Feds order Lockheed, Honeywell to clean contaminated water
Federal regulators ordered two aerospace companies to complete more than $21 million in cleanup work at a contaminated groundwater site near Los Angeles, according to a report.
The order June 20 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ends two years of negotiations with Honeywell International and Lockheed Martin, the Daily News reported.
Both firms agreed to expand groundwater treatment and do more contamination studies at the 20-square-mile (50-square-kilometer) Superfund site encompassing parts of Burbank and North Hollywood. Superfund sites are those that have been significantly contaminated by hazardous waste and identified by the EPA as candidates for cleanup.
Airplanes and other machinery were built there during the last century. Chemicals used as industrial solvents were found in the water supplies in 1980.
Lockheed and Honeywell said in separate statements that they will work with regulators to fulfill their obligations.
Since 1989, roughly $250 million has been spent in the building and operating of Superfund remedies by a number of responsible parties, said Caleb Shaffer, the EPA’s section chief for Superfund Region 9. The remedies have resulted in the removal of more than 6,000 pounds of harmful volatile organic compounds at the site as well as the treatment of over 10 billion gallons of groundwater.
Because the pollution reached the groundwater and was defused over the years within a large area, the remedy is going to have to operate for “decades and decades,” Shaffer said.
Lockheed and Honeywell make up two of the larger parties that the EPA has worked with that are responsible for the contamination. Shaffer said they have both stepped up in good faith to address the issue. AP
U.S. moves 100 coffins to inter-Korean border for war remains
The U.S. military said it moved 100 wooden coffins to the inter-Korean border on June 23 to prepare for North Korea’s returning of the remains of American soldiers who have been missing since the 1950-53 Korean War.
U.S. Forces Korea spokesman Col. Chad Carroll also said 158 metal transfer cases were sent to a U.S. air base near Seoul, South Korea’s capital, and would be used to send the remains home.
North Korea agreed to return U.S. war remains during the June 12 summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump.
While the U.S. military preparations suggest that the repatriation of war remains could be imminent, it remains unclear when and how it would occur.
Earlier on June 23, Carroll denied a report by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency that U.S. military vehicles carrying more than 200 caskets were planning to cross into North Korea on Saturday. He said plans for the repatriation were “still preliminary.”
U.S. Forces Korea said in a statement later in the day that 100 wooden “temporary transit cases” built in Seoul were sent to the Joint Security Area at the border as part of preparations to “receive and transport remains in a dignified manner when we get the call to do so.”
From 1996 to 2005, joint U.S.-North Korea military search teams conducted 33 recovery operations that collected 229 sets of American remains.
But efforts to recover and return other remains have stalled for more than a decade because of the North’s nuclear weapons development and U.S. claims that the safety of recovery teams it sent during the administration of former President George W. Bush was not sufficiently guaranteed. AP
Cyprus, Israel, Greece pledge deeper military ties
Cyprus, Israel and Greece must forge deeper military ties to improve security and more effectively counter common threats in a turbulent region, the countries’ defense ministers said Friday.
Cypriot Minister Savvas Angelides and his Israeli and Greek counterparts Avigdor Lieberman and Panos Kammenos said they also seek to expand cooperation on cybersecurity, joint military drills and search and rescue operations in the eastern Mediterranean.
The Israeli defense minister said the threat of terror attacks and the challenges posed by illegal migration in a region he called “an ocean of violence” where “rogue states” operate must be met collectively.
“It’s much better to counter regional threats together,” Lieberman told a news conference. He also said Israel will host the ministers’ next trilateral meeting.
The ministers also hailed the first conference bringing together Cypriot, Greek and Israeli companies active in the military industry.
The Greek minister also said a eurozone decision paving the way for Greece to end its eight-year bailout program will positively impact the country’s armed forces.
In a clear reference to Turkey, the Cypriot minister said closer defense cooperation poses no threat to any other country and helps secure the ongoing search for gas in the eastern Mediterranean.
Cyprus and Israel have discovered gas deposits off their coasts and continue searching for more. Turkey has objected to the search off Cyprus, fearing that the benefits of those findings will not be shared with Turkish Cypriots in the breakaway northern part of the ethnically divided island.
The Cypriot government says any potential hydrocarbon wealth will be equitably shared after a reunification deal is reached. AP
800-pound chunk of USS Arizona heading to Texas war memorial
An 800-pound chunk from the USS Arizona battleship that sank during the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor is heading to Texas for display at a war memorial.
The Texas Panhandle War Memorial in Amarillo will receive the steel plate and part of the battleship’s wooden deck. The Navy cut the chunk from a section of the Arizona that was removed when the federal government built a memorial over the sunken hull of the ship decades ago.
The Navy has sent 112 pieces from the Arizona to museums and other places around the country, including the National World War II Museum in New Orleans and the Naval Academy. Most are much smaller than the Texas piece and can generally fit in a display case.
Ernie Houdashell, a Randall County, Texas, judge who coordinated the donation said the memorial will treat the relic with reverence. He noted it’s effectively from a cemetery because it’s a part of a battleship that lost 1,177 men, many whom remain entombed on board.
The war memorial, which is dedicated to war dead from the 26 counties in the Texas panhandle, plans unveil the new display on Dec. 7, the anniversary of the 1941 Pearl Harbor bombing.
“It is a really big deal. This is actually a national relic. It’s a very sacred piece of America,” he said.
The Texas Panhandle War Memorial is outdoors and has plenty of room. It also has a Huey helicopter that was in combat in Vietnam and a F-100 Super Sabre jet that flew over the Korean peninsula.
Navy Region Hawaii historian Jim Neuman said the Navy still has parts from the Arizona and will continue to do what it can to accommodate requests for them
UPS Inc. said June 21 it was loading the piece on a plane in Honolulu and flying it to California. The parcel delivery company, which is donating its services, plans to then drive it by truck to Texas.
A police escort and a veterans’ motorcycle club will meet the truck in Lubbock and accompany it to the memorial.
“It’s going to come in to Amarillo with lights flashing,” Houdashell said. AP