HONOLULU (CN) — Hawaii state officials called for accountability and cooperation from the U.S. Navy in a report issued Tuesday addressing the ongoing water crisis after thousands of gallons of toxic jet fuel from Navy storage facility contaminated Oahu’s water system.
The Navy began the shutdown and defueling of its Underground Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility near Pearl Harbor on Oahu in October, but the Red Hill Water Alliance Initiative say in the report that the military must continue to assume responsibility for the health of the island’s waters, as well as indemnification for any damages and claims against it.
Investigation into the November 2021 fuel leak from Red Hill — which sits 100 feet above an aquifer that serves a majority of Oahu — revealed that fuel leaks had occurred unknown to the public since the initial construction of the World War II-era facility. The November 2021 fuel leak entered the Navy’s own water system and contaminated the drinking water of thousands of the military’s own dependents and surrounding civilian residences, schools and businesses.
The Red Hill Water Alliance Initiative — formed in May 2023 and comprising of state and city officials including Governor Josh Green and Honolulu Mayor Rick Blandgiardi — estimates in its report that 1.94 million gallons have been released from Red Hill since the 1940s.
“It is urgent that a way forward be established to address the damages that the Red Hill fuel facility has inflicted on our aina and wai,” Honolulu Board of Water Supply Chief Engineer Ernie Lau and a member of the WAI working group said in the press conference, using the Hawaiian words for land and water. “Long-term oversight, transparency and accountability on this environmental crisis created by the Navy’s Red Hill fuel facility must be created to ensure that these resources will be remediated and available for generations to come. This report’s recommendations provide a starting place for this effort.”
Officials on Tuesday called Red Hill crisis an “existential threat” to the people of Hawaii and emphasized immediate action in remedying the contamination. The report recommends the formation of a long-term health registry to monitor the effect of exposure to Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons.
The report focuses on remediation of the land Red Hill sits on and addresses removing residual contaminants in the land before it taints the aquifer and the surrounding ecosystem.
The group notes the U.S. government's history of shutting down hazardous facilities without proper environmental remediation, including other military facilities in the Pacific region like in American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands that still bear traces of dangerous hydrocarbons. The report also references the thousands of sites in California that are being reassessed as environmental changes present new dangers.
“As the sea rises, previously unaccounted for surface and subterranean flooding can cause movement of contaminants into other areas, including aquifers,” the group says in the report. “This is a cautionary example of what can happen when sites are not remediated, and a direct forewarning for our situation at Red Hill which is in a coastal area likely to be impacted by sea level rise.”
State Senator Jarrett Keohokalole recalled the island of Kahoolawe, used by the military for decades for bombing target practice and still uninhabited except for cultural practices as environmental restoration continues.
“It is critical that Red Hill does not end up like Kahoolawe, where cleanup was promised but was not followed through,” Keohokalole said at the conference. “These efforts ensure that our expectation of the Navy is a restoration of our wai and nothing less.”
In the report, the working group proposes a “sentinel” grid to reinforce existing monitoring wells as well as continued monitoring and testing of the surrounding waters and forest reserves.
The working group says that there are still many unknowns about how much pollutants have been released from Red Hill over its 80-year history. It notes that while fuel constituents will naturally biodegrade over time, the risk to the water system is too great to just “wait and see.” The group calls for more research to be done on accelerating the timeline of biodegradation as they cannot confirm that fuel spills in the early days of the facility in the 1940s and 1950s have been entirely neutralized.
The group also condemns the Navy’s possible plans to repurpose the facility’s 20 250-foot tall tanks for non-fuel purposes. The Navy expects defueling to be completed by the end of 2024, though state officials have noted that it is already ahead of schedule.
A Navy spokesperson said Red Hill will be closed and remediation will occur. “The Navy remains committed to the safe closure of Red Hill and long-term remediation of the site. Partnership and collaboration are key to the success of these endeavors, and we share the same goals as the people of Hawaii: protect the environment, the water, and the community," the spokesperson said. "We will continue to share information with elected officials, stakeholders, and the public, reinforcing the importance of transparency and our enduring commitment to Hawaii.”
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