Oahu military water contamination is a crisis of health, environment and trust

TL;DR - As the petroleum-contaminated water crisis stretches into its fourth day, it has grown into what some are calling an unprecedented problem, even among the nation’s extensive military residential network that houses hundreds of thousands nationwide — tens of thousands here in Hawaii.

Could a leak at those large Red Hill fuel tanks somehow get to the Halawa aquifer or tanks of water?

“That is a huge concern,” Wayne Tanaka, Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi Director said. “That is a reason why we’ve been locked horns with the Navy for the last several years. I’m just trying to get them to acknowledge the risk — existential risks — that this fuel facility poses to our drinking water supply. It’s still unclear how and where fuel flow, if there is a massive leak, how quickly and whether it will actually migrate toward the Halawa shaft, which again would be pretty catastrophic.”

December 1, 2021: Oahu military water contamination is a crisis of health, environment and trust, KHON2