A document stamped “Hearing Officer’s Proposed Decision and Order” can be a mind-numbing recitation of findings of fact and conclusions of law. Not so in the case of Monday’s report by David Day, a state deputy attorney general who presided over last week’s hearing on a state emergency order curbing the Navy’s use of underground fuel tanks at Red Hill.

In the world of officialdom, this missive is a thriller: “Everything about this evidence spoke three words: disaster, crisis, emergency.” Day called the Red Hill facility “a metaphorical ticking time bomb,” sitting above an aquifer critical to Oahu’s water supply. And the zingers kept coming.

Day’s finding runs 32 pages, little of it kind to the Navy. He allowed that the military agency has labored to mitigate the effects of a fuel leak that contaminated drinking water in the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam area. But he said, very rightly, that the Navy did not respond in time, did not warn residents their water was “poisoned with fuel,” doesn’t know the full extent of the contamination or what to do about the root causes and — most importantly — can’t keep it from happening again.

In short, he ruled that the state Department of Health’s emergency order should be upheld in full, including its call to empty the Red Hill tanks and cease operations until the Navy can prove the facility is safe.

His is not the final word. The Navy has until 5 p.m. today to file objections, then the Department of Health has 30 days to issue a final decision. The Navy could drag it on, seeking court intervention. It should not.

Day’s conclusions are a major slap down. He even said that the importance of the Red Hill tanks to military operations “carries no substantial weight” in the context of a proceeding focused on protecting people’s health and the environment. The Navy’s oft- repeated refrain tying the underground tanks to national security isn’t getting traction in this arena.

So, what now, Navy?

Ernest Lau, manager and chief engineer for the city Board of Water Supply, had this advice: “I would ask the Navy to just wake up.” In a statement Tuesday supporting Day’s ruling, Lau said the Navy must cut straight to moving the fuel if it is to have any hope of rebuilding trust with the community.

He’s right. The most efficient course of action is to stop arguing and put that energy toward finding a permanent alternative to the aging, perilous underground fuel system — away from our priceless aquifer, which on balance is more critical than anything else.

Day called the history of fuel releases at Red Hill “damning,” and noted testimony that more than 5,000 gallons per year could be leaking undetected. The probability of a 1,000 to 30,000 gallon leak over the next five years is approximately 80%, his ruling stated, going up to 99.8% — just about guaranteed — within 20 years.

To secure safe storage elsewhere could take years and cost millions — billions, by the Navy’s estimate. It will be a massive endeavor just to move so much fuel, and every storage alternative will have its own risk.

One possible home for a good third of the Navy’s fuel has already been identified: Par Hawaii, a private refinery and fuel distribution company at Campbell Industrial Park. The Navy also has its own above-ground storage. Neither option is as direct as the Red Hill system of tanks and pipes linked to the military sites that service the ships and planes of the Pacific Fleet. We all know it’s not a simple matter of trading one facility for another, but more time spent dithering means more cost and more delay when it all becomes inevitable.

Better to focus effort and brain power on the ultimate solution, rather than on hanging onto a facility that — to quote Day yet again — “has reached the end-of-life phase.”