Support Honolulu City Council Red Hill Resolution 24-216!
by Wayne Tanaka, Chapter Director | Reading time: 3.75 minutes
Our wai needs your help - please testify TODAY for a City Council Resolution on Red Hill scheduled to be heard tomorrow, Wednesday, at 10 am!
As you likely heard, recent detections of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) in the Board of Water Supply’s (BWS’) shuttered ‘Aiea wells have renewed longstanding fears about the westward movement of contaminants from the US Navy’s Red Hill Facility, which may now force the shutdown of the Kaʻamilo well serving the ʻAiea region, and which may threaten additional drinking water wells, springs, and other water sources for generations into the future.
Unfortunately, the lack of groundwater and contaminant fate and transport models - which the Navy has failed to complete since agreeing to create them in 2015 - combined with an inadequate monitoring well network surrounding Kapūkakī (Red Hill) and the lack of timely, reliable data means we do not have sufficient information to track exactly where the contamination plume(s) in our aquifer may be heading - much less how to prevent or mitigate the worst of its potential harms.
Fortunately, the Honolulu City Council has recognized the seriousness of the situation we are facing, including our increasingly dire need for more data. Accordingly, the Council has introduced a resolution, scheduled for a hearing tomorrow, September 4, urging the Navy to conduct weekly testing for PAH, total petroleum hydrocarbons, and PFAS “forever chemicals” at its existing monitoring wells; to install additional monitoring wells to the west and northwest of Kapūkakī; to share raw water data with the public and the BWS; and to take other actions to protect our people and precious wai from the poison it has injected into our island’s primary drinking water source.
Notably, this resolution could be further strengthened to also urge the use of third-party water experts, as called for by the BWS and the Red Hill Community Representation Initiative, especially after recent revelations concerning the unreliability of water testing data and analyses conducted by the Navy.
PLEASE TESTIFY in SUPPORT of this important resolution, with a friendly AMENDMENT to also urge the Navy to use a third party expert, given the lack of confidence in the integrity of its own water testing process. Testimony information and draft language is provided below.
(You can also send a quick message to our Congressional delegation in support of the BWS’ and Red Hill CRI’s calls for more and better data, using our action alert page here).
Testimony Instructions:
Select “COUNCIL Meeting (September 4, 2024 @ 10 AM)” from the dropdown menu and click “Select”
Scroll down to RES24-216 and click “Select”
Click on “Support” and enter your name, email, and other requested information
Where it says “I wish to provide” select “Written Testimony” or “Written and Oral Testimony” from the dropdown menu (please consider testifying orally in person or via Zoom)
Submit your testimony as a comment (i.e. typed directly into a box on the testimony page) or as an attachment (sample testimony below)
Forward this email and ask your friends to do the same!
Sample Testimony:
Aloha Chair Waters, Vice Chair Kiaʻāina, and Honorable City Council Members,
My name is ______ and I am testifying in STRONG SUPPORT of Resolution 24-216, with a friendly AMENDMENT to also request the Navy to use third-party experts to conduct its water testing.
As we have long feared, the contamination plume from the U.S. Navy’s Red Hill Fuel Facility may threaten our municipal drinking water system, springs, and other water sources with potentially catastrophic harms, as most recently underscored by the detection of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the shuttered ʻAiea well. Unfortunately, without more robust, granular, and reliable data about the location, size, and movement of this and potential additional contamination plumes from the Red Hill Facility and other nearby military sources - including data from both current and much-needed future monitoring wells - we have no way of anticipating or mitigating the worst of the impacts that our and our future generations may face. Accordingly, I strongly support this resolution’s calls to action regarding the need for more and better data from the Navy.
With recent revelations about the inability of the Navy to conduct its own water testing and analyses - including the conclusion from multiple experts that data from its 8,000-plus samples taken over a two-year period were unreliable - I do respectfully ask you to amend this resolution to include a call for the Navy to use independent, third-party experts to conduct the weekly testing urged in its Be It Resolved clauses.
Therefore, I respectfully urge you to PASS Resolution 24-216, with the friendly amendment noted above.
Mahalo,
(your name)