LIHU‘E — Who would’ve thought of this; a chimney as the Grim Reaper? A young father didn’t, and it nearly cost his child’s life. Dustin McDonald and his young family used to live in a Kapahi neighborhood surrounded by schools,
LIHU‘E — Who would’ve thought of this; a chimney as the Grim Reaper? A young father didn’t, and it nearly cost his child’s life.
Dustin McDonald and his young family used to live in a Kapahi neighborhood surrounded by schools, churches and a hospital — and a silent killer.
Smoke coming from Mahelona Medical Center, from a nearby church and especially from a neighbor who insisted in keeping his smokestack or fireplace lit all night, appeared to be just a nuisance, though a pretty bad one.
That was until McDonald’s 4-year-old son just couldn’t take it anymore, and ended up at Kapi‘olani Medical Center on O‘ahu, with a tube inserted into his lung serving — literally — as a fine line between life and death. It was only then that McDonald realized how deadly smoke can be.
Doctors assured McDonald that his son’s lung infection had to be from smoke inhalation. McDonald’s son miraculously eventually recovered, despite doctors telling the young father to start contacting a priest. But it did cost McDonald all his life savings.
After their child almost died, McDonald’s family relocated as soon as they could. They bought a piece of land in Wailua and hoped to begin life again.
However, soon the Kapahi nightmare followed the McDonalds to Wailua. Smoke comes from everywhere, even from across the hill, from places McDonald could not yet identify.
It has been about three years that the McDonalds moved to Wailua. Their young child still has tissue scars in his lungs, visible through X-rays. And there are much more than a handful of young children in their new neighborhood, whose families are unaware that a slow killer hovers around them, mostly at night.
And what’s more dramatic is that it seems there is little they can do, there is little that county officials can do, and there is not much the state government is doing.
A simple solution would be to retrofit smokestacks and fireplaces with propane systems, which produce no smoke, according to McDonald. But he said those whose his family approached with such solution have refused it, even if the entire system and a year of propane was paid for by the McDonald’s family.
Council meeting
The McDonalds are one of the several families on Kaua‘i who have to live with a silent killer next door. Some of those families contacted the Kaua‘i County Council, and asked if there was something they could do to stop neighbors from harming neighbors.
On Thursday, McDonald and a few other community members briefed the council on their situation.
“My first child was practically an inch away from death,” said McDonald, who had a disheartening picture of his son laying on a hospital bed, with a tube coming out his chest.
McDonald’s mother, Lori McDonald, lives in a different neighborhood, but the smoke curse seems to follow the family — she too had to be taken to the hospital several times due to smoke inhalation. She and her husband, Neil McDonald, said a senior citizen who lives with them developed additional health conditions due to smoke inhalation after moving into their home.
In Dustin McDonald’s neighborhood, Ann Leighton came up with a bold and creative solution. She said she approached one of her neighbors who used his smokestack often, and together they made an arrangement. She would text him “smoke” whenever she would feel bothered by the smoke from his smokestack, and in turn he would put out the fire.
That seems to be working, but Leighton asked why she even had to go there and ask her neighbor. And that was just one of the many sources of smoke in her neighborhood.
“Where is the enforcement?” said Leighton, adding this is not an isolated situation, but rather an islandwide problem.
But lack of enforcement does not appear to be the problem.
As Deputy County Attorney Mauna Kea Trask said, the county has responded to complaints and has sent inspectors from various agencies, including the Kaua‘i Fire Department, the Planning Department and the Public Works Department. None of them found irregularities with the smokestack they saw.
The state Department of Health also conducted inspections, though Lori McDonald said she witnessed one of the DOH’s inspection, which she described as a mere drive-by through her neighborhood.
County jurisdiction
If the council wants to find a way of regulating private smokestacks and fireplaces, council members will have to go through a different route rather than hazards from pollution, as this is an area regulated by the state and the county cannot overrule the state on this, Trask said.
Under the county’s fire code, the county has authority to regulate fire prevention and fire loss, but not air pollution, he said.
And approaching the problem as a public nuisance likely won’t cut it either, according to Trask.
Councilman Gary Hooser said the county does not ban TVs or stereo systems, but it does regulate noise. The “path of least resistance,” he said, may be to regulate what can be burned in a fireplace.
Trask said the county might have authority to regulate what is put into the fire, but this is something which he would have to take a further look.
Councilman Ross Kagawa said the best way to approach the issue is to get the DOH to “do something.”
And “do something” was exactly what Dustin McDonald tried to get the DOH to do. But he said when he spoke with Kaua‘i’s DOH Clean Air Specialist Rod Yama, he laughed at McDonald’s face over his son and said there was nothing he could do.
If the situation wasn’t bad enough, it got worse. Yama retired last December, and the DOH has yet to replace him. So Kaua‘i has no clean air specialist at the moment.
DOH Environmental Health Specialist Lisa Young, who oversees the Neighbor Islands, said on a phone interview Friday that there are plans to replace Yama, but she doesn’t know when that will happen.
“It depends if anybody is interested in (the position),” said Young, adding that she would have to check out some paperwork before responding if the DOH has opened up the position yet.
For now, Kaua‘i residents have to call O‘ahu at (808) 586-4200 to make a complaint about smoke pollution, she said.
“You can call here (on O‘ahu) and we’ll take the complaint, and we’ll see how we can handle it from here,” said Young, adding that if no one is available on Kaua‘i to respond to the complaint, the DOH will send someone from O‘ahu “at a later time.”
Will anyone listen?
Councilman Mel Rapozo said now that everybody else — county and state agencies — have done what they could have done, the council is the “last line of defense” for Kaua‘i residents, referring to passing a bill to address the issue.
But to Trask, the council is not the last line of defense.
“It’s yourself, it’s protecting your family,” Trask said of the residents’ last resort. He said the residents can write a petition to urge the DOH to change their rules.
Lori McDonald said Rep. Jimmy Tokioka, who represents Wailua in the state Capitol, has told her the residents should write a petition. Her husband said that a few months ago, Tokioka helped bring together Lori McDonald, Kanani Ornellas (another Wailua resident affected by smoke) and Gary Gill, DOH’s Environmental Health deputy director.
Tokioka, on a phone interview Friday, said the residents have been pushing for a bill to address the issue, but it’s going to be a difficult task.
“We’re trying to do everything we can for the residents,” Tokioka said.
Rapozo said Tokioka had sent an email to council members, in which he encouraged the council to write a legislation. Rapozo said he still believes the council can do this, and would work with Hooser to figure out a way to “crack this or not.”
Lori McDonald said she and others paid $200 to a private attorney, only to hear that he couldn’t help them. They called at least four other attorneys, who said they couldn’t help the residents either.
As far as Council Chair Jay Furfaro approaching the DOH, Lori McDonald told Furfaro that Gill would “blow you off,” just as he did with the residents.
“I grew up in Waianae; if the guy is going to make big body to me, I’m just going to make big body back,” said Furfaro, adding that he would hope Gill wouldn’t treat him or the residents like that.
DOH staff said Gill was not available for comments Friday, and would return to work next week.
‘No ifs, ands or buts’
Tokioka said the problem is that those homes with smokestacks or fireplaces are already grandfathered, so state and elected officials can not go back and change the law to stop those home-owners from burning.
However, if they are burning things that are illegal to burn, inspectors can catch them, he said. But then every time the DOH sends inspectors to test the air quality, no one is burning anything that they are not supposed to, Tokioka said.
“I feel terrible about the McDonalds,” said Tokioka, adding that they have talked about moving an environmental air quality monitoring device up to Wailua, and placing it near their home. But the unit is quite large, about the size of half of a Matson shipping container, according to Tokioka.
Meanwhile, Dustin McDonald’s family, and everyone else in his neighborhood, has to live with smoke from smokestacks. The issue should be dealt with “no ifs, ands or buts,” and there should be no grandfathering, he said, because it will result in children dying.
One of McDonald’s neighbors has already taken their child to Kapi‘olani with smoke inhalation problems, he said.
“I ask you to re-look at this situation as the severity that it is,” Dustin McDonald asked the council.
Furfaro said the council would be waiting on answers on a set of questions sent to the county attorney.
“We will try our best, but I don’t want to over-promise,” Furfaro said. “You heard from the county attorney today; it’s not a clear path, but as Mr. Hooser said, we’re going to try to find a path.”
• Léo Azambuja, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) or lazambuja@ thegardenisland.com.
