Honolulu rail authority approves $40M in orders, contracts
HONOLULU — The Honolulu Rail Transit Authority board of directors approved nearly $40 million in new rail project change orders and contracts.
The board’s project oversight committee voted Tuesday in favor of an increase of $20.8 million for Honolulu’s $9.2 billion rail project.
The increase was passed to settle what Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation staff said were more than $40 million in outstanding delay claims and other claims from Hawaiian Dredging Construction Co.
Hawaiian Dredging was awarded a contract for nearly $79 million in 2015 to build stations for the project. Since then, the authority approved 36 change orders, increasing the contract’s value to nearly $97.5 million.
The authority projected an interim opening later this year of the rail line section from East Kapolei to Aloha Stadium.
Authority Executive Director Andrew Robbins said earlier this month that efforts to prepare the system were running about four weeks behind schedule because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“That could get longer,” Robbins said Tuesday.
He added: “We’re meeting with the city to figure out what the impact is and whether that still is able to happen by the end of the year or whether it’s going to go into the first quarter of next year.”
US Navy detonates unexploded WWII-era ordnance off Oahu
HONOLULU — U.S. Navy explosive ordnance disposal technicians detonated two World War II-era bombs and removed other ordnance in waters off Oahu.
The Navy carried out the controlled explosions Monday in a well-traveled channel between Lanikai Beach and Mokulua North, an area also known as Mokunui Islet.
A snorkeler reportedly discovered the munitions and contacted the U.S. Coast Guard, which alerted the Navy.
The ordnance included two 100-pound gravity bombs with fuses that were detonated where they were found because it was potentially dangerous to move them
About eight other bombs or ordnance without fuses were moved in an inflatable boat to Bellows Air Force Station ahead of transportation to Pearl Harbor or the U.S. Army’s Schofield Barracks for demolition.
Officials are not sure how the munitions got to where they were found but said they might have been dropped during wartime exercises.
Unexploded ordnance from training exercises before and after the United States entered World War II in December 1941 is routinely discovered in waters off Oahu and on land.