Prepare your ʻohana for Red Hill defueling ~

Prepare your ʻohana for Red Hill defueling ~

Red Hill defueling toolkit

The Red Hill fuel tanks have threatened our drinking water for 80+ years and poisoned tens of thousands of people.

The tanks are finally being defueled.

While the Joint Task Force-Red Hill is committed to defueling 100 million gallons of fuel from Red Hill without “a single drop” leaking…(recent) history has taught us otherwise, and we must all prepare our ʻohana and homes for the possibility of fuel releases threatening our drinking water over the next 18 months.

We’ve put together this toolkit to provide as much information as we can to help you be prepared for the worst case scenario that we hope never arises, again.

Defueling Timeline and Process

The defueling process will be in two phases. The first phase, beginning October 16, 2023, will be a gravity defueling of the 100 million gallons of liquid fuel in the tanks. There are miles of pipelines that will carry the fuel from the Red Hill facility down to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, where the fuel will be stored on tanker ships. This first phase is expected to take 120 days, ending sometime in early 2024.

The second phase will address the 100,000-400,000 gallons of fuel-sludge that will remain in the tanks and pipelines after the liquid fuel is removed. So far, the Navy has not shared how they will remove this fuel sludge, or how long this process will take.

The Navy has also committed to removing three of the main pipelines that run from Red Hill to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, approximately 3.5 miles of pipeline. Their plan and timeline for doing so is also currently unclear.

The tankers that store the fuel from Red Hill will then transport the fuel to other potential storage locations including Campbell Industrial Park, California, Washington, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, or Australia. The Navy has not yet released exactly where the fuel will be moved and the Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi has expressed its concerns about the impacts of fuel storage at these potential locations.

The ultimate fate of the Red Hill facility has not yet been set. The Navy solicited input from the public on what they think the facility should be repurposed for, but many advocates, including us and the Honolulu Board of Water Supply, remain steadfast in our call for the complete shut down of the facility to ensure that no other fuel or hazardous materials can ever be stored directly above our drinking water again.

How to Prepare Your ʻOhana and Home for Defueling

Store clean water for drinking and other purposes.

Similar to hurricane preparedness, have one gallon of water per person per day for drinking and sanitation/hygiene purposes. While bottled water is typically a default option, there are other less plastic, reusable options available if you have the means to purchase and store prior to defueling, like these storage bags. The Honolulu Board of Water Supply sometimes provides similar free Emergency Water Storage containers to keep clean water in. Keep your eyes out for them at their next event. The Board of Water Supply also has great tips on storing water on their website here.

Know what wells you get your water from.

Use this link from the Honolulu Board of Water Supply to find out which of their wells you get your water from. Just enter your address, then click on your address link to open the report for your area. The very first box on the report lists the wells you get your water from. This report also shows you recent water quality testing. If no report is available for your area, it is possible that you do not get your water from the Honolulu Board of Water Supply’s system but rather the Navy or another installation’s system.

In the case of contamination, this is important information to know to gauge the safety and quality of your drinking water. It is best case scenario that water users will be quickly notified of contamination, but the past has demonstrated that there can be a lag in official notification.

Purchase water quality testing kits or familiarize yourself with where you can get your water tested.

Relying on the Department of Health or the Navy for water quality testing can be… frustrating, weary, and lagging, as was demonstrated following the 2021 leak. There is no certified large-scale testing facility on-island available for mass water quality testing. If you have the means to purchase your own water quality testing kits, below are a few options that we have come across but have not yet had the chance to use ourselves.

  • H20labcheck - results in ~10 days; tests for hydrocarbon contaminants

  • tapscore - results in ~8 days; tests for petroleum products

  • cyclopure - results in ~10 days; tests for PFAS

There is a group at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa that screens for potential fuel contamination in community water samples on Oʻahu using fluorescence spectroscopy. They have put together a dashboard with water testing results and may be able to assist you in testing your water. Check out their website and contact them at redhill@hawaii.edu or redhillreport@proton.me.

Stay in the know and keep up to date.

We, along with our allies and friends, will be doing our best to keep our members and supporters up to date with the latest on the defueling process. We encourage you to sign up here for our Red Hill emailing list as well as follow the accounts listed below on social media. The Honolulu Board of Water Supply also has a Red Hill updates page that we encourage you to bookmark.

You can also check the Joint Task Force-Red Hill’s webpage and defueling dashboard for updates directly from the Navy.

More on defueling and the history of the Red Hill tanks

Since 1943, an estimated 200,000 gallons of fuel have leaked from the facility. Large spills to note in recently history include 27,000 gallons in January 2014 and 1,600 gallons in May 2021. 

Then in November 2021, 14,000 gallons of a fuel-water mixture leaked from the facility and contaminated the aquifer beneath the facility. This contaminated water entered the Navy’s water system, serving nearly 100,000 people. Thousands of people who lived on the water system were poisoned and reported symptoms of fuel exposure.

Following this event, Navy and Board of Water Supply drinking wells around Red Hill were shut down.

The crisis caused by the 2021 and the resulting community pressure built up over the years, the US Navy is finally proceeding with the retirement of the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility and the removal of the millions of gallons of fuel that have threatened Oʻahu’s water security for over 80 years.