Hawaiʻi needs an EPA-certified water testing lab

There is a growing need for an EPA-certified water testing laboratory in Hawaiʻi that serves our islands and the greater Pacific. We are calling on President Biden and our congressional delegation to use their powers to establish a facility in Hawaiʻi to better ensure drinking water safety.

Between crisis response needs, like the urgent testing needed after the Red Hill water crisis and the tragic Maui fires, and the additional national capacity needed to respond to the long-awaited EPA proposed PFAS limits in drinking water, there is a growing demand for faster water testing results to keep Hawaiʻi’s people and ʻāina safe. This demand will only increase with worsening climate crisis impacts like floods, drought-fueled wildfires, and hurricanes, that can compromise drinking water systems.

Currently, water samples are shipped to the continental US for testing to already overwhelmed laboratories for testing. This not only creates a weeks to months-long delay in results and emits tons of carbon emissions in transport, but also subjects the samples to damage and loss during the shipping process like we saw during the Red Hill crisis—leaving Hawaiʻi’s people at risk of being poisoned and the further contamination of drinking water resources while communities await testing results.

Last month, the Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi sent a letter to the Pentagon urging the Department of Defense to invest a small percentage of the department’s $2 trillion budget to create an on-island, EPA-certified water testing laboratory that can deliver test results to island and regional consumers in a timely manner.

Now we are doubling down on the demand for an on-island testing facility as the need for testing intensifies. The US Navy has contaminated Oʻahu’s primary and once-pure drinking water source, other instances of PFAS contamination in groundwater can be traced to military activities, and the US military is the world’s biggest climate crisis enabler—they should be held accountable and use a small percentage of their trillions of dollars to fund a water testing laboratory for Hawaiʻi and the Pacific. 

Take a moment now to send a message to President Biden and Hawaiʻi’s congressional delegation urging them to use their powers to establish an EPA-certified water testing laboratory in Hawaiʻi.