A persistent and frustrating problem in dealing with the immediate dangers of fuel contamination of our water has been the lack of a certified testing laboratory in Hawaii to test water samples efficiently.

It now takes two weeks to obtain test analyses from private mainland labs. That’s too long. This delay is unacceptable and dangerous but has been tolerated since 2014, when the first significant known leak from the Red Hill fuel storage facility endangered our primary water source for 400,000 Oahu residents. People have been asking why for nearly 10 years!

Now the Navy has claimed at a recent Fuel Tank Advisory Committee public meeting that it provided the equipment needed to the University of Hawaii to establish a local certified laboratory — implying that UH, not the Navy, failed to follow up. Why?

The people of Hawaii deserve better, or an explanation of why the experts believe a local laboratory is unnecessary to protect our water and our people’s health. There will be future threats from even more dangerous contaminants, like PFAS (“forever chemicals”), and the need will not extinguish after Red Hill is defueled.

Francis M. Nakamoto

Moanalua Valley

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