The Hawaii Department of Health on Monday ordered the U.S. Navy to suspend operations at its Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility, clean up contaminated drinking water at its Red Hill shaft, come up with a plan to drain the fuel from its 20 massive underground tanks and figure out what needs to be done to safely operate the facility.

“If at some point the tanks have been remediated and corrective action has been taken, they may apply for a permit or ask the permission of the Department of Health” to resume operations, said Kathleen Ho, DOH’s deputy director for environmental health during a news conference Monday evening. Ho was joined by Gov. David Ige and DOH Director Libby Char.

“What we are doing is protecting the environment and public health by ordering the Navy to suspend operations until corrective actions can be taken,” Ho said.

The Navy can request a hearing within 24 hours of receiving the administrative order, which was issued to the Navy’s Rear Adm. Timothy Kott, commander of Navy Region Hawaii.

The news conference was the first held by the governor and top officials at the Department of Health amid a growing water contamination crisis that began over a week ago at Joint Base Pearl Harbor- Hickam. Hundreds of military families, and several schools, who use the Navy’s water system throughout areas of Moanalua and lower Halawa have reported a fuel-like odor and a strange taste or sheen in their tap water. The Navy says it has received reports of dozens of people who have gotten sick.

Residents, many of whom are military families, have reported nausea, diarrhea, headaches and skin rashes — symptoms state health officials say are consistent with exposure to water contaminated with petroleum. Some people also have reported that their pets have gotten sick or died.

The Navy has said that the source of the petroleum contamination is its Red Hill shaft. However, top officials with the Navy and DOH say they haven’t been able to figure out how the petroleum entered the shaft, which has been shut down for days.

Char said that “there is more than one cause” and officials are looking closer at the fuel releases that occurred on May 6 and Nov. 20.

“But to date, nobody can figure out how it is that fuel is getting into the water system, at what point,” said Char. “So that remains the million-dollar question that we are trying to figure out.”

The Navy is currently trying to flush contaminants from the drinking water system, which serves about 93,000 people on Oahu.

Power struggle

It’s not clear how long it would take the Navy to comply with the state’s order before it potentially could resume Red Hill operations. It’s also not clear if the Navy, which relies on the fuel facility to power its Pacific operations, is willing to bow to the state.

On Sunday, Ige and Hawaii’s congressional delegation called on the Secretary of the Navy to immediately suspend operations at Red Hill, saying in a joint statement that the drinking water contamination showed that the Navy is “not effectively operating the World War II-era facility and protecting the health and safety of the people of Hawai‘i.”

During a news conference Monday, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro said he would consider the request.

“It’s not an order. It’s a request that’s being made,” Del Toro said. “And we’re taking that very, very seriously and engaging in a series of conversations.”

But just hours later, the governor made it clear the state was issuing an order, and said he was well within his authority to do so.

“Certainly, the federal government and the Department of Defense can operate separately and differently than the state,” said Ige. “We are acting within the current state law about our requirement to regulate our water sources here in the island, and we are using that authority to issue the order.”

Red Hill pause

Amid the growing calls to suspend fuel operations at Red Hill, the Navy said that it had already hit pause — on Nov. 27, the day before it says it began receiving reports of chemical odors in people’s water.

Rear Adm. Blake Converse said Monday that the tanks haven’t been operationally in use since that date. The Navy didn’t respond to a question about why Red Hill operations had been suspended on Nov. 27.

Navy officials say they told the governor at the time that Red Hill operations had been paused.

However, Ige said he wasn’t informed until Dec. 5. “I was not aware that it occurred prior to that,” said Ige.

Shutdown

The governor and Hawaii’s congressional delegation have stopped short of saying the Navy should permanently shut down its Red Hill fuel farm, an aging World War II-era facility that has a long history of leaks. But there are growing calls to do so.

Former Govs. John Waihee and Neil Abercrombie both said last week that it should be shut down.

On Monday, House Speaker Scott Saiki and the majority of members of the Hawaii House of Representatives also called for Red Hill to be decommissioned.

Hawaii “faces an emergency that requires immediate and decisive action,” they wrote in a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Del Toro, citing the risks that the fuel contamination poses not just to the Navy well, but a major aquifer that provides water to southern Oahu.

“In light of numerous leaks at the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility and Joint Base Pearl Harbor- Hickam from the tanks, pipes and associated infrastructure, we hope to improve trust between residents of Honolulu and the U.S. Navy, and to create an actionable plan between federal, state and county agencies to preempt any further contamination of our water supply,” they wrote.