The contamination of groundwater beneath the Red Hill fuel tanks and the disastrous contamination of the Navy’s water distribution system in November 2021 led U.S. Rep. Ed Case to say in December 2021: “Obviously our trust in our Navy to operate, not only the Red Hill fuel tanks but the entire Navy water distribution has been seriously compromised at this point — if not broken.”

Owing to fears of further contamination, the Navy’s Red Hill Shaft and the Board of Water Supply’s Halawa Shaft have been shut down since late November, leaving the Honolulu and Pearl Harbor areas with insufficient water.

Since February 2022 water sampling has shown that the groundwater contamination has receded back to its pre-November 2021 levels and that water pumped from Red Hill Shaft appears to be safe to drink. Yet Red Hill Shaft and the Board of Water Supply wells remain offline, leaving Waiawa Shaft as the Navy’s only meaningful source of water.

Despite the water quality data and despite many local hydrogeologists’ understanding that the Halawa/Waimalu areas are not at risk from the contamination at Red Hill, the Navy’s behavior has placed a shroud of uncertainty over the full knowledge and understanding that we would hope to have. It is this broken trust that has led to an over-abundance of caution. And it is this over-abundance of caution that is putting Oahu’s water supply systems in grave danger.

While much attention has been given to the contamination, little attention has been given to the risks of keeping these sources of water shut down. By keeping Red Hill Shaft offline, the Navy is fed by a single source of water, with no meaningful backup. With a break in the transmission line or a mechanical failure at Waiawa Shaft, the Navy’s water system would simply drain until there was no more water pressure and water would no longer flow from the taps.

A proper risk analysis that compares the risk of a major water outage versus the risk of renewed contamination may well show that the chances of a water system failure are greater than the current risk to the drinking water if Red Hill Shaft were put back online. But because of the broken trust, no emergency response capabilities are being developed to deal with possibly the worst water outage this island has ever seen.

The tragedy of this broken trust is that an effective working relationship among the parties, the kind of relationship that is required to solve big problems, cannot exist. Red Hill Shaft has been put out of commission, possibly forever, and certainly for the foreseeable future and we are living under the threat of a massive water outage with no plan to deal with it.

Added to the tragedy is that, in many respects Red Hill Shaft is the perfect source of water. It can supply from 10 million to 20 million gallons a day of fresh potable water from a single installation without risk of saltwater upconing. To replace Red Hill Shaft would require on the order of 10 deep wells spread out between three or four pumping stations located who knows where, with miles of associated piping to connect the stations to the existing distribution system at a cost on the order of $100 million.

But, given the current state of public opinion and the relationships among the parties, there appears to be nothing that can be done except spend the money and hope for the best.

Paul Eyre, a hydrogeologist/engineer in Hawaii for 40 years, has held positions with the University of Hawaii Water Resources Center, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Navy’s Pearl Harbor water system, and the Hawaii Commission on Water Resources Management.