HILO — The quiet of Hawaiian Acres’ back roads was interrupted Monday morning by the steady beep-beep of a U.S. Army High Mobility Engineer Excavator driving back and forth across an open, slightly muddy space surrounded by ohia trees and ferns.
The HMEE is an armored backhoe. Its mission appeared both mundane — moving hundreds of abandoned tires on the property into three dumpster bins — and counterintuitive: All three of the bins had ABSOLUTELY NO TIRES spray-painted on them in red.
But in Hawaii Island’s ongoing fight against dengue fever, exceptions must be made.
As one load of tires was hauled from the woods, gallons of water spilled from inside the rubber donuts, and another potential breeding site for mosquitoes was destroyed.
There have not been any confirmed cases of dengue fever since mid-March. A milestone was reached last month when 30 days without a case were recorded.
Still, the outbreak has not officially been declared over, and efforts are ongoing in the attempt to prevent dengue from taking hold again. One of those efforts is a community-wide tire amnesty program.
“Tires were identified as a definite problem that needed to be addressed,” said retired Hawaii County Civil Defense Administrator Darryl Oliveira.
The dark color of tires is a draw for the insects, as is the accessible breeding site. Once water gets into a tire, it’s hard to get rid of it.
Getting rid of tires is a challenge in itself. Tires are typically not permitted at transfer stations because retailers, not consumers, are supposed to dispose of them. The fee for doing so is included in the price of a tire, but many people don’t know that, said Greg Goodale, chief of the Hawaii County Department of Environmental Management Solid Waste Division.
“In a lot of cases, a lot of the retailers (have) allowed people to effectively take the tires home with them,” Goodale said. “Then over time they accumulate.”
To eliminate the host sites entirely, Environmental Management began accepting tires at transfer stations islandwide late last year.
Since November, when cases of dengue peaked, the stations have been “inundated with tires,” Goodale said. More than 10,000 tires have been brought in so far.
The tires then go to a contractor who ships them from Hilo to Honolulu. From there, they are sent to South Korea to be recycled.
The transfer station amnesty program ends May 14.
While most of the tires brought in have come from individuals cleaning their yards and garages, some cases required extra help. That’s where the Hawaii Army National Guard and its HMEE comes in.
For the past two weeks, Bravo Company 227 Brigade Engineer Battalion has been collecting tires from what Civil Defense deemed “unique sites.” The Civil Defense risk reduction branch had set up a hotline for people to call in about sites with excess standing water, receiving more than 350 tips. All were investigated.
Sometimes, the standing water could be treated with bleach or larvicide. Sometimes, it could be drained completely.
Sometimes, there were just too many tires.
One site, for example, had more than 1,000 tires on it.
“That was going to need some special resources and manpower,” Oliveira said. “They (the National Guard) had the equipment as well as personnel that could help us.”
The same National Guard company has been called to help out during the June 27 lava flow and Tropical Storm Iselle.
“We were out with chainsaws, cutting trees, clearing paths,” recalled Spc. Sean Bell. “Everyone works well together.”
For the tire project, the 11-member team began at King’s Landing. They had 12 sites, mostly on the southern portion of the island, to clear.
One site in Ocean View took three days to clear, but in most cases the team handled two sites per day.
Monday’s Hawaiian Acres site was the final stop.
“This one turned out to be the most difficult just because of the size of the tires,” said 2nd Lt. Ian Cevallos. He estimated that some weighed as much as 200 pounds.
The team was on its second day at the site, and had filled five bins of tires the day before.
All in all, Cevallos said, Bravo Company 227 had hauled more than 2,800 tires off of the 12 sites.
“Hopefully, today we’ll break 3,000,” he said.
Email Ivy Ashe at iashe@hawaiitribune-herald.com.