Redacted Navy Red Hill log shows ‘critical’ system warnings began hours before fuel spill

TL;DR - At about 6:10 p.m. May 6, 2021, a tremendous amount of pressure surged through piping at the Navy’s Red Hill underground fuel facility, rupturing two joints and blowing off a 500-pound, 6-foot section of pipe. About 20,000 gallons of fuel came gushing out. The fuel eventually would come to contaminate the Navy’s drinking water system in November, sickening hundreds of military families.

That much has been confirmed by the Navy’s investigation into the water contamination, released June 30. But a Navy document provided to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser shows that on the morning of May 6, hours before the spill, a constant barrage of alarms began going off within Red Hill’s Automated Fuel Handling Equipment program, an inventory control system used by the Navy to track fuel in real time and detect leaks.

August 10, 2022: Redacted Navy Red Hill log shows ‘critical’ system warnings began hours before fuel spill, Honolulu Star-Advertiser