It’s time for consequences — for the Navy to pay up for its dereliction that allowed thousands of gallons of fuel in its Red Hill tank storage facility to spew out in 2021, sickening many and compromising Oahu’s water resources.

A couple of recent revelations should appall Oahu residents:

>> On Tuesday, attorneys representing families sickened by the 2021 water contamination alleged in Honolulu’s U.S. District Court that Navy officials “recklessly destroyed” text and phone records between two key officials.

The official phone of Capt. James “Gordie” Meyer, then-commander of Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command Hawaii, was “wiped” in spring 2022, which occurred during a “tech support incident, deleting all of the text messages, voicemails, and call logs on the iPhone,” said the court filing, which sources the government.

Then, Capt. Erik Spitzer, then-commander of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, had his official phone wiped when he retired in June 2022.

“The Navy knows it has to preserve evidence,” contended Kristina Baehr, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys — and she’s right. “After we filed our first (claims) in February of 2022, the Navy knew that it had to preserve evidence, and it also knew who the key players were. … I’m not going to say it was intentional, but it was absolutely reckless.”

The Navy, and those involved, must be held to account for their egregious actions.

>> The Honolulu Board of Water Supply (BWS) is proposing to raise water rates for consumers, in part due to increased expense from having to drill monitoring and exploratory wells after the Navy’s Red Hill fuel spill. Increases of 8%-10% annually are being proposed, from 2024 to 2029 ­— so the public is urged to comment through Sept. 30 (see 808ne.ws/waterrates).

The Navy’s fuel spill in November 2021, in tandem with an earlier underreported spill in May, contaminated the water system that serves 93,000 people in the Pearl Harbor-Hickam area; many reported getting ill from drinking or bathing in the water. That emergency caused the BWS, as a necessary precaution, to shut down the Halawa Shaft, its largest water source that supplies water to a huge civilian population.

The BWS now has monitoring wells to gauge how the contamination is moving, and exploratory wells to find new sources of water. This, of course, adds expense where none was previously needed — and is one of the factors for today’s proposed higher water bills.

The Navy, directly or through reallocation of funds to the BWS, needs to cover the costs for these new wells. It owes significant redress to Oahu’s community — and that includes paying for these expenses, which should not be borne by water ratepayers.

All of this is unfolding alongside a most critical mission: the defueling of 104 million gallons of fuel from the massive Red Hill tank facility, set to begin Oct. 16.

While most members of the Joint Task Force-Red Hill (JTF-RH) charged with defueling were not responsible for past years of Navy neglect at the facility, they will have to deal with today’s deep-seated, justifiable distrust of the military.

It’s now been shown just how much the military had lied about Red Hill’s safety. Year after year, it averred the facility’s integrity — and even as recently as mid-2021, was trying mightily to secure state approval to operate Red Hill for another five years. Unconscionable. But the November 2021 fuel spill, and subsequent 253 repairs to the facility, revealed the deception.

Further, the Pentagon earlier this month certified to Congress that shutdown of Red Hill would not hurt U.S. military readiness — debunking the Navy’s excuse for many years in opposing its closure.

JTF-RH expects nearly all of the fuel to be removed from Red Hill by mid-January, with most of it shipped out of Pearl Harbor. The public must engage now: an informational “defueling open house” will be held Oct. 3, at 4-6 p.m. at Keehi Lagoon Memorial Park’s Weinberg Hall.

As part of an agreement between the EPA, Navy and the military Defense Logistics Agency, 10 members of the public were recently selected as part of a new Red Hill Community Representation Initiative.

These members should provide oversight and alerts to arising problems as defueling proceeds; utmost vigilance also will be needed by the state Department of Health, the EPA and other safe-water guardians. That should be all of us. Many eyes will — must — be on the Navy, to ensure that not a single drop more of fuel ends up where it’s not supposed to be, in our precious water.