Hawaii is in a sticky situation. An estimated 233,000 gallons of thick molasses spilled from a pipeline that was filling a cargo ship. The massive spill has killed just about everything in Honolulu Harbor.
“There’s nothing alive there at all,” diver Roger White said after making a video of dead sea life blanketing the bottom of the harbor. “Everything is dead. They’re all dead and they’re all just lying across the bottom — hundreds and hundreds, thousands.”
“The molasses is not toxic but it’s heavier than water so it’s spreading around on the sea floor, displacing the oxygen-rich water down there, and the fish are suffocating,” said Keith Korsmeyer, a professor of biology at Hawaii Pacific University.
Gary Gill of the state Health Department said, “This is the worst environmental damage to sea life that I have come across, and it’s fair to say this is a biggie, if not the biggest that we’ve had to confront in the state of Hawaii.”