REVIEW BAINBRIDGE ISLAND
A Sound Publishing Monthly Magazine
INSIDE: Sound Publishing debuts its new magazine, Veterans Life.
April 2012
In your name Veterans legislation pg. 11
FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 2012 | Vol. 112, No. 12 | WWW.BAINBRIDGEREVIEW.COM | 75¢
Experts: Pollution not from Unocal site
Carrying a message History, healing lie at the heart of internment commemoration events
BY RICHARD D. OXLEY Bainbridge Island Review
BY CONNIE MEARS Bainbridge Island Review
What would you carry with you – if you only had six days to pack a bag for yourself and your family, headed to a remote location, for an unknown period of time? What would you bring? Clothes? Warm clothes or rain gear? Your best suit? Would you bring valuables that might be confiscated or stolen, or treasured family photos whose lineage might incriminate you? What about cash, medicine, bedding, towels, make up, a toothbrush, hair dye, books or something to pass the long hours? Who would take care of your beloved pet? Pay your mortgage? Weed your garden? If you were part of the first group of Japanese Americans forced from their homes on March 30, 1942, like the 227 from Bainbridge Island, you
wouldn’t have known where you were headed. “We could only take what we could carry and I couldn’t fit everything into my suitcase, so I had three layers of clothing on,” Kay Sakai Nakao remembered. “No one told us we’d be going to the desert.” Lilly Kitamoto Kodama was 7 years old when her family was escorted by Army soldiers to the Eagle Harbor dock where a ferry waited to take them to Seattle. One of her aunt’s suitcases was stuffed to
Courtesy of Seattle P-I Collection / MOHAI
Bainbridge citizens, escorted by Army personnel, await an unknown fate at the Eagle Harbor dock on March 30, 1942.
Above, items such as this hat (which belonged to Akio Suyematso’s father) will be on display at the Suyematsu Farm on March 30 as part of “A Day of History, Honor, and Healing.” Left, personal items and a wallet belonging to Suyematsu were discovered this week at the farm. bulging with only cloth diapers for her babies. If you were a 30-year-old pregnant mother of two, you might have had to carry one of your children, as did Fumiko Hayashida, whose resolute face was captured in the now-famous Seattle Post-Intelligencer photo. Many women traveled alone with their children since the FBI had raided homes in February, taking fathers into custody. SUYEMATSUS Yasuji and Mitsuo Suyematsu had six children, and like many Japanese families, had spent the week scrambling to put their affairs in order on the sprawling farm they owned. “Imagine an Army truck driving up this gravel road,” said Jon Garfunkel, founder and co-director with Katy Curtis of the “Only What We Can Carry Project.” During last Saturday’s teach-in, he pointed to the east-facing door and asked participants to put themselves in SEE INTERNMENT, A15
Pollution in the Winslow Ravine and nearby waters is not coming from the former Unocal property, experts told the Bainbridge Island City Council Wednesday. A neon-rainbow colored sheen that was sighted by island residents had led to some speculation that the former gas station property was seeping pollution out of the hillside. Not so, said consultants hired to test the area for pollution. Kitsap Transit presented to the city council the results of tests regarding the former Unocal site, and the adjacent ravine, at Wednesday’s council meeting. According to Kitsap Transit, the sheen that’s been seen is most likely from a marine source. Eagle Harbor, where the ravine empties, is home to a ferry dock as well as other marinas and daily boat traffic. “There’s probably no pinning the tail on the donkey on this,” said Bill Webb, a consultant with Parametrix who was brought in to interpret the data from the samples that were collected and answer questions. Webb noted that all freshwater tests from above the tideline in the ravine were free of contaminants. No contaminants were found further up the stream in other freshwater samples. However, below the tideline in Eagle Harbor, there were obvious traces of diesel fuel that’s common to marine use. “My conclusion is that there is no link between the site and the marine sediments,” Webb said. “There is something below the tide line, but no trace of chemicals above the tide line. What we are seeing is shore wash-up.” Kitsap Transit, the Department of Ecology and the Kitsap Health District have received complaints from island residents about the sheen in the ravine. It has since lead to speculation that the former Unocal gas station site was seeping material left over from the gas station’s underground tanks that were removed in the early 1990s. Webb noted that the wells that were tested showed signs of the soil improving and that nature was taking its own course in cleaning up the site. “I noticed that there is a significant drop, specifically in benzene that has a health risk to humans, in contaminants,” Webb said. “Benzene has decrease by seven times over the last decade, and gasoline has decreased by four times.” “The gasoline is going away,” he said. SEE UNOCAL, A25