Months after fuel was found in Oʻahu’s drinking water and thousands of people were poisoned, millions of gallons of fuel still sits in the Red Hill fuel tanks directly above the aquifer, continually threatening to poison our water again.
Protect Oʻahu’s Drinking Water
The U.S. Navy’s Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility leaked 27,000 gallons of fuel from a single tank in January 2014.
This fuel was released into the surrounding environment, including the primary drinking water resource for metropolitan Oʻahu, which lies just 100 feet below the Red Hill facility.
The 2014 leak resulted in a 20-year agreement between the U.S. Navy, Environmental Protection Agency, Defense Logistics Agency, and the Hawaiʻi Department of Health to study, monitor and consider improvements to the storage facility. However, this was not the only leak in the Red Hill facility’s long history—records show that the facility has leaked at least 180,000 gallons of fuel since construction.
The Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi believes that the responsible agencies are not acting with enough urgency to minimize the risk to Oʻahu’s drinking water supply and are calling for the shut down of the Red Hill facility. Scroll down to learn more.
The U.S. Navy Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility
stores well over 100 million gallons of fuel just 100 feet above Oʻahu’s primary drinking water supply. Built specifically for World War II in the 1940s, the facility is completely underground and holds 20 tanks (18 of which remain active today), each tank standing 250 feet tall and 100 feet wide—large enough for Aloha Tower to sit inside each tank.
The facility is located in Kapūkaki, known today as Red Hill, which is a mountain ridge located between Hālawa and Moanalua in the ʻewa district of Oʻahu.
100 feet directly below the facility sits the Southern Oʻahu Basal Aquifer—the primary drinking water source for the island. This aquifer alone provides drinking water for over 400,000 residents from Hālawa to Hawaiʻi Kai. The Environmental Protection Agency determined that this aquifer is the “principal source of drinking water” for the island, and that “if contaminated, would create a significant hazard to public health.”
Our worst nightmare has happened.
Fuel from the Red Hill facility has made its way into our drinking water and has poisoned thousands of people. Despite complaints from their own families and neighbors of oily sheens in their tap water, overwhelming diesel-like fumes, and widespread health problems, Navy leaders insisted for days that the water was not contaminated. In the weeks following, the Navy’s response continues to be lacking in urgency and now they are contesting the emergency order calling for the defueling of the tanks for the safety of Oʻahu’s people and environment.
Finally, calls are being made from almost every level of decision makers to shutdown the Red Hill facility. It should not have taken this catastrophic event for this issue to be taken seriously—fuel is in the water and it can never be removed.
Currently the contamination is limited to areas serviced by the Navy’s water system but only time will tell. The Honolulu Board of Water Supply has shut down its nearby wells as a precaution and residents across the island are asked to conserve water. Get the latest on the water crisis here.
We cannot let this disaster worsen or for this to happen again. The Red Hill tanks must be shut down immediately.
Leaky Past, Risky Future
Since 1943, at least 180,000 gallons of fuel have leaked from the Red Hill facility into the surrounding environment and more is likely. This includes the 27,000 gallons that last leaked from Tank 5 in 2014.
The most recent leaks include 14,000 gallons of fuel-water mixture in November 2021, 1,600 gallons of fuel in May 2021, both from the Red Hill facility itself and an unknown amount of fuel starting in early 2020 at Puʻuloa Hotel and Kilo piers.
Past studies have also detected traces of petroleum chemicals in the groundwater near the tanks. No effort was made to clean up the leaked fuel and the Navy, EPA, and Hawaiʻi Department of Health cannot guarantee that the Red Hill tanks will not leak again. The Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility is the largest threat to Oʻahu’s drinking water security.
The Navy’s own studies cite that there is a 27.6 % chance that the facility could leak up to 30,000 gallons of fuel every year. That is an almost 1 in 3 chance that another large leak—similar to the 2014 leak—will occur in the future.
The studies also reveal that the tanks could have chronic leaks, releasing upwards of 5,800 gallons of fuel annually. Despite knowing the risks, the agencies remain unwilling to commit to shutting down the Red Hill facility and relocating the fuel. This is unacceptable. Frighteningly, the Navy also assumes that a sudden release of 120,000 gallons of fuel or a slow release of 2,300 gallons of fuel per year per tank “would have, at most, a minimal impact to groundwater.”
Despite the risk of the tanks, history of leaks, public opposition and lack of progress on tank upgrades—the Navy brought tank 5 back into operation in March 2020. Read more.
Sierra Club + Honolulu Board of Water Supply challenges Navy’s Red Hill permit application after Sierra Club sues Hawaiʻi Department of Health (again)
Our challenge to the Navy’s 5-year permit to operate the Red Hill Fuel Tanks hit a major milestone recently: The Hearing Officer issued a recommended decision to retire nearly 40% of the tanks within 3 years, and allow only those tanks that have actually been inspected and repaired properly. The Hearing Officer concluded from the evidence presented at the hearing that the Navy’s performance of inspections and repairs is “sorely deficient” and that the “risk of potential pollution of the Red Hill potable aquifer is real.”
These facts were underscored by the fuel leak at Red Hill in May 2021. Even though this incident is *still* under investigation, the fact that any fuel got out of the facility and into the environment means it is reasonable to conclude that the “major” operational improvements the Navy imposed after the 2014 leak are not sufficient to prevent leaks and protect our water supply.
This is in part why, in July 2021, the Hawaiʻi Department of Health Environmental Health Administration shifted its position and concluded that the Navy has not proved it can safely operate its underground Red Hill fuel tanks. This is BIG and is a notable change in the department’s position on Red Hill. Read more about our arguments in the contested case and what the Environmental Health Administration concluded here.
The majority of the evidence in this contested case was heard in February 2021, after a few delays. The Sierra Club and the Honolulu Board of Water Supply challenged the Navy’s permit application because it fails to prove the tanks will not leak, will not affect Oʻahu’s groundwater, or demonstrate a practicable tank upgrade alternative. Learn more about why we are challenging the permit, how we got here and links to watch here.
The Environmental Court ruled in February 2020 that the Health Department’s expedited rule change to remove language related to automatic approvals for underground storage tanks was sufficient to address the issues raised in our lawsuit filed. With the risk of automatic approvals out of the way, the Navy’s permit application for Red Hill will now undergo a formal contested case hearing brought by the Sierra Club and Honolulu Board of Water Supply.
This ruling comes after the Department of Health amended its rules and removed language regarding the automatic approval of underground storage tank permit applications after we filed suit. Because the Navy’s permit application was not automatically approved, the Navy’s Red Hill tanks are operating without a permit.
In November 2019, the Sierra Club filed suit against the Department of Health to prevent the automatic approval of underground storage tanks like the antiquated leaking tanks at Red Hill. The Department’s proposed rule amendments allowed underground storage tanks permit applications—including Red Hill—to be automatically approved after 180 days. Automatic approval of operating permits is problematic because it undermines a robust permit review process, which is fundamental to state agencies fulfilling their responsibility to protect the public. The Department of Health has a constitutional duty to protect the health of Hawaiʻi’s residents and environment. It is therefore unacceptable that a permit to operate something as dangerous as the antiquated Red Hill tanks could be issued without a full review of the permit conditions or the risks posed by these high-risk storage tanks.
“This lawsuit was about making sure the Health Department actually does its job to protect the health of Hawaiʻi’s people and environment,” said Marti Townsend, Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi Director. “It is outrageous that the department would be willing to approve the operation of the Red Hill tanks as is knowing the extreme risk they pose to Oʻahu’s water supply.”
The Sierra Club previously sued the Hawaiʻi Department of Health—AND WON—in 2017 over the department’s exemption of the Red Hill tanks from underground storage tank regulations. The Environmental Court ultimately ruled that the exemption of the tanks was illegal and ordered the Health Department to update their regulations to remove the exemption. Learn more about this big win here.
There is no better option than relocation
The tanks at Red Hill are not meant to last forever. With thinning steel walls and no plan to update tank structure to ensure protection of our water, we are calling on the Navy to shut down the Red Hill facility and relocate the fuel away from the drinking water supply.
In September 2019, the Navy released its preferred plan on how to upgrade the Red Hill tanks after studying six tank upgrade options. To no surprise, the Navy’s preferred choice—the least protective and least expensive option—is to keep the original (corroding, see below) steel tank liner, coat it with epoxy, and explore installing a water treatment plant to filter toxic chemicals from Oʻahu’s drinking water in the case of another major leak. The plan also commits to some undefined, undetermined “double-wall equivalency” solution or relocation of the tanks “around 2045”– which proposes to extend the deadline to upgrade the tanks another 7 years using some unknown, future technology that is not actually a double-walled solution.
Below you can see the six options the Navy considered:
Tank condition is much, MUCH worse than expected
The EPA and Hawaiʻi Department of Health issued a letter in March 2020, rejecting the Navy’s 2018 corrosion report as it had a 40% error rate. 4 out of the 10 samples were inaccurate—both under and over estimating tank liner thickness, missing areas that should be repaired or identifying areas where tank repair was not actually needed.
The results, albeit now deemed inaccurate, were already shocking. The Navy predicted that there would be minimal corrosion and that the steel liner would have thinned from the original 0.25-inches to between 0.187-inches and 0.135-inches. However, half of the ten samples taken from tank 14 revealed extensive corrosion at the top and along the sides of the tank. Several samples indicate thinning more severe than predicted. One sample from the side of the tank was only 0.079-of-an-inch thick—less than a third of the width of the original quarter-inch steel lining.
Cutout from tank 14, showing corrosion on back side of steel tank liner. Photo by BWS.