Inspector General says EPA not at fault for Red Hill leak, Sierra Club disagrees
On Tuesday, the Inspector General released a report relieving the US Environmental Protection Agency of any responsibility for the November 2021 fuel leak from the US Navy’s Red Hill fuel tanks that poisoned thousands. While the Navy is fully responsible for the Red Hill crisis, the Sierra Club believes the Environmental Protection Agency could have, and should have, done more to uphold its responsibility to protect the environment and people while preventing the 2021 leak.
The report indicates that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could not have done more to prevent the 2021 leak, even under the Administrative Order of Consent (AOC), an agreement signed by the US Navy, EPA and Hawaiʻi Department of Health following the 2014 leak of 27,000 gallons of fuel—an agreement that’s sole purpose was to prevent any future leaks.
This is far from the truth. There are numerous instances where the EPA could have, and should have, taken measures to hold the Navy accountable for its shortcomings, especially under the AOC. The EPA itself recognized that the Navy failed to do many things, but neglected to act upon, including:
Fixing and updating its groundwater model that was (and still is) broken;
Submitting its fate and contaminant transport model (which is still missing);
Addressing the 40% inaccuracy of its tank inspection process;
Failing to inspect the majority of the tanks holding fuel for over 20 years (in some cases even 40 years);
Acknowledging its own risk assessment that found a 27.6% chance of a leak of up to 30,000 gallon leak in any given year.
There are also numerous examples of the EPA’s own inaction, including the lack of response to spikes in TPH levels (indicators of fuel contamination) in both groundwater monitoring wells and soil vapor data well after the 2014 leak, and the outrageous months-long delays of water testing data results, with results following the May 2021 spill not being reported until the winter.
Had these issues been addressed, it is possible that over 90,000 people would not have had their water poisoned by the November 2021 leak. Instead, the lack of action by the EPA reinforced the US Navy’s sense of impunity to operate the facility in an ever more deficient manner and even led the Navy to boast that the Red Hill facility exceeded “industry and regulatory standards,” pointing specifically to the AOC, just months before the May 2021 leak.
As the Navy moves through its defueling processes, it is as important as ever that the EPA does everything in its power to ensure the Red Hill tanks are defueled as quickly and as safely as possible with full transparency and public involvement.