Recent news reports have highlighted what can only be described as an apparent Navy cover-up, of the release of an unknown but significant amount of fuel into the waters of Puuloa, or Pearl Harbor. Whistle- blower emails indicate that Navy officials were concerned about the optics of an “active leak,” and a Navy witness in legal proceedings denied any knowledge of a potential fuel spill even after two failed pipeline tests and a civilian contractor all but confirmed the leak’s existence.
It is no secret that the Navy has failed to steward Puuloa’s once-rich waters, known and prized for their abundant fisheries and Hawaiian fishponds. Just this year, it begrudgingly agreed with the Environmental Protection Agency to upgrade its wastewater treatment plant, due to improper operation and maintenance that “led to excessive toxic pollution discharges into Pearl Harbor and unacceptable worker safety risks.” Fishers have been advised not to eat fish from Puuloa since 1998. So why not be forthright about this latest pollution event?
The whistleblower emails indicate concern about the questions the leak may have raised, regarding an even greater, potentially existential threat to our health and environment: the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage facility.
Originally buried in Kapukaki eight decades ago, the Red Hill facility currently stores well over 100 million gallons of petroleum fuel in a “farm” of underground storage tanks, located a mere 100 feet above Oahu’s sole-source aquifer — the only and irreplaceable source of drinking water for everyone from Halawa to Maunalua.
Trapped moisture has corroded the steel walls of these tanks to less than a third of their original, quarter-inch width in some places. Eight of the 18 active tanks have also not been inspected, much less repaired, in over two decades — some for over three decades. Not surprisingly, these tanks have now leaked nearly 180,000 gallons of petroleum fuel, and after 27,000 gallons of fuel spilled in 2014 — leaching into the Earth below, inching toward the water table — the state Department of Health finally concluded that the facility is “inherently dangerous.”
And after a subsequent, “small” leak of “only” 1,000 gallons, the Navy still could not prevent fuel from again escaping into the environment, as revealed by soil vapor tests that belied its initial claims that everything had been contained.
Navy consultants have now assessed a nearly 1 in 3 chance of up to 30,000 gallons leaking from the facility over the next year. Over the next five years, this risk increases to 80.1%. And their assessment does not take into account the very real risk of an earthquake, like the one that caused 1,100 barrels of fuel to spill in 1948 — back when these tanks were brand new.
So, it is perhaps no surprise that the Navy would want to avoid even more scrutiny over this disaster waiting to happen, as the source of the latest pipeline leak into the waters of Puuloa.
The Navy continues to assure our leaders that we are safe, that its new policies and procedures mean that these rusting, antiquated tanks perched above our water supply are nothing to worry about. But can we trust Navy officials when they fail to be candid with the public and regulators, pretend that human error and earthquakes can be somehow eliminated, and disparage journalists for reporting the inconvenient truth?
Per the Honolulu Board of Water Supply website, www.boardofwatersupply.com, the Red Hill task force (the Hawaii Department of Health’s Fuel Tank Advisory Committee) is holding a virtual public meeting this Thursday morning. This is a key opportunity for us to reject the Navy’s superficial assurances, and demand that the Red Hill fuel tanks be moved — before it is too late.
