Molasses and Shark Attacks

On Monday, September 9, a pipeline from a molasses tank near Honolulu Harbor was loading the heavy, sweet liquid onto a ship when a leak in the pipeline dumped hundreds of thousands of gallons of the sticky substance into the ocean. "It's sunk to the bottom of the harbor," Jeff Hull, a spokesman for Matson Inc., the company responsible for the leak, told the Los Angeles Times. "Unlike oil, which can be cleaned from the surface, molasses sinks." Molasses is a dark, viscous liquid that's generally made from sugarcane. Grapes, sugar beets, sorghum or other plants can also be used to make a molasses-like substance. The production of molasses is a labor-intensive process requiring several steps, including cutting the sugarcane plants, boiling, straining, skimming and reboiling. If the molasses undergoes a third boiling step, the result is blackstrap molasses, a dark, bittersweet syrup that is produced after the sucrose in molasses has crystallized. Blackstrap has the lowest sugar content of any molasses, and is noted for containing a higher nutritional content particularly manganese, calcium, iron, potassium, magnesium, copper and vitamin B6 than any other refined sugar. Molasses has a wide variety of uses: It's a common ingredient in cooking, especially in cakes, cookies and other desserts. Molasses is also used in the production of ethyl alcohol and as an additive in livestock feed. Sweet though it may be, molasses also has a somewhat checkered past: As a key ingredient in the distillation of rum, molasses (and the cultivation of sugarcane) played a crucial part in the slave trade that brought an estimated 12 million Africans to the Americas to work as slave laborers, many in the tropics, where sugarcane is grown. In 1919, a tank holding 2.5 million gallons of molasses in Boston's North End suddenly burst, flooding the neighborhood with an estimated 2.3 million gallons (8.7 million liters) of thick goo that raced through the streets at about 35 mph (56 km/h). The Boston Molasses Disaster claimed 21 lives, injured more than 100 people and stained Boston Harbor brown for months. http://www.livescience.com/39624-what-is-molasses.html Health officials warned swimmers, surfers and snorkelers in Hawaii to stay out of the waters near Honolulu Harbor after a leak of 1,400 tons of molasses killed hundreds of fish, potentially attracting sharks. So many fish had died by Thursday that the Hawaii Department of Health tripled cleanup crews to three boats, which removed hundreds of fish and were expected to remove thousands more in the coming weeks, said department spokeswoman Janice Okubo. A brown plume of sweet, sticky liquid was spotted seeping into Honolulu Harbor and Keehi Lagoon on Monday after a ship hauling molasses to the U.S. West Coast pulled out to sea. By Tuesday, a leak was discovered in a molasses pipeline used to load the molasses onto ships operated by Matson Navigation Co, the international ocean transport company, the health department said. Matson Navigation Company is a subsidiary of Matson Inc, which has provided Pacific-wide shipping services since 1882. Roger Smith, a dive shop owner who went underwater on Wednesday to survey the damage, said it was unlike anything he had seen in 37 years of diving, with brown-tinted water and a layer of molasses coating the sea floor. "Everything that was underwater suffocated," Smith said. "Everything climbed out of its hole and the whole bottom was covered with fish, crabs, lobsters, worms, sea fans - anything that was down there was dead." The health department said in a statement that while molasses was not directly harmful to people, it was "polluting the water, causing fish to die and could lead to an increase in predator species such as sharks, barracuda and eels." Okubo said crews were monitoring molasses levels in the waters to help predict the spread and overall impact of the 223,000-gallon spill, which is roughly equivalent to one-third of an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Matson acknowledged in a statement that the spill was caused by a faulty molasses-loading pipe, which it said had been fixed. It said molasses was a sugar product "that will dissipate on its own." Matson said it regretted the incident and was working with authorities to take steps to ensure it did not happen again. "We take our role as an environmental steward very seriously," the statement said. "We have a long history in Honolulu Harbor and can assure all involved that this is a rare incident." The health department said that "an unusual growth in marine algae" and harmful bacteria was another environmental danger posed by the spill. Molasses is a byproduct of the refining of sugar cane. The department posted signs on beaches warning people to stay out of the water and not to consume any dead fish found in the area. The brown plume was expected to remain visible for weeks while natural tides and currents slowly flush the area, the health department said. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/13/us-usa-molasses-hawaii-idUSBRE98B15420130913