some of you will actually look closely at the above graphic, but in addition:
  • Unemployment has dropped to 4.2%.  The global unemployment rate is around 5.7%.
  • U.S. poverty rate dropped to 7.7%, compared to 13.9% in 2018.  It was more than 24% in 1967.
  • In short, 2021 was a good year for our economy.
Climate change showed a retrogression.  Authorities keep saying it is getting worse and we should be doing a lot more.  COP26 in Glasgow was a disappointment.  Blah, blah, blah, said Greta Thunberg.  The reality is that carbon emissions are on track to rise by 16% by 2030, rather than fall in half.

Russia remains a problem.  Biden talked to Putin for 50 minutes yesterday, as requested by the latter.  Relationship is reminiscent of progress on global warming.  In the long term, Russia's position looks frighteningly good.

Joe Biden did also had a virtual meeting with Xi Jinping, back on November 15.  The usual talk that led to nothing.  Must have been unsatisfactory, for on December 5 Biden announced a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.  Several countries in Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia also won't send official observors.

The Tokyo Olympics was a success because it was held at all and did not decimate the Japan population.  In fact, something unexpected happened.  After a flurry of new COVID-19 cases, the country proceeded to conquer this virus.  Otherwise:
  • Japan won 27 gold medals, breaking its previous record of 16.
  • However, the government spent $15.4 billion.  This amount of money could have built 1200 schools or 38 Boeing 747s.  But it is said that the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics cost $40 billion, and the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics $51 billion.
  • The International Olympic Committee and NBC were happy.
Future sites will be Paris (summer) in 2024, Milan/etc. (winter) 2026, Los Angeles (summer) 2026 and Brisbane 2032 (summer).   Have you seen the Seine River?  Apparently it is now clean enough to serve as the 2024 site for water marathons and triathlons.

Billboard's top song of 2021 was Dua Lipa's Levitating.  First of all, most you never heard of her:
  • She is 26 years old.
  • Was born in London of Albanian parents.
  • Dua means love in Albanian.
  • Is a Muslim.
The top grossing movie of the year was Spider-Man:  No Way Home, earning $537 million.  Actually, that was in the U.S.  Worldwide, it made $1.05 billion as of this week.  Lot of money, and only earned in 12 days of relief.  However two Avengers films passed $1 billion after 5 days and 11 days.   The top grossing movie ever was the 2009 Avatar at $2.85 billion.  In 2021 #2 was Shang-Chi and #3 Venom.  I did not see any film in the top 10.  Of the 399 listed, #s 392 to 399 each earned less than $1000.  Gross total for the year was $4.4 billion.

You can tonight watch the ball fall from Times Square.  Bet you didn't know that it was called Longacre Square until  1904 when the New York Times, which was founded in 1851, relocated to that site in a building (here seen under construction in 1903) that became known as One Times Square.  There were fireworks, then in 1907, the first ball drop, an idea of Adolph Ochs, the publisher.  A hundred light bulbs then became a six ton sphere and 32,256 LEDs today.   The building itself, 25 stories and 363 feet tall,  at the corner of 42nd Street and Broadway, today holds a Walgreens on lower levels and nothing else.  Vacant.  There will soon be a subway stop entrance there.

Entertainment from the Square began on radio in the 1920's, with Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians.  Later came television and the advent of Dick Clark and others.

Couldn't care less about NCAA football (the two NCAA semi-final games are today)?  TCM is well into the That's Entertainment series.

It is, of course, 2022 already in some parts of the world.  Here are some photos from Sydney and Bangkok:

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Thursday, December 30, 2021

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT GETTING TESTED FOR COVID-19

      From Worldometer (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):


         DAY   USA    WORLD   Brazil     India      South Africa

June     9    1093     4732         1185           246            82
July    22     1205     7128         1293         1120          572
Aug    12     1504     6556        1242           835          130
Sept     9     1208      6222       1136          1168            82
Oct     21     1225      6849         571           703            85
Nov    25      2304    12025        620           518           118
Dec    30      3880    14748       1224          299           465
Jan     14      4142    15512       1151           189           712              
Feb      3       4005    14265       1209          107           398
Mar     2        1989      9490        1726          110           194
April   6          906     11787         4211          631            37
May    4         853     13667         3025        3786           59 
June   1         287    10637         2346         3205            95
 July   7          251      8440        1595           817            411
Aug    4          656    10120        1118            532           423 
Sept   1        1480    10470          703           505           235
        22       2228      9326          839           279           124
        29        2190      8859         643           309           108
Oct    5        1811       7495          686           285          103
          6        2102       8255         543           315            59
        12        1819       7544         201           249             37 
        19        2005      7528         401           160             80 
        27       1594       8671         433           734              62 
Nov   3        1436       7830        186           458             23
        10        1493      8366         264           362             48
        17        1416       8440        374           470              11
Dec    1        1633      8475         266           477             28 
          8        1324       7894         231           159             36
        15         1690      8233         227           343            54
        16          997       7115         173            391            36
        17          1653     7359         126            289           35 
        22         1634      7686         137            434           99 
        29         1777      7393         147            268           81

Summary:
  • My, oh my.  Not only did we swamp the world in deaths, we had an all-time high 465,670 new cases.
  • #2 in new deaths was Russia with 932, about half that of the USA, and #3 Poland with 793.
  •  However, new deaths/million:
    • U.S.  5.32
    • Russia  6.38
    • Poland  20.98
    • South Africa 1.34
    • UK  0.83
  • Greece had 2799 new cases per million.  
    • U.S.?  1394.  
      • New York  3465
      • New Hampshire  1215
      • Delaware  1118
      • Hawaii  1115
      • DC  2017
      • Puerto Rico 2412
    • Denmark  3797
    • South Africa 149
    • Japan  2.9.
    • Taiwan  0.56
    • China  0.14
**********************
Just got this alarming information from the Star Advertiser:


I never expected us to get that high, for our previous peak in earlier waves was less than half that number.  Yet, there were again (three out of past four days) ZERO deaths.  To compare:
  • Hawaii is now at 2429 cases/million.
  • Looking above:
    • Way below Denmark at 3797 and New York at 3465.
    • Just below Greece at 2799.
    • Much worse than the USA at 1394.
    • 838 times worse than Japan.
    • 43,375 worse than Taiwan.
  • Hawaii is now averaging around 1 new death/day.  Compared to others in new deaths/million:
    • Hawaii  0.71
    • USA  5.32
    • Poland  21
    • World  0.95
  • Hawaii's positivity rate has been inching up, now at 14%, the same as the U.S.
    • According to WHO, the pandemic is under control at 5%.
    • A scary development is that most of the countries in southern Africa seem to be at 20% and higher.  Even South Africa is still at 29%.
    • Germany and Norway are at 18%.
    • Japan is at 0.5%, and many countries of the Orient are also below 1%.
**********************************

The USA is being seriously impacted by the Omicron variant, but it is worse so for Europe.  However, note how quickly South Africa and the UK declined in new cases and new deaths.  The Orient seems to be skipping the Omicron variant.  Why???

From the New York Times this morning, comparing New York and Florida, it appears that this Omicron variant is hitting harder, but without the hospitalizations and deaths as the Delta variant:

Among the new news is that those who recover from an Omicron infection seem to be immune to the Delta variant, but the reverse is not true.  That is, if you got sick with the Delta variant, there seems to be little protection agains Omicron.  Second, we now know that Omicron is more contagious than Delta.  In Michigan it is four times higher.  Third, hospitalizations and deaths from Omicron are 54% lower than Delta in Canada.  This number will somewhat change when average for the world.  It is clear, though, that Omicron will replace Delta as the prevalent variant, and, combined with any previous infection, vaccinations and boosters, COVID-19 will someday (and it could well be next year) join the influenza viruses to become the seasonal flu, something I have been suggesting from a month ago.


More and more, certain locations and venues are requiring the vaccine mandate to include a booster shot.  Here are arguments for either side of this issue.  No doubt that a booster can make a big difference in contracting any variant of COVID-19, but one point of view is that the standard two shots for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, and one for Johnson&Johnson's, are sufficient to prevent hospitalization and death.  It is more important for the whole world to be protected before another more dangerous variant peaks.  However, the CDC has issued a statement recommending a booster for anyone eligible, I while this might sound unhumanitarian, I agree.  Israel and some other countries are mulling second booster.

Here are further COVID-19 statistics by state from the New York Times:

  • Vermont, Rhode Island and Maine lead the nation in being fully vaccinated at 76/77%.
  • Southern states, Idaho and Wyoming are the lowest, below 50%.

The CDC announced another confusing decision:  if asymptomatic, you can return to society in five instead of ten days.  They should have further said you can resume your life in five days if asymptomatic and with a negative test.  But which test?

Two primary tests are use:

  • Rapid test detect antigens and are not too accurate, but can provide results in 15 minutes or so.  False negatives regularly occur for asymptomatic patients.
  • The other more accurate test is PCR, for polymerase chain reaction.  This can take days to get a result.
There is a third test called Antibody Serology Test which detects antibodies in your body, but is not considered to be diagnostic.


  • Best:  QuickVue At-Home OTC COVID-19 Test at CVS
    • Nasal swab.
    • Place in solution tube and swirl.
    • Remove swab.
    • Dip detection strip.
    • Read results, pink or blue, but somewhat confusing as to what is what.
    • Two tests to be taken two or three days apart, for a total cost of $24.
    • Not FDA approved, but okayed for emergency use, whatever that means.
Take three days before seeing your family or exposing others.  If both tests are negative, there is a good chance you are safe.  If even one positive, watch out.  If both positive, quarantine yourself or 5 days if asymptomatic, or 10 days if with symptoms.  Read CDC's latest announcement.


Here is one review of the best at-home PCR tests, which you need to mail out for results:
  • Best of the Best:  DxTerity
    • Saliva, or non invasive.
    • But can take a long time to get results.
    • $85/test.
  • Best Bang for the Buck:  Amazon
    • Nasal test.
    • Meets travel requirement in U.S., except Hawaii.
    • $40/test.
  • Top Pick:  BinaxNOW
    • Nasal swab.
    • Not accepted by CDC for travel requirements.
    • $7/test.

First, don't travel.  Second, if you do, it is still confusing about what you need to do.  So read this article:

  • The requirement in the U.S. is anyone over the age of 2 to submit a negative COVID-19 test taken within one day of departure.  Good luck on this being easy to get.
  • The CDC today accepts Abbott's BinaxNow (great for international travel... but watch out for the expiration date--and be careful about the keeping in hot weather), Ellume's Home Test and Qured's rapid antigen test.
  • To quote:

You can buy a six-pack testing kit through eMed for $150, which also allows for next business day delivery for orders processed and approved by 6 p.m. EST, Monday through Friday.

You can also purchase the same test through Optum, which charges $70 for a two-pack or $100 for three. Optum also sells a single test for $50 that is currently out of stock online.

All the above appears to apply for air and cruise travel.


Finally, what about those tests promised by the White House?
  • Those with health insurance should be able to get reimbursed.
  • For those without insurance, tens of millions of free tests will be made available to community centers.
  • Not quite sure when this program will take effect, as medical plans in the past did not end up paying for your at-home tests, which ran from $15 to $40, and these previous ones will not be covered by this new plan.
  • Also not certain which tests will be available.

A few more items of interest:

  • Alaska just experienced its warmest December day in recorded history:  67F.
  • Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in New York has been postponed to later in the year.
  • Biden and Putin had a phone chat this afternoon.
  • Yesterday the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit another all time high, rising 90 to 36,489.  However, the Dow fell 91 today.

About my life, I've decided to just stay home until next year.  However, I did make an end of year visit to the Valley of the Temples Memorial Park and the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Punchbowl:

We had a bento lunch from Ray's at Punchbowl with this view:

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Wednesday, December 29, 2021

HOW SERIOUS IS HONOLULU'S WATER PROBLEM?

The Omicron variant is causing record shattering new cases in the U.S. and Europe.  Nearly a year ago on January 11, we reached the record seven-day average of 252,00 daily cases.  Yesterday, it was 265,427. Tomorrow, more details.


However, the good news from Dr. Matthew Bai of Mount Sinai Queens in New York City:


The general trend that I’m seeing is, if you’re boosted and you get Covid, you really just at worst end up with bad cold symptoms. It’s not like before where you were coughing, couldn’t say sentences and were short of breath.


Further:


Dr. Joseph Varon, chief of critical care services and the Covid-19 unit at Houston’s United Memorial Medical Center, said of the roughly 50 patients admitted to the hospital’s Covid unit in the last four weeks, 100 percent of them were unvaccinated.


The bottom line is that if you were vaccinated with a booster, and got infected, the ailment was minor.  If unvaccinated, the Omicron variant seems to be more effective in inducing pneumonia.  And, as the UK experienced their record peak caused by Omicron two weeks ago:


And last week, reports out of the United Kingdom found that people who were infected with omicron in November and December were about two-thirds less likely to be hospitalized, compared with the delta variant.


REALLY, A SIMPLE SOLUTION:  GET VACCINATED AND BOOSTED!


About the topic of the day, Honolulu has been relatively safe since I was born.  There was December 7 in 1941 when Pearl Harbor was attacked.  My mother said she pointed to the smoke carrying me in her arms when I was 1-year old.  


From 1983 to 2018 the Pu'i'o'o Eruption regularly wafted considerable vog, natural air pollution, from the Big Island to Hawaii.  So bad I remained at home in air condition comfort.  Interestingly enough, I was golfing on the Volcano Golf Course on 3January1983 when the ground shook, we looked to our right, and not that far away we could see fountains of lava.  That was the beginning.

We have regular hurricanes that approach, but not one has come close to devastating my island, Oahu. Tsunamis have struck certain coastal areas, but nothing close to Waikiki, downtown or where I lived.  Earthquakes worry me a bit.  Just yesterday the Star Advertiser reported on the updated Seismic Hazard Model for the state:

  • There is a 90% chance that Hawaii and Maui could experience damaging levels of shaking during the next century.
  • Honolulu was in the 50% to 75% range.
  • There were two large earthquakes on the south flank of Mauna Loa in 1868 of up to 8.1 magnitude.  There were 79 deaths from a tsunami and mudflow to the biggest one.
  • The Kilauea south flank had a 7.2 earthquake in 1975.
  • So looks like Honolulu should be relatively safe from any earthquakes in my few years to come.
While drinking water is not a normal danger to anyone in the U.S. not living in Flint, Michigan, and other similar areas, it has become a serious issue in Honolulu.  Water can be an interesting topic.  For example:
  • Let's look at a 20-ounce bottle of water, which costs around $1.50, or $9.60 per gallon.
  • Drinking water costs 0.004/gallon in the U.S.
  • Do the math, and bottled water costs 2400 times more than tap water.
  • Well, I too made a calculation and found out that you can get from Amazon 40 bottles of 16.9 fluid ounce Kirkland Signature bottled water for $25.69.  This turned out to be 5.3 gallons, or $4.77/gallon.  Thus, compared to drinking water at $0.004/gallon, the factor is 1192.  However, the Board of Water Supply here charges closer to $0.005/gallon, so, make that 954.
In other words, by drinking the cheapest bottle water I can find, I am paying around a thousand times more than tap water...where I do detect a bit of chlorine. 


More:
  • The bottled water market jumped past $200 billion annually, half in the U.S.
  • According to this article, everything counted, bottled water costs 2000 times more than drinking water from the tap, whatever that means.
  • The plastic bottles eat up 17 million barrels of oil/year.
  • Less than a quarter of those bottles get recycled.
  • Spring water means it needs to originate underground.
  • Glacier  or mountain water can be anything.
  • Bottle water may contain excess bacteria, benzene and arsenic.
  • Filtered water means the water is run through a filter, any filter.  Tap water is also filtered.
  • Purified water does go through a more stringent process, but there is no regulation.
  • Enhanced water adds something like vitamins.
  • Alkaline water has a higher pH than tap water.
  • 100% pure does not mean devoid of impurities.
  • One advantage of tap water is that you don't need to buy it and lug it home, which can strain your back.

All that analysis leads to the most serious problem facing Honolulu today, next to the pandemic.  Yesterday, the Star Advertiser reported that the Navy's Red Hill fuel facility was a ticking time bomb.  There is a fight going on where State authorities want the 20 fuel tanks which power military operations in the Pacific to be emptied and moved.  After all, they are above the aquifer that supplies water to Honolulu.   The U.S. Navy has been evasive and uncooperative, with empty words of concern. 

  • Perhaps as early as May 6, or maybe it was November 20, 19,000 gallons of fuel spilled from a fire suppression drain line from the Red Hill storage site.
  • Later it was announced that only 14 of the 20 tanks had fuel, and some of them had not been inspected for up to 40 years.
  • On December 8 Secretary of Navy Carlos Del Toro ordered the suspension of operations at this location.
  • But on December 20, James Balocki, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy, testified that this was not an emergency or crisis, and was unaware of people getting sick. 
  • On December 23 the Navy confirmed that more than 5,000 reported illnesses, 3.000 families were displaced and 93,000 were told not to drink the water.

All this obfuscation and downright lying have been ongoing since World War II.  The Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility:

  • Can store up to 250 million gallons of fuel.
  • Each of the tanks can store 12.5 million gallons.
  • They are 100 feet in diameter and 250 in height.
  • The facility began to be built in 1940.
  • 3900 worked every day to build tunnels and space for 20 tanks.
  • The facility was still under construction when Japan attacked on December 7, 1941.
  • The site was used to bury the dead from the attack.  Many were later identified and moved to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Punchbowl, meaning that graves must still remain there.
  • In December 2013 into 2014 27,000 gallons of jet fuel leaked from tank #5.
  • The nearest drinking water shaft operated by the Navy was 3,000 feet away and provides water to military families.
  • The Halawa shaft of the city is only one mile away.
  • Groundwater showed 17 parts per billion contamination, well below the 100 parts per billion requirement.
  • In December 2021 drinking water contamination was found after military families reported symptoms of nausea, diarrhea and intense headaches, foul-smelling tap water bearing an oily sheen.

The concern about this ticking time bomb is especially serious, for if fuel has been leaking away from the facility for almost 80 years, this will mean that at some point all the aquifers will in time become contaminated.  I taught Environmental Engineering at the University of Hawaii and told my students that all island systems have something called a Ghyben-Herzberg lens, a convex-shaped layer of fresh groundwater that floats above the denser seawater.  The aquifer of freshwater is recharged through precipitation that infiltrates the top layer of soil and cracks in the rock formation, percolating downward until it reached the freshwater zone.  I might add that sea level rise caused by global warming will also adversely affect the lens.

In other words, the real calamity about the Red Hill fuel storage tank matter is that jet fuel, which has had a long history of leaks, could have from a long time ago been permeating down to the freshwater lens.  If that were to happen, the entire water supply of Honolulu will forever become contaminated!  Crude oil can be removed in a water treatment process, but that will just add to the already troublesome situation, adding a burdensome cost.


Less than 8% of water used in the U.S. goes to the residential sector:

Surprising to learn that electricity production uses the most.  A small amount of petroleum in this water should not materially affect this use.  More needs to be learned about some contamination of irrigation water.  I did not realize that Hawaii uses the second-most amount of water/capita, with #1 being Utah:

The average person uses 100 gallons of water per day, one gallon to drink and 2.5 gallons for washing hands/face. brushing teeth, etc.  Personal consumption is not a major problem for most, as bottled water seems to be taking over anyway.  In a typical home:

  • 30%  outdoor watering
  • 19%  toilets
  • 15%  washing machines
  • 11%  faucets (including showering)
  • 10% leaks
From the EPA:


Of course, if the worse happens, the city can desalinate water, but it might just as well pump contaminated water for most of home and industry use, with customers surviving on bottled water for drinking and cooking.  Depending on location, it can be cheaper to ship water from an available source than pay for desalination.  This is why the rich Middle East countries are contemplating using icebergs.  A few points:
  • The average price of water in the USA costs $1.50/1000 gallons.  I think this is too low.  Maybe it includes ag water.
  • So I went city by city across the USA and calculated costs from $0.003 to $0.014/gallon.
  • Water in Honolulu costs around $5/1000 gallons, or $0.005/gallon.
  • Desalination of seawater costs $1/cubic meter, or $0.004 cents/gallon.
  • Desalination of brackish water costs $0.6/cubic meter, or $0.0022 cents/gallon.
  • Transport costs a few cents/meter if only horizontally.
  • A 100 meter vertical lift is about as costly as taking this water 100 km horizontally.
So it comes down to how dangerous will it be to shower and the possible spread of oil when watering plants and lawns.  Here is a Nigerian study showing how petroleum can be a problem.  There, people have been drinking water as much as 1800 times higher in petroleum than U.S. drinking standards.  Petroleum contains benzene and other unsafe compounds.  In short, local people showed the same type of symptoms as the military families.  Other studies have shown long-term health effects like respiratory and skin disorders and cancer.


So how serious is Honolulu's water problem?  

  • In a worst case scenario, no one should die.  
  • In a short transition, a few will get ill, as has already occurred.  
  • Bottled water sales will rise.  
  • Honolulu will be tainted by reputation as a location with bad water, like Flint, Michigan.
  • Waikiki might lose tourists, which will be a gain for other islands.  
  • Home values might be compromised, plus people will leave and fewer will come here to live.  
  • In short, not so serious.  
  • We'll learn to live at a slightly higher cost of living and forever be pissed off with the Navy.  
  • Still the best place on Planet Earth, while awaiting a possible serious hurricane, tsunami or earthquake, which has not been a problem in my 81 years here in on Oahu.

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