Wayne’s Sierra Club World

by Wayne Tanaka | Reading time: 3.5 minutes

In his interview with Sierra Club organizer Sharde Mersberg-Freitas, preeminent climate scientist Dr. Chip Fletcher highlights the key advantage we have here in Hawai‘i, to get us through the planetary emergency we face: the indigenous island-scale science, and the island-based values, that allowed hundreds of thousands of people here to live with the ʻāina sustainably, and without the need for any imported food and fuel — and that could still do so today.

Of course, much needs to be done to heal the harms of historic injustices and ongoing traumas that have displaced the Native Hawaiian systems and values we need, with the short-sighted priorities, socioeconomic policies, and social norms that are now pricing us out of our homes, making us sick, driving our communities apart, and rendering us all ever more vulnerable to the destabilization of our climate.

However, this is work that we all can and must be a part of, as the key to the future livability of Hawai‘i - and of our planet - may very well rest in our ability to realize, and model, the indigenous wisdom of our islands that has been suppressed for far too long.

All this adds a new layer of urgency to address the nightmare in Kapūkakī, where over 100,000,000 gallons of petroleum fuel remain precariously perched above our sole source groundwater aquifer. A fraction of one percent of this fuel would be enough to contaminate more water than what the entire island of Oʻahu would use over the course of decades, based on current consumption rates. Another, catastrophic-level release could spell the end of life as we know it on Oʻahu, for generations to come - with environmental, social, economic, and cultural consequences that would sink any opportunity we may have to apply and model the indigenous systems and values that could save us, and the planet, from the worst of the climate crisis.

We donʻt know the true condition of the 80-year-old, 25-story storage tanks holding this fuel. However, we do know that eight of these tanks have not even been inspected, or maintained, for over two decades; that water has infiltrated their concrete encasements and is actively corroding their extremely thin steel liners, and may also be corroding the metal embedded in the concrete; and that unavoidable and unpredictable events like earthquakes have resulted in significant releases of fuel in the past - including in the 1940s, when these tanks were brand new.

Most importantly, we do know that a two-and-a-half year timeline for defueling these tanks, as suggested in the Navy’s incomplete and sparsely detailed defueling plan, is patently unacceptable.

It remains up to us, the community, to step up our efforts to make the Navy and the Department of Defense treat the defueling of the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility as an absolute priority, and commit any and all resources at their disposal towards achieving this goal.

Please, share the word with your friends, neighbors, coworkers: Red Hill is #NotPauYet, we must show Navy and Department of Defense leadership that Hawai‘i and her people are NOT expendable, and that there are many things we - any and all of us - can do to help keep our water safe, and our lives intact. These include printing out and gathering signatures on our hard-copy petition to INDOPACCOM John Aquilino (and sharing this online petition with your networks); joining the O‘ahu Water Protectors in their canvassing and outreach efforts; and making a contribution to our work so that we can continue to educate and organize on the local, national, and international levels about the need to protect our islands’, and our planet’s, most precious resource.

And, if you can find 4-5 others (or more) who would like to work together on an action over the next few months, please also reach out to hawaii.chapter@sierraclub.org, and we can brainstorm more ways to hold the Navy’s feet to the fire - for our islands, for our communities, and for our planet.

Red Hill and the climate crisis may be the defining fights of the generations who call Hawai‘i home today - and the lives and security of the generations that will follow ours depend on us winning. Let’s not let them down.