7th Dive Detachment removes hazards in Hawaii
by Spc. Stephanie L. Carl
SCHOEFIELD BARRACKS, Hawaii (Army News Service, Dec. 10, 2002) -- Six months of planning came to fruition last week as soldiers from the 7th Engineer Detachment (Heavy Dive) collapsed the last of 23 hazardous finger piers in the Wai'anae Small Boat Harbor.
The project, which is known as innovative readiness training, allowed the detachment to fulfill part of its Mission Essential Task List that has been nearly impossible in the past, unit leaders said, while benefitting the Wai'anae community.
"This project falls under port construction and demolition using non-explosive means," said Master Sgt. Rodney Heikkinen, the master diver and first sergeant for the dive detachment.
"To my knowledge, this is the first time a project like this has ever come up for our unit," he said.
Heikkinen added that the project helped soldiers to brush up on skills that are imperative during real-world deployments.
"Each finger pier weighs approximately five and a half tons," he said. "The guys are going to sink the piers, then raise them, move them to another location and re-sink them. This is going to teach them weight-handling."
What Heikkinen meant is that each pier is secured with two thick ropes. Using a chipper and sledgehammer, the divers chop away at the concrete the pier is made of, exposing the long metal rods that gave it support.
Unfortunately, according to William Aila, a Wai'anae native and the harbormaster, many of these supports have either broken or bowed, creating long cracks in the outer surface of the piers.
"Some of the piers collapsed into the water on their own, others are at risk to fall at any time," Aila explained.
For the supports that hadn't snapped, the divers used a blowtorch to cut through the metal.
Each pier has six supports. After each support is cut, the pier simply collapses. On some of the piers, the soldiers preferred to use another method. They placed several large metal canisters in the center of the pier, using rubber tires to keep the cans floating after the pier collapsed. They then filled the canisters with water, which exceeded the weight that the already-weakened piers could handle.
Once the divers collapsed the piers, they attached flotation bags to the piers, then towed the piers to the opposite side of the harbor, where they will be picked up by a civilian contractor and hauled out to sea and re-sank as part of the artificial reef program.
"We don't have any crane support for completing this mission," Heikkinen said. "When we deploy we won't have it, so we need to be able to do this without logistical support.
"We're not always going to have that support, so this project teaches everyone to think outside the box."
The project gave soldiers of the dive detachment an opportunity to interact with the Wai'anae community.
"Many people didn't even know the Army had divers," Heikkinen said. "But now that they know, everyone seems glad we're here.
"In fact," he said, "we were invited to a fishing tournament that is coming up, and many of the fishermen brought us some of the fish they caught and taught us how to cook it."
Spc. Rob Bibbie, a diver with the detachment, said the unit doesn't usually get this kind of training.
"We're working on techniques to partially demolish and recover a pier, both tasks that are common on real-world missions," he said. "Not only that, but it's great that we're helping out the community and training at the same time."
knows first-hand how beneficial it is to have the Army so actively involved in this project.
"The Army has saved the state of Hawaii tens of thousands of dollars by coming out and removing these piers," said Hawaii's Department of Land and Natural Resources Oahu District Manager Steve Thompson . "We're lucky to have them out here. All the piers that were removed were stressed and unstable; they needed to be replaced. Now, the money the Army saved can be used toward another part of the project, building a new dock."
Aila said that these new piers will be constructed of different materials, which can withstand more weathering than the old piers were able to, making them hold up better.
"Those piers were built about 20 years ago," Aila said. "We've learned a lot in 20 years and can make the new piers last longer."
(Editor's note: Spc. Stephanie L. Carl is a staff member of the Hawaiian Army Weekly newspaper.)
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