The US military is polluting Hawaii’s water supply – and denying it

TL;DR - “This [fuel facility] is not the eighth wonder of the world. It is Frankenstein’s monster. And we have to kill it before it kills us.” This is the plea from Marti Townsend, one of more than 1,000 Hawai’i residents urging the Honolulu City Council to take action to protect our island’s most important resource: fresh, clean water.

Frankenstein’s monster is the US Navy’s Red Hill Fuel Storage Facility: a massive underground “farm” of 18-million liter fuel tanks and pipes just 100 feet above metropolitan O’ahu. Its construction began before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Since then, it has leaked over 180,000 gallons of petroleum into the groundwater aquifer that provides drinking water for over 400,000 residents and visitors from Hālawa to Hawaiʻi Kai.

Frankenstein’s monster is not just the facility: it is the larger US military machine. America’s elected leaders are unable and unwilling to rein in this monster that consumes ever more of the country’s resources as it poisons our atmosphere and now, our island’s water. These leaders dare to call themselves representatives of the people while allegedly lying under oath, letting military families be poisoned, and sacrificing entire islands of US citizens.

While America’s Frankenstein may consume its creator, the people of Hawai‘i will resist it. 

January 4, 2022: The US military is polluting Hawaii’s water supply – and denying it, The Guardian