Historic Leaks at Red Hill
According to Navy studies citing historic leak reports, since the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility was opened in 1943 well over 200,000 gallons of fuel have been released into the environment. This is a concern because the fuel storage facility is located 100 feet above O‘ahu’s largest freshwater aquifer. This aquifer currently serves more than 600,000 residents and visitors from Hālawa to Hawai‘i Kai.The Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility is one of the world’s largest underground storage tank facilities holding up to 225 million gallons of jet fuel. The last reported leak from the facility occurred in January 2014 when 27,500 gallons of fuel were released from tank 5. This release prompted the Hawai‘i Department of Health (DOH) and the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to enter into a contract called the Administrative Order on Consent with the U.S. Navy to address concerns about their fuel tank facility.
A community forum hosted by the Sierra Club at Moanalua Middle School on August 15th was an opportunity for community members to get an update on the status of the Administrative Order on Consent and ask substantive questions of DOH and the Honolulu Board of Water Supply (BWS), the agencies directly responsible for ensuring the quality of our drinking water.Officials with both DOH and BWS stressed that our drinking water is currently safe to drink. However, Ernie Lau, manager and chief engineer at BWS highlighted monitoring reports that indicate contaminants are currently seeping into the aquifer under the fuel tank facility.His presentation highlighted the gaps and concerns BWS has with the approaches in the Administrative Order on Consent work plans, including downsizing the list of contaminants to be monitored, not including the subsurface rocks in the work plan studies, and not considering moving the fuel to new above ground tanks located away from the groundwater aquifer as a tank replacement alternative.Mr. Steven Chang with the Underground Storage Tank division of the Department of Health stressed that DOH was doing all it could, given the assumption that the fuel tanks would remain in Red Hill.Also presenting at the forum was Kyle Kajihiro, an appointed member of the volunteer Pearl Harbor-Hickam Restoration Advisory Board. His presentation outlined the history of military contamination a ecting the water resources in the area of Red Hill. He called on policymakers to use the precautionary principle when making decisions about the future quality of our drinking water.More than 60 community members attended the forum and asked detailed questions of the agency officials. Leading up to the forum, Sierra Club volunteers and sta canvassed residents in Salt Lake, ‘Aiea, and Hālawa. Outreach and education e orts are on-going. Please contact us at hawaii.chapter@sierraclub.org if you are interested in learning more.The next public meeting will be hosted by U.S. Navy, EPA, and DOH. It will be held on October 6th at Moanalua Middle School at 6pm.