Testify For Red Hill At The Water Commission Meeting!
CALL TO ACTION
This coming Tuesday, May 17, at 2 p.m. will give us another chance to ratchet up the pressure on the Navy, by urging the state Commission on Water Resource Management to impose strict restrictions and conditions on its continued use of our public trust water resources.
To date, over half a billion gallons of water have been pumped from our aquifer and dumped into Hālawa stream, just to try to keep the Red Hill contamination plume from migrating and contaminating other drinking water wells; millions upon millions of gallons of water have likewise been used to repeatedly “flush” the Navy’s drinking water system for nearly 100,000 people - many of whom are still reporting acute illness and sheens in their tapwater; and we may never know how many additional millions of gallons of our once-pure groundwater have been rendered undrinkable by the contamination itself. Meanwhile, we all face potential water shortages and conservation mandates for the months and years ahead, thanks to the Navy’s failure to prevent this foreseeable disaster, and to complete the groundwater and contaminant fate and transport models it promised to create seven years ago.
As the overseer of our most precious resource, tasked with ensuring that our public trust water is appropriately used and protected from waste, the Water Commission must act to place conditions on the Navy’s water use permits, to prohibit any and all nonessential uses of water, and to motivate Navy and military leaders to treat the ongoing threat of catastrophic contamination of our water supply with the urgency it requires.
How to submit testimony:
Please submit written testimony to dlnr.cwrm@hawaii.gov
Testify virtually by e-mailing raeann.p.hyatt@hawaii.gov for the Zoom link (let them know you will be testifying on item D-1)
Testify in-person by going to 1151 Punchbowl Street, Honolulu Hawaiʻi 96817 Room 132 on Tuesday at 2 p.m.
Sample testimony:
Dear Chair Case and Members of the Water Commission,
The Navy’s contamination of our groundwater aquifer has already led to the waste of hundreds of millions of gallons of our most precious public trust resource. Just in its effort to keep its contamination plume from migrating, the Navy will have pumped and dumped into Hālawa stream over a billion gallons of water in a few months’ time. And as our island anticipates potential water shortages in the months and years ahead, and as the continued presence of over one hundred million gallons of fuel in Kapūkakī threatens to render additional billions of gallons of pure, fresh water undrinkable, it is incumbent upon you to uphold your constitutional and moral obligations, and prohibit any nonessential uses of water by the Navy unless and until the threat to our water supply is removed, and our water crisis is fully resolved.
Accordingly, as you consider potential modifications to the Navy’s Water Use Permit Applications, please ensure that the Navy’s use of our island’s water is conditioned on a full and quantified accounting of its water uses; a prohibition on any uses not essential for health and safety, including uses associated with landscaping, car washes, swimming pools and golf courses, and any other nonessential uses; regular water use reporting requirements; the establishment of a hotline and investigative procedure for water waste complaints and other enforcement mechanisms; and full transparency and disclosure of any and all reports and other information regarding the safety of our water – unless and until the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility is completely defueled and decommissioned, our groundwater aquifer is remediated, and the water crisis the Navy has placed us in is over.
Thank you,
[your name]