Marine Corps soil testing near its Ewa Beach shooting range that detected potentially dangerous levels of lead has reignited a debate about possible impacts to the adjacent beach and surrounding neighborhoods. 

All two dozen samples taken from the oceanside of the Pu‘uloa Range Training Facility in February tested positive for lead, copper and another heavy metal called antimony, according to a draft Marine Corps report submitted to the state health department. However, the extent to which those levels are hazardous is open to interpretation.

In six locations, lead levels exceeded state safety thresholds. One sample detected lead at concentrations 26 times what the state considers acceptable. Lead exposure poses a health risk to young children and pregnant women. 

In one sample, levels of antimony — a metal in the earth’s crust that is also an ingredient in bullets — were seven times the state’s limit. It can have negative health impacts for people who are regularly exposed at higher levels, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Animal studies have found the metal can cause lung and heart damage. 

Copper levels were all well below state standards, known as environmental action levels.

Military officials say the levels shouldn’t pose a threat to anyone because the nearby beach is closed to the public. But the health department says more investigation is warranted, although it stopped short of offering to conduct one itself.

Sven Lindstrom, a health department official, said some heavy metals are naturally present in the background of soil, and that exceeding action levels doesn’t necessarily mean there is a hazard to people’s health or the environment.

“It just means that you need to look at the situation a little bit further,” he said.

Doing so will be the Marines’ responsibility. It is generally up to landowners to investigate potential contamination on their own property with state oversight, according to Lindstrom, who works for the health department’s Hazard Evaluation and Emergency Response Office.

“We are continuing to work with the Marines to complete the evaluation of the hazards at the site,” Lindstrom said, “and then determine an appropriate remedy if one is necessary.”

Meanwhile, some community members feel the results further support a solution suggested by Hawaii’s Legislature in 2023: The shooting range should be relocated, away from the residential area.

“That is a big concern obviously for residents that live here,” said Alex Gaos, a member of the Ewa Beach Neighborhood Board. “I just want it out of the neighborhood.”

The Marines’ draft report, however, concluded that “no further immediate action is warranted at this time.” 

“There is no risk to human health associated with our findings,” Lt. Col. Andrew Yager, the operations director for Marine Corps Base Hawaii, told Civil Beat.

As part of the report, a Navy and Marine Corps health protection agency concluded there would only be a potential danger to a child who trespassed on the most contaminated spot one day per week for a year. The agency recommended a long-term monitoring program to keep an eye on trespassing and beach erosion, another issue the Marines have been trying to tackle at the site.

“We don’t think we have a lead contamination problem,” Yager said. “What we have is an erosion problem.” 

The Hawaii Department of Health said in an August letter that it disagreed with the Marines’ conclusion that no further action is needed.

Soil sampling on the west side of the facility may be needed to ensure contaminated dust cannot migrate toward the community, the agency said. And the elevated contaminant levels found in the testing could pollute state waters or groundwater below the facility, according to the health department. 

Citing state regulations, the health department said “further sampling is required to characterize the full nature and extent of these potential releases prior to evaluating remedial alternatives.”  

In a letter sent to Civil Beat last week, the Marine Corps told the health department that its most recent testing wasn’t designed to study the migration of dust. But because the samples on the western part of the shoreline closest to the community did not exceed the environmental action levels, the Marines don’t intend to study the issue further.

The Marines told the health department that additional questions can be addressed through the Marines’ upcoming Range Environmental Vulnerability Assessment in January. That process is a “holistic mechanism” to evaluate risk and establish monitoring requirements, the Marines said.

During the interview with Civil Beat, Yager noted the groundwater under its property is not used for drinking water.

Next Steps Remain Uncertain

The site has been a military firearms training site for more than a century and is the primary venue for the annual rifle and pistol requalification of more than 4,000 Marines. County and state agencies, including Honolulu police and state land and natural resources officials, also do target practice there. 

As the community has grown around the range and the military has expanded its training offerings, relations have soured between the two. Residents have complained about the noise of shooting bullets and early morning announcements, and have pushed back against a planned seawall that could have threatened the nearby beach.

More recently, the public’s focus has turned toward environmental contamination. 

During training exercises shooters fire at targets positioned in front of soil embankments, called berms, along the shoreline. While bullet fragments are routinely sifted out to prevent ricochets, lead contamination can be left behind. 

The Marines’ testing was done amid growing community unease that live fire training at Pu‘uloa has contaminated the facility’s soil, which is connected to an eroding beach, and that the contamination could be carried into the nearby neighborhoods by trade winds. 

In 2022, the Surfrider Foundation, a nonprofit focused on the protection of oceans and beaches, tested samples taken from the shoreline outside the range. The group found lead levels above the state’s safety limits and expressed alarm about contamination washing into the ocean. 

The Marines downplayed the results at the time, but Surfrider’s findings were echoed by testing commissioned by state Rep. Rose Martinez’s office, which tested fish caught near the range and dust samples from nearby homes. All six samples tested positive for lead at levels exceeding standards for food and soil. 

Given the small number of samples though, lead experts told Civil Beat a deeper study would be required to assess risk to the community. 

Now that Marine Corps Base Hawaii has taken a closer look, it must take further action, including monitoring, timely and transparent reporting and remediation, said Hanna Lilley, Hawaii regional manager of the Surfrider Foundation.

“As I understand it, MCBH does have the authority to prevent people from accessing the beach but that does not grant them the authority to contaminate our land, beaches and ocean,” she said in a statement. “They need to follow through and correct the problem. The health of our fragile ecosystems and public health should not pay the price.”

Martinez would not comment for this story because the Marines’ report is not yet finalized, her chief of staff, Tracy Arakaki, said in an email. 

The state representative is a member of a working group formed by the Legislature that is supposed to meet quarterly and assess lead contamination issues at Pu‘uloa. Yager said the Marines are open to discussing additional testing options in that venue, but he said the group has not had any meetings beyond an introductory gathering. 

Officials are planning an open house at Pu‘uloa in December so the community can visit the site and ask questions about the test results. The date and time of that event will be shared publicly in the coming weeks.