KEKAHA — Kekaha School and St. Theresa’s Elementary were back to normal yesterday, the day after a strong chemical smell sent students out into the fresh air and to a local emergency room. Around 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, emergency personnel responded
KEKAHA — Kekaha School and St. Theresa’s Elementary were back to normal yesterday, the day after a strong chemical smell sent students out into the fresh air and to a local emergency room.
Around 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, emergency personnel responded to St. Theresa’s after a strong odor forced students and teachers to flee classrooms until the smell dissipated.
A half hour later, Kekaha School was evacuated. “I got a call from the principal on my cell phone that the school was being evacuated and I needed to take my son to the emergency room,” said parent Brenda Buesil, about her 9-year-old son Corey Borja, who attends Kekaha. “When I picked him up he was crying, his eyes were swollen, he was holding his stomach and feeling nauseated.”
Buesil rushed her son to Veteran’s Memorial Hospital with the windows up. “The emergency room was filled with kids. Two of them were much worse than my son, feeling drowsy and not willing to walk,” she said.
St. Theresa’s principal Mary Buza-Sims said her school had several visitors yesterday in response to the Tuesday incident. “We had Lisa Otoman-Murayama out here from the Department of Health and Ann Kam from the Department of Agriculture,” Buza-Sims said.
The principal said the officials speculated that the quick dissipation of the smell means it was some sort of gas.
The Department of Health’s Kaua‘i director did not return calls yesterday asking about the school site visits.
The Department of Agriculture’s Kaua‘i pesticide specialist would not take calls yesterday, but her supervisor in Honolulu did respond to a voicemail. “Ann went out to interview the people to see if she could identify any potential causes,” said Department of Agriculture’s pesticides program manager, Robert Boesch. “She didn’t find anything that would be pesticide related.”
Principal Buza-Sims said Kam told her yesterday that Pioneer Seed Co. had sprayed a field in Kekaha at 9 a.m. Tuesday, while later in the day, Syngenta Seeds sprayed a field in Mana. Kam’s supervisor could not confirm Buza-Sims statements, saying, as there was nothing “very apparent” out there during the visit, there would be no reason to investigate if spraying had occurred in the area. “Ann said there was no indication of pesticides there,” Boesch said.
Pioneer Seed’s Steve Lupkes yesterday said the company did in fact spray a field within a 2-mile radius of the schools, Tuesday. “We know what we did, and we know that something happened,” Lupkes said. “So we reviewed what we did and decided there is no correlation between what we did and what happened at the schools.”
Syngenta Seed on Kaua‘i could not comment yesterday as the person answering the phone said the three supervisors were on O‘ahu for the day and could not be reached by phone.
Kekaha School principal Jason Yoshida has not returned calls placed Tuesday and yesterday.
State Sen. Gary Hooser said the state needs to fulfill its obligation to look into this, referring as well to several incidents that have occurred at nearby Waimea Middle School.
“When you have children throwing up and it has happened multiple times, it’s up to the departments of agriculture and health to determine what it is,” Hooser said.
In this most recent instance officials are speculating that it was a propane truck. “They were suggesting propane gas because there was a propane gas truck down the street,” Buza-Sims said.
Responding firefighters could not determine the source of the smell at either school or even sniff traces of it, Boesch said. “We are not going to be spending a lot of resources chasing something that is intermittent and the firefighters could not even detect,” he said.
Certified industrial hygienist with Kauai Environmental, David Gerow, says propane is a relatively non-toxic substance. “It is a central nervous system depressant that can cause drowsiness and headaches, as well as being an irritant to the eyes,” he said. “Depending on the concentration, within an hour the symptoms would go away and the effects are reversible on a one-time exposure.”
Corey Borja’s mother said her son was feeling better not long after leaving the school and improved overnight. “Today he is fine and back in school,” Buesil said.
Tuesday’s winds were out of the southeast, carrying the odor first to St. Theresa’s before hitting Kekaha School a third of a mile away, and a half hour later.
Kaumuali‘i Highway runs south of the schools.
Several fields also dot the Westside landscape. Pioneer’s Lupkes said it was confidential how many acres the company farms on the Westside, but did say it grows corn, soybeans and sunflowers.
Syngenta farms around 300 acres.
“The totality of incidents at Waimea and at these schools (Tuesday) makes it clear there are fundamental issues with chemicals in this area,” Hooser said. “There is no doubt there is a problem.”
Gerow said it is possible that a propane truck could have caused the reactions that came about Tuesday. “The body reacts when it doesn’t know what is going on,” he said. “It sort of panics.”
As to the incidents at Waimea Middle School, where several students have fallen ill on several occasions over the last two years, Boesch says, “After investigations there are no indications there are pesticides there.”
But one parent is not so ready to call the situation acceptable.
“Are they going to wait for something more to happen to the kids before they do something about it,” said Buesil. “It seems to be getting worse and worse.”
• Adam Harju, editor, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 227) or aharju@kauaipubco.com
