It turns out that the molasses currently killing marine life in Honolulu Harbor is a product of Maui’s sugar harvest.

HC&S — which operates Hawaii’s last sugar plantation — produces the molasses as a by-product of sugar and Matson brings [it] from Maui to Honolulu Harbor by barge.

“We’ve been pumping molasses for thirty years,” said Vic Angoco, Matson senior vice president.

“We bring those into Honolulu on our barge and we pump them into the storage tanks … and we pump that from the storage tanks into the ships.”

Hmm. Seems to me maybe you should change your procedure and keep the pipeline running from onshore storage tanks above water. I haven’t a clue how hard that would be to do, but it merits investigation.

Meanwhile, the federal EPA is sending two spill coordinators here to help out.

The EPA personnel have expertise in spill response and plan to meet with State officials and other federal agencies involved with addressing the spill shortly after their arrival.

According to EPA officials, molasses spills can be technically challenging to contain and clean up, as methods used on oil spills such as floating booms and skimming to contain the liquid are ineffective.

[snip]

Efforts to understand the exact biological process at work is ongoing, and NOAA scientists will team up with University of Hawai‘i and EPA experts.

Federal officials cautioned that there is very little precedent on how to proceed. Due to the nature of molasses, skimming and normal oxygenation techniques may not work. EPA described a possible strategy of deploying what are known as “air curtains”—long air bubbler tubes—in the most sensitive areas affected, but it is uncertain how effective this strategy will be.

I would think so! Underwater, the development and use of air curtains have been aimed at reducing noise from industrial activity (pile driving, for example). I’m not sure how effective they’d be against a physical pollutant like molasses compared to a noise transmitted through sound waves. Here’s a brief explanation of how they work. You can see they’ve got a limited length; what would prevent the sugary gunk from flowing right around it?

I imagine the experts and engineers are asking those questions right now.