Activists have rung the alarm, loudly, about the continuing presence of the subterraneous and aging fuel tank system positioned above a primary Oahu drinking-water aquifer, and their dissatisfaction with how its overseers in the Navy have handled the issue.
Increasingly, the average resident is starting to join the chorus. And these are people who literally sense something is wrong.
One week ago, residents from the neighborhoods of Foster Village and Aliamanu called 911 to report the smell of fuel, later found likely to have come from a leak from a fire suppression drain line. The Navy reported that about 14,000 gallons of a fuel-water mixture had leaked, and were contained and stored in an above-ground tank.
Admittedly, this was not the hazard presented almost eight years ago, in January 2014, when 27,000 gallons of jet fuel leaked from one of the Red Hill tanks themselves. Ever since then, the Navy, along with federal and state environmental health authorities have been locked in a process to determine the future of the 20 tanks that date back to the World War II era.
The Sierra Club’s Hawaii chapter, at the head of the advocates to make a substantial change, brought together a coalition, including the Honolulu Board of Water Supply. And on Wednesday, that group announced the start of a grassroots movement to enlist the support of the president and Pentagon officials to get the facility shut down.
Among those in the best position to pick up the baton and run with it are Hawaii’s elected representatives in Congress. The delegation has shown some willingness to do so, at long last, and on Nov. 3 wrote to Sean O’Donnell, acting inspector general for the Department of Defense, seeking an investigation of the Navy’s actions to date.
There is every reason to ask for such a probe, including published reports of leaked emails showing the Navy downplayed the issue.
An impasse of sorts has been reached over the fixes to the system the Navy has been willing to make and the public push to get the fuel tanks away from the water supply. This week’s protest rightly aims to maximize the pressure on the Navy to make its storage facility as safe as possible, with the protection of civilian potable water the primary objective.
It’s the delegation that now needs to drive the point home with Washington powerbrokers.
