Waikele Blast: ‘They Should Be Alive Today,’ Chemical Board Says
WASHINGTON, D.C. 鈥 on Thursday unanimously voted in favor of new national safety recommendations for fireworks disposal jobs in response to the explosion that killed five workers handling confiscated fireworks in a Waikele bunker two years ago.
a dangerous and cobbled-together disposal plan and the absence of local, state or federal safety requirements in the deaths. They also found the workers who died didn’t have adequate expertise for the job, and shouldn’t have been awarded a federal contract to get rid of the explosives in the first place. Investigators said Thursday that federal contractors are lagging far behind the private sector on safety in this area.
“They should be alive today,” said Chemical Safety Board (CSB) Chairman of the five Hawaii men who died.
Investigators found that the fireworks, which came to Honolulu from China, were labeled for consumer use but that they actually contained far more explosive materials. Because of the strength of the explosives, federal customs agents confiscated them.
The April 2011 explosion occurred inside of a World War II-era bunker where the seized fireworks were being stored, killing five contractors for Donaldson Enterprises, Inc., an environmental and explosive services company that specializes in unexploded ordnance disposal.
Donaldson Enterprises had been selected by a larger federal contractor, Virginia-based VSE Corporation, for the job. But the CSB points out that VSE was “unaware that despite DEI鈥檚 military ordnance background, the company had no experience with fireworks disposal.鈥
The CSB also blames the U.S. Treasury for failing to properly select and oversee subcontractors like Donaldson Enterprises. Neither the U.S. Treasury nor VSE immediately returned requests for comment on Thursday.
鈥淥ur investigation found that company personnel had no specific expertise in fireworks disposal, that the company鈥檚 procedures were extremely unsafe, and that there are no national standards or accepted good practices for disposing of fireworks,” Moure-Erase said in an earlier statement. “While fireworks provide entertainment for millions, the disposal of unused fireworks creates enormous hazards for workers because, we were surprised to find, there are no guidelines to do the work.”
Even though Donaldson Enterprises improvised an unsafe plan to dispose of the fireworks 鈥 planning to soak them in diesel fuel, so the explosives could be burned without blowing up 鈥 the federal contractor approved the plan.
The accident occurred when a team of five men were working to take apart one-inch firework tubes known as “Sky Festivals,” according to the CSB report. Investigators believe that explosive dust on the floor of the bunker may have ignited from the friction of a metal office chair or handcart rolling over it.
The CSB report found that there are “no federal, state, or local regulations or industry standards establishing safety requirements, providing guidance on proper ways to dispose of fireworks.” In an presentation at Thursday’s meeting, the CSB also reported there is a “significant backlog” of seized fireworks in bunkers around the nation.
Federal agencies will have 180 days to decide whether to accept the recommendations.
Here’s an animated video from the U.S. Chemical Safety Board that explains how and why the explosion happened:
