Federal, state and city officials on a task force asked to evaluate the effects of the January fuel leak at the Navy’s Red Hill Fuel Storage Facility recommended Thursday that the giant tanks be double-lined to prevent groundwater contamination.

But the Navy continues to have serious objections to that approach.

"I’m not so sure that the best solution is some type of secondary containment," said Navy Capt. Mike Williamson, commanding officer of the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Hawaii and regional engineer Hawaii.

While a double-lining may be one possible remedy, it is "not without flaw," he said. "We agree that further study is warranted."

Meanwhile, Navy officials reported at the task force meeting that testing of two new monitoring wells near the storage facility show trace amounts of contaminants. While state and city officials called the news worrisome, the Navy and officials with the Environmental Protection Agency said it’s premature to form any conclusions.

The task force was formed by the state Legislature following the January leak of 27,000 gallons of jet fuel from one of the 20 World War II-era tanks under Red Hill.

State and city officials have raised concerns about the potential for a leak to seep through concrete, permeate bedrock and contaminate groundwater. Tests to date, however, have shown no harmful levels of contamination in groundwater.

How best to prevent future occurrences has been a major sticking point for task force members.

A key point of contention between the Navy and local agency task force members continued to be whether to recommend double-lining of the 250-feet-tall underground tanks.

At Thursday’s final task force meeting, Williamson objected to a statement in the final draft that said "the best solution (to containing possible fuel leaks in the tanks) is some type of secondary containment."

Williamson said the Navy would support secondary containment "when technology and implementation" support it.

Deputy Health Director Gary Gill, who has been leading the task force meetings, disagreed.

"I believe that the best solution, should these tanks remain in use, is secondary containment," Gill said. "Anything else, when they leak, and they will leak eventually, leaks directly into the environment. And the only way to avoid that is with secondary containment. That’s the best solution."

Board of Water Supply Manager Ernest Lau and Patrick Casey, a representative from the state Commission on Water Resource Management, said they agreed with Gill.

Steven Linder, an EPA regional official, said, "We want to make sure that the Navy is using the best available technology within practical limits to basically operate the Red Hill facility against future releases, minimizing the risk of future releases. It may be secondary containment. I think the jury’s still out in terms of essentially what combination of technologies is best to be used to improve the Red Hill facility."

Williamson, after the meeting, told reporters that a 2008 study showed that double-lining the gigantic tanks would be an enormous undertaking,

He said he could not recall any cost estimates but that they would be out of date anyway.

"We’re refreshing that study," he said. "If I were to give you a number (from 2008), it would be inaccurate."

Navy officials said more than $156 million has been spent on improving the storage tanks facility and related pipe system between 2006 and this year.

Meanwhile, a separate negotiated agreement between the Navy, EPA and Health Department is winding down. A plan allowing the Navy to continue to use the storage tank facility under specific conditions should be done in the coming weeks, Linder told reporters after the meeting.

Navy engineer Aaron Poentis said at the meeting that two wells, each installed about 300 feet north of the Red Hill tank facility this fall specifically to monitor any possible movement of leaked fluids, found trace amounts of diesel fuel and low levels of a hydrocarbon called 2-methylnaphthalene. Both are at levels allowed by the Health Department.

Poentis said additional testing samples will be taken in January.

After the meeting, both Williamson and Linder said it’s premature to make any conclusions about the finding of contaminants.

Williamson said the parts-per-trillion levels of methylnaphthalene detected are small compared with the 10 parts per billion allowed by the Health Department.

"If it was higher, I would be much more concerned," he said.

The diesel levels were higher "because of the materials we used during the drilling process" that may have contributed to a false reading, Williamson said.

"We’ve taken our first samples out of the well," he said. "We need to take a step back and take a few more samples before we can draw some conclusions as to what it is really telling us."

Linder said, "This is preliminary data. We can’t say conclusively that there (were) trace levels of contamination there until they do another round of sampling to confirm that."

Gill and Lau, however, said the finding of contaminants, if confirmed, is significant, especially because the Board of Water Supply’s Halawa well is about a mile away in the same, northwesterly direction of the two test wells.

Gill said it’s the first indication that groundwater contamination could be migrating.

"This is the first time that we have confirmed that petroleum contamination has expanded in the groundwater beyond the area immediately below the tanks," he said. "For more than a decade, we have known that contamination from the tanks has penetrated into the groundwater through the basalt and was measurable directly beneath the tanks. These two wells are roughly 300 feet away from the tanks to the north."

Lau said that while the findings are preliminary, they are worrisome.

"Our concerns from January have been if there is any potential for a northwesterly flow toward the Halawa shaft."

To see the task force’s final draft report and related task force and underground storage tank enforcement materials by the Health Department, go to: bit.ly/DOHUSTSection.