Red Hill Investigations: The Navy Failed To Prevent And Respond To Fuel Contamination
TL;DR - A string of extraordinary failures in maintenance, training and leadership at the Navy’s Red Hill fuel facility resulted in fuel spewing from a broken pipeline for 30 hours, leaking petroleum into the military’s drinking water and sickening entire families last year, military officials said Thursday.
The results of two U.S. Pacific Fleet investigations into the disaster, shared with the media on Thursday, laid bare the human errors and systemic negligence that allowed two catastrophic leaks to occur within months of each other.
The reports reveal that a leak on May 6 was much worse than initially reported – some 20,000 gallons escaped instead of the initially reported 1,000 – and that the failure to properly investigate that leak was a major factor in another one happening on Nov. 20. That second spill was the one that injected as many as 3,322 gallons of fuel into the drinking water, according to one of the reports.
June 30, 2022: Red Hill Investigations: The Navy Failed To Prevent And Respond To Fuel Contamination, Honolulu Civil Beat
June 30, 2022: 'Series of cascading failures' at Red Hill contaminated Pearl Harbor water, Navy report says, HPR
June 30, 2022: Navy report: Multiple errors poisoned Pearl Harbor water, The Washington Post
June 30, 2022: Red Hill defuel plan, command investigation released, KHON2
June 30, 2022: Navy probe: ‘Cascading,’ preventable failures caused water crisis that sickened thousands, Hawaiʻi News Now
June 30, 2022: Series of errors led to fuel poisoning Pearl Harbor water, Navy report finds, NBC
June 30, 2022: Pearl Harbor water poisoned after multiple errors at fuel storage facility, Navy report says, Fox News
June 30, 2022: Navy report: Multiple errors poisoned Pearl Harbor water, The Patriot
July 1, 2022: Navy Plans To Defuel Red Hill By End of 2024, Leak Result of Human Error, USNI
July 1, 2022: Navy Report: Multiple Errors Poisoned Pearl Harbor Water, Military.com