Red Hill leaked fuel, contaminated the environment despite Navy claims that fuel was contained
HONOLULU, HAWAIʻI (Tuesday, May 25, 2021) – Navy soil vapor monitoring data reveals a spike in fuel contaminants in the soil below the Red Hill fuel tanks following the facility’s May 6 leak. On Monday, the Department of Health posted data on its website revealing the spike in volatile organic compounds. (See https://health.hawaii.gov/shwb/ust-red-hill-project-main/ (click on May 6 Release Monitoring Data)
Two weeks before the leak, soil vapor monitor readings below tank 20 ranged between 173 and 223 parts per billion by volume (ppbv). (See the last three columns on page 2 of https://health.hawaii.gov/shwb/files/2021/05/05-06-2021ReleaseMonitoringData-05-22-2021.pdf ). On May 13, volatile organic compounds spiked more than one thousand times to 232,667. (See page 3 of the same document, second to last column.) Other monitoring wells downslope of tank 20 saw volatile organic compounds increase ten to one hundred times (monitoring wells SV18D, SV18S, SV17S, SV17M, SV7D, SV4S) in the wake of the spill.
In a May 7, 2021 press release (also attached), the Navy claimed that the 1,000 gallon leak was “properly collected by the fuel contamination system.” Captain Gordie Meyer, the Commanding Officer of the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Hawaii was quoted as saying, “Our containment system functioned as designed to keep the fuel contained within our facility.”
“The Navy’s claim is pure shibai,” said the Sierra Club’s attorney David Kimo Frankel. “The Navy’s own data proves that its leak was not properly contained. The leak migrated from the facility and reached the subsurface. The Navy cannot be trusted with our groundwater.”
“There is only one explanation for the huge spike in volatile organic compounds,” according to Frankel. “The leak was not contained. It migrated underground beneath the tanks.”
“This latest data demonstrates that the Navy is unable to deliver on its promises to protect our water from their fuel,” said Marti Townsend, Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi Chapter Director. “Any amount of fuel leaked into the environment is too much—especially when it is so close to our drinking water. There is only one reasonable course of action: immediately retire the decaying Red Hill facility and relocate the fuel to modern tanks far away from our drinking water supply. Continuing as we are now is absolutely insane.”
Approximately 1,000 gallons of fuel was released from a dresser coupling on a pipe near tanks 18 and 20 around 6:35pm on Thursday, May 6 at the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility. It was learned at the recent Fuel Tank Advisory Committee meeting on May 20 that it took the Navy over 12 hours to inform the Health Department that the Red Hill facility had leaked. It took another 4 days for the Health Department to access the facility to conduct its own investigation.
The Department of Health is currently conducting a contested case hearing to determine whether the Navy should receive a required permit to operate the tanks.
Technical details: Page 4 of the Navy’s 2021 2nd Quarterly Release Response Report found:
Soil vapor samples were collected and analyzed in the field for volatile organic compound (VOC) concentrations using a photo-ionization detector (PID). Soil vapor monitoring points (SVMPs) were given a SV prefix, followed by the associated tank number, and then the location under the tank: “S” for shallow or front of the UST, “M” for mid depth or middle of the UST, and “D” for deep or outer edge of the UST.
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