Healani Sonoda-Pale, a member of the Oahu Water Protectors, said that protests in 2014 when 27,000 gallons of fuel leaked from Red Hill, "were met with the same lies, incompetence, false assurances and unaccountable behavior that the U.S. Navy is currently demonstrating during this current crisis."
She said the group stands in solidarity with all Oahu water drinkers, calling the fuel tanks "ticking time bombs that can only be defused by defueling them."
Deputy Secretary of Defense Says DOD Needs "Time to Make Evidence-Based and Transparent Decisions"
In previewing the DOD decision to file lawsuits, on January 31, 2022, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said in a statement that the military would appeal Hawaii's order to defuel the Navy's underground Red Hill fuel storage facility which "will afford us time to make evidence-based and transparent decisions."
Contamination of Drinking Water Began Long Before November 2021
It is becoming more and more apparent that jet fuel contamination of the water supply from the Navy's wells was occurring long prior to the late November 2021 discovery of jet fuel leaking from a previously unknown emergency line.
As reported in Honolulu's Civil Beat, as early as 2020, Navy water testing detected levels of diesel-range total petroleum hydrocarbons in the Navy's system that exceeded state drinking water standards, according to the Navy's most recent annual water quality report, which was released in July, 2021. According to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, in July, August and September, 2021, testing showed evidence of petroleum contamination in the Red Hill well, which services the area around Pearl Harbor and included TPH-o and a family of chemicals linked to heavy oils and grease, at levels exceeding the state safety threshold. DOH said the reading was unusual compared to previous years. In the months before residents began reporting that their water smelled like fuel, Navy test results showed indications of petroleum contamination and twice logged readings above state safety limits for drinking water. But the Navy kept distributing water to its 93,000 customers, and the Hawaii Department of Health, charged with overseeing the delivery of safe drinking water, didn't tell residents not to drink the water until it was too late. Department of Health employees have said that the Navy's water test reporting was difficult to analyze as what was provided was "raw, preliminary and incomplete" making it hard to know for certain whether a data point or trend line is valid and merits action. In a November 23, 2021 letter to the Department of Health, the Navy said that the increased rate of testing had "overwhelmed" its mainland lab and created delays in getting results. Citizens Demand Permanent Shut Down of Red Hill Storage Tanks While the current emergency order from the Hawaii State Department of Health does not call for a permanent shut down of the massive, 80-year-old Red Hill underground Jet Fuel Storage Tank system, the residents of O'ahu whose drinking water supply is jeopardized by 180 million gallons of jet fuel only 100 feet above the drinking water aquifer, certainly are demanding its closure before the predicted major catastrophic leak occurs that would contaminate permanently the entire aquifer. Tens of thousands have written and made calls to President Biden, Secretary of Defense Austin and the Hawaii Congressional delegation demanding that the tanks be closed. They have held town hall meetings, neighborhood board meetings and signed petitions emphasizing the threat to the people of O'ahu. The contamination of the drinking water is the latest negative aspect of the U.S. military's presence in the Hawaiian Islands. The large presence of the U.S. military on O'ahu and the footprint of four major military installations on a large portion of the land of the island has been a sore point in relations with the Hawaiian population for over a century since the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy by the United States. The military should take very seriously the outrage of the local population over their threat to the drinking water for all the residents of the island and should withdraw its lawsuits and immediately state that it will permanently shut down the dangerous fuel tanks immediately.(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
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