The situation over how to close the Navy’s aging and problematic Red Hill fuel facility, remediate its nearby environs and keep the area’s water safe has devolved this year, sadly. Hard-won gains in already-difficult relations between the military and its Oahu hosts have quickly evaporated — and that is not good for the public. The deepening distrust and animosity between residents and Navy officials must be turned around — and fast.

The latest flash point between the Navy and citizen members of the Red Hill Community Representation Initiative (CRI) came on Dec. 12, when Navy officials deliberately skipped a scheduled meeting. The Navy’s no-show rightly drew the ire of the CRI — and of a “disappointed” Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which fined it $5,000 for the last-minute absence. CRI meetings, after all, are mandated under a 2023 administrative consent order (ACO) between the Navy, the EPA and the military’s Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) — all involved in the devastating November 2021 fuel spill from the Red Hill fuel storage facility that contaminated the water supply of some 93,000 in the area, sickening many and prompting temporary evacuations.

The CRI was created by the federal ACO, and includes the Navy, DLA, elected citizen representatives, the state Department of Health (DOH) and EPA officials, several of whom had flown in for the meeting.

Monetarily, the $5,000 fine is a mere pittance for the military — but symbolically, it’s a black mark that belies the pledge by the Navy Closure Task Force-Red Hill (NCTF-RH) for “proactive transparency and listening to our community.” It’s important for the EPA to keep on the military each and every time it falls short — especially since the Navy has sought to control, as it tends to do, the Red Hill CRI process and narrative. In fact, the ACO was amended last month to favorably accommodate the military — such as reducing the frequency of CRI meetings, from twice-quarterly to now just quarterly. That, after the Navy attended only two of the eight CRI meetings this year — “with no repercussions from the EPA,” noted Wayne Tanaka, director of the Sierra Club of Hawai‘i.

Lamentably, though, the CRI’s elected citizen members hurt their own cause for better engagement when they declined to participate in EPA-offered mediation to discuss conflicts with the military over meetings’ ground rules and decorum. Not taking a seat at the mediation table only led the EPA to renegotiate the consent order and rules directly with the Navy and the DLA: in addition to fewer CRI meets, the amended order calls for an EPA-appointed facilitator to run the meetings, with the agenda limited to topics outlined in the ACO.

It is high time for all parties involved to stand down, to ease away from conflict. It’s imperative that the public gets good and thorough information from the NCTF-RH, and the CRI meetings provide one important official forum. Now that the massive Red Hill tanks have been mostly emptied of fuel, the public must be continually apprised of what’s being done to close and clean up the facility, which sits just 100 feet above a major aquifer. Also crucial to know is remediation of the environment around the facility, as well as efforts to safeguard drinking water at Joint Base Pearl Harbor- Hickam.

Unfortunately, bickering has become the story, when it should be about the work to close the Red Hill facility. Per a Dec. 5 NCTF-RH update, these include:

>> Initiating the pipeline removal process at Red Hill, via a plan recently sent to the EPA and DOH that outlines removal of 10-plus miles of pipes, starting in spring 2025.

>> A plan submitted to DOH for reactivation of the Navy Aiea-Halawa Shaft, which includes adding a second shaft to the Navy’s drinking water system.

The public needs to hear all about such efforts, and more.

In the new year, Navy officials must go beyond their own self-interests and answer even the hard questions worrying Oahu’s residents. CRI members and community advocates, meanwhile, need to be less confrontational if positive momentum is to be achieved. In turn, the EPA and DOH cannot be subservient to the military — and instead, must bring their full regulatory authority to bear, keeping in sight the obligation to protect Hawaii’s environment. All must stay focused on the common core mission: to enact the best plan to shut the Red Hill fuel facility — safely, transparently, together.