Recent Red Hill Developments: City Council Passes Resolution, WAI Panel Insights and Critical Groundwater Monitoring and Closure Updates

By Madison Owens, Organizer, Rosalie Luo, Volunteer, and Wayne Tanaka, Chapter Director | Reading time: 6.5 minutes

In this month’s update, we dive into crucial developments on the Red Hill water crisis, including the Honolulu City Council’s passage of the Red Hill Resolution, key takeaways from the Water Alliance Initiative (WAI) Panel Part I, and important updates on Red Hill’s closure and groundwater monitoring efforts. We also provide a recap of CRI meeting #12 and highlight upcoming events where you can take actions to advocate for clean, safe water in our community.

City Council Resolution

With numerous testimonies in unanimous support, the Honolulu City Council on September 4 passed Resolution 24-216, urging the Navy to take critical steps to protect our island’s primary drinking water source. The resolution calls for the Navy to engage third party water testing professionals to test their monitoring well water on a weekly, rather than biweekly, basis; to specifically test for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, total petroleum hydrocarbons, and PFAS “forever chemicals”; the installation of additional wells to the west and northwest of Kapūkakī; and the public release of raw water data. These measures aim to protect our people and precious wai from toxic contaminants that may be migrating in our island’s primary drinking water source, consistent with the Board of Water Supply’s (BWS) own water sampling protocols, and made more urgent by the BWS’ recent, first-ever detection of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in its now-shuttered ‘Aiea wells. 

The resolution reinforces ongoing calls on Hawaiʻi’s congressional delegation, governor, and Department of Health to demonstrate the same precautionary, proactive, and common-sense leadership led by the Red Hill Community Representation Initiative (CRI), Sierra Club, and many others. We urge the Hawai‘i Department of Health in particular to stop making excuses for the Navy, and to use its resources and authorities to likewise demand the Navy provide more granular and reliable data on the contamination in our life-giving sole source aquifer—and thereby prevent further harms from befalling our residents and ways of life. If you have not yet, click here to join the call to action by contacting your congressional representatives today.

WAI Panel Part I

The Water Alliance Initiative (WAI) Panel, co-sponsored by the Shut Down Red Hill Coalition and Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi, featured Ernie Lau of the Honolulu Board of Water Supply; Ashley Nishihara, a community member of the Fuel Tank Advisory Committee (FTAC); and George Lujan of the Southwest Organizing Project; with Sierra Club of Hawai‘i director Wayne Tanaka moderating.

Key Highlights:

1. WAI’s Role: Ernie Lau outlined the WAI’s findings, indicating up to 2 million gallons of fuel may have been released from the Red Hill facility over its 80 year lifespan, and stressing the need for more monitoring and military accountability.

2. Community Solutions: George Lujan shared lessons from Albuquerque's Kirtland fuel leaks, emphasizing community-led action and long-term accountability, and the many, sadly familiar tactics used by the U.S. Department of Defense and federal regulators to dismiss concerns and delay action around the contamination of the city’s groundwater resources by the U.S. Air Force. 

3. FTAC Reform: Ashley and Ernie advocated for more frequent FTAC meetings and a new independent body to host these meetings, given the inaccessible, infrequent, and largely unhelpful format of FTAC meetings organized by the Department of Health. 

4. Long-Term Strategy: The WAI is just one step toward safeguarding Hawaiʻi’s water for future generations. We need continued investments in community engagement and advocacy - and in the political insulation of government regulation of wai - as we continue to push for accountability and full remediation of our ‘āina and wai in the decades ahead.

Next Steps:
Stay tuned for WAI Panel II, focusing on report gaps, legal routes, and community collaboration for stronger protections.

If you missed the panel or would like to revisit the discussion, you can watch the recording here.

Closure and Groundwater Monitoring Updates: Recap and Updates

Over the last month, the Navy Closure Task Force (NCTF) submitted its groundwater flow model to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Hawaiʻi Department of Health (DOH), and University of Hawaiʻi researchers. A groundwater flow model, as well as a separate, contaminant fate and transport model, were mandated by the 2015 Administrative Order on Consent, in order to track the flow of historic and future contaminants from the Red Hill Facility, and thereby protect drinking water wells and the drinking water system for Oʻahu residents. Nearly a decade later, neither have been completed.

A discussion of this latest model, including critiques by researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi tasked with developing their own model, will take place at the next FTAC meeting on Wednesday, October 9, 2024.

On October 1, the NCTF began cleaning Tank 5, the fourth of 14 tanks scheduled for ventilation and cleaning as part of the closure process. Structural repairs are underway on Tanks 7 and 8, while Tank 6 is currently being vented. There are 9 air quality monitoring stations around the facility, including at Halawa Correctional Facility, to track levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the air, which must be within DOH’s limits of 38 ppm.

On September 24, the NCTF hosted a webinar on groundwater monitoring, presented by Commander Ben Dunn, Deputy for Environment & Remediation. Currently, the Navy samples water from approximately 40 monitoring locations near Red Hill, with five wells sampled daily. Data is processed in EPA-certified labs, and it takes about two weeks to receive results which are shared to DOH and EPA. After the data is validated, the results are posted on their Safe Waters website.

The Navy has also agreed to expedite and expand its PFAS sampling near Red Hill, but has not agreed to the weekly third-party testing called for by the Honolulu BWS, the Honolulu City Council, and the Red Hill CRI, along with numerous individual residents of Oʻahu. A similar update was presented at the September 17 Commission on Water Resource Management (CWRM) meeting by Commander Dunn and Admiral Marc Williams. They acknowledged detections of PAH within facility boundaries, which could be attributed to sources like asphalt runoff. Board member Aurora Kagawa-Viviani raised questions about the Navy's mapping methodology, which Dunn and Williams agreed to follow up on. They also shared a remediation timeline extending through 2031, with initial assessments starting in early 2025.

CRI Meeting #12

The 12th Community Representation Initiative (CRI) meeting took place at ʻĀina Haina Library, joined by representatives from the Board of Water Supply (BWS) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with Navy officials notably absent. During the meeting, the EPA provided an in-depth overview of the Lead and Copper Rule (LCR), explaining that action levels for lead and copper are based on standards for corrosion control–not on health safety thresholds. These action levels gauge how well water systems’ corrosion control treatments prevent metals like lead from leaching into drinking water due to pipe corrosion. If these levels are exceeded, it indicates a need for further treatment to inform residents of their potential exposure. This explanation, offered as an apparent excuse for agency inaction, did little to assuage concerns regarding dozens of lead detections on the Navy’s water lines. Notably, these detections were taken from water samples that were not obtained in compliance with LCR procedures, and therefore likely underrepresented the amount of lead that individuals including infants and pregnant people may be exposed to through their Navy tap water.    

BWS proudly reported that they have no lead pipes in their system, a testament to their diligent efforts and proactive measures. 

BWS Chief Engineer Ernie Lau also stressed the importance of continued and expanded groundwater monitoring, especially in light of the recent contaminants found in the now-shuttered ‘Aiea wells. Lau called for a broader investigation to fully understand the contamination’s potential reach to the southwest, west and northwest of the Red Hill facility, where municipal drinking water wells and agriculturally and culturally significant springs are located. 

For those who missed the meeting, you can access the full recording here. 

Upcoming Events and Meetings

Mark your calendars for these important events:

• October 8, 5-8pm: Department of Health Open House
  Aliamanu Middle School, 3271 Salt Lake Blvd

• October 9, 1-5pm: Fuel Tank Advisory Committee Meeting - Agenda here
  Neal S. Blaisdell Center, Pikake Room, 777 Ward Ave or join by Zoom

• October 17: Community Representation Initiative Meeting #13
  Updates will be posted on the CRI website here and on Instagram @RedHillCRI23.
  Watch CRI Meeting #12: Available here.

• October 31, 9am: Commission on Water Resource Management Meeting - Agenda here
  DLNR Board Room (Room 132), Kalanimoku Building, 1151 Punchbowl Street
  *Meeting was rescheduled from October 15