Protect Community Oversight of Red Hill Shut Down & Remediation

The EPA and Navy are attempting to stifle the community oversight and engagement provided by the Red Hill Community Representation Initiative (CRI), by granting the Navy significant and unchecked power to control what it is allowed to discuss. This comes in the wake of three recently released reports from the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General, which detail how the Navy ignored years of community and whistleblower concerns in its reckless operation of the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility, and in its responses to jet fuel and PFAS spills from the facility. 

You can add your voice to the chorus of others demanding that the EPA, Navy, and Defense Logistics Agency restore the CRI’s voice by signing this petition and sharing it with your friends and networks!

Read on to learn more about the EPA’s attempt to disrupt the CRI, and plan to join Thursday’s CRI meeting in person or via Zoom (details below).  

November Recap & Action for December

The 14th Community Representation Initiative (CRI) meeting took place on November 21st at the ʻEwa Beach Public Library, featuring representatives from the Honolulu Board of Water Supply (BWS) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Navy officials were notably absent for the ninth consecutive meeting.

Meeting Agenda:

• The Navy’s expected return at the December CRI meeting

• Acknowledgement of the three-year anniversary of the November 2021 fuel spill

• Waiea Water: Updates on free water testing

• EPA presentation on water system inspections

• Public comment session

During the first agenda item, the EPA announced its agreement with the Navy and Defense Logistics Agency to amend the 2023 Administrative Consent Order (ACO), and significantly curtail the effectiveness of the Red Hill CRI. 

Of particular concern were changes that would:

1. Allow any party to the ACO, including Navy decisionmakers, to veto any CRI agenda item they claim to be “outside the scope” of the ACO, with no appeal or review process to challenge arbitrary or unfounded claims regarding the scope of the ACO;

2. Allow any party to claim any question from the public as “outside the scope” of the ACO or as “pertain[ing] to matters in litigation,” and thereby refuse to answer it – again, with no appeal or review process to challenge arbitrary or unfounded claims;

3. Limit CRI agenda items to issues, questions, and circumstances that arise nearly a month ahead of time, with no provision to allow for the discussion of emergent crises or concerns, no matter how pressing;

4. Limit public input and commentary to a mere 30 minutes every three months, despite the voluminous and growing questions and concerns that have remained unanswered due to the Navy’s months-long absence from CRI meetings; and

5. Prohibit the CRI or any of the ACO parties from addressing any public testifier or responding to any comments offered, preventing any meaningful exchange no matter how concerning or pressing a testifier’s comments may be.

Various members from the public objected to the changes, and testified in support of the CRI and its nearly two years of work to keep the community informed and engaged on matters concerning the closure of Red Hill and environmental remediation efforts necessary to ensure our future water security.

Wayne Chung Tanaka, Executive Director of the Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi, responded to this new development with a statement addressing the implications of the EPA and Navy’s actions:

“Just last week, the Department of Defense Inspector General released three damning reports confirming the Navy’s leadership culture of carelessness, hubris, and state of denial that led to the Red Hill water crisis and that persists to this day.

Now, we have been informed that the EPA has agreed with this same institutional culprit to strip away almost all of the powers of the Red Hill CRI, which for over a year has been a leading voice for transparency and accountability, and served as the one forum that poisoned families and Hawai‘i residents have been able to rely upon, to raise questions and demand answers regardless of how inconvenient the Navy may find such matters."

Read the full statement here.

During the meeting, CRI member Marti Townsend also shared her analysis of the DoD IG reports, arguing that the reports revealed the Navy’s carelessness, incompetence, and lack of transparency in managing the facility and responding to the resulting water crises. She shared, for instance, report findings showing how  the Navy failed to recognize the inherent risks of the facility's design, which placed fuel storage dangerously close to a drinking water well, and further failed to take precautionary action to warn regulators and the community despite mounting evidence that the well had been contaminated.

The recording of the November 21st CRI meeting is now available on the CRI's YouTube channel. 

The next Red Hill CRI meeting is scheduled for this Thursday, December 12th from 5-8pm at the ‘Ōlelo Community Media Center. The hybrid meeting invites community participation both in person and via Zoom.

While this meeting will be subject to the new amendments being imposed on the CRI, Navy and EPA representatives are expected to attend. Accordingly, this is a critical opportunity for the community to express our concerns regarding the muzzling of the CRI.

Register for the Zoom meeting to participate: click here 

For more information and details, visit the CRI’s Instagram or website, and please reach out to us at hawaii.chapter@sierraclub.org if you have any questions or would like help with talking points for public testimony. 

Finally, you can help restore the CRI’s voice by signing this petition and sharing it with your friends and networks.