Email to the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Navy and hand carry to the Office of the Governor of Hawai'i and to the offices of each member of our Congressional delegation.
On December 6, 2021, the Governor of Hawai'i ordered the US Navy to suspend operations of the massive, leaking 80 year old jet fuel tanks that have contaminated the the drinking water of 93,000 military families that live around Pearl Harbor and the fuel tanks.
If the tanks leak more, the drinking water for another 400,000 who live in Honolulu will be contaminated!!
CLOSE THE JET FUEL TANKS FOREVER!!!
https://health.hawaii.gov/.../Emergency-Order-12.05.2021...
Honolulu Star Advertiser Sept 19, 2021
Among Chang’s recommendations: that any tank not properly inspected and repaired by Dec. 31, 2024, be removed from active use until inspected and repaired; and that the Navy provide annual progress reports to the DOH on inspections and repairs.
All that, at the very least, must be conditioned if the five-year permit is approved. And in that period, the Navy should work apace to realize the goal of double-lining tanks or relocating them altogether — not just maintain the status quo.
Star Advertiser Sept 19,2021
“Given the documented history of releases at the site, the uncertainty associated with the Navy’s groundwater model, and the lack of treatment or recovery systems in place to date, the Navy has not met its burden of demonstrating that this facility is protective of human health and the environment from potentially ‘significant’ future releases,” wrote James Paige, a deputy attorney general for the EHA.
While it met design and construction standards for the tanks, “the Navy’s actual performance of inspections and repairs to the Red Hill tanks is sorely deficient,” Chang found. Only nine of the 18 active tanks had been properly inspected for condition and integrity in the last 20 years; two tanks hadn’t been inspected in 38 years, while another hadn’t been inspected in 40 years.
That’s stunning — and reveals a woeful, worrisome level of laxity. What else is unknown about the tanks’ condition and their upkeep?
Honolulu Star Advertiser
September 19, 2021
https://printreplica.staradvertiser.com?selDate=20210918&goTo=A10&artid=3
Sidestepping Red Hill tanks
Step by deliberate step, safe-water advocates have rightly been pressing the U.S. Navy to do the right thing on its aging underground fuel tanks at Red Hill: Get moving on redoubling the tanks’ structural integrity, or relocate them altogether.
So it was something of a sidestep last week, when a state Department of Health (DOH) hearing officer recommended that the Navy be approved for a five year permit to continue operating the 20 massive fuel tanks, despite mounting doubts about the Navy’s ability to do so safely.
During the months-long contested-case hearing on the permit application, a July report by the DOH’s own Environmental Health Administration (EHA) said the Navy had not proved it can safely operate the tanks, which sit just 100 feet above an aquifer supplying drinking water to some 763,000 Oahu residents.
After months of deliberation, a hearing officer has recommended that the Navy get its state permit to operate underground fuel tanks at Red Hill, but said it should come with inspection and repair requirements after determining the tanks are a pollution risk to a major source of Oahu’s drinking water.
“The storage of over 180 million gallons of petroleum fuel products 100 feet above Oahu’s sole source aquifer is inherently dangerous,” the recommendation said. “The risk of potential pollution of the Red Hill potable water aquifer is real.”
https://bit.ly/3Eam1V0
BIG NEWS-Navy request for 5-year permit to operate Red Hill raises red flags
https://printreplica.staradvertiser.com?selDate=20210715&goTo=A01
State environmental regulators said this week that the Navy has not proved it can safely operate its underground Red Hill fuel tanks, which in recent years have been the subject of mounting concerns over leaks and groundwater contamination.
The conclusion, submitted by the Hawaii Department of Health’s Environmental Health Administration as part of a contested case hearing, raises the possibility that the state might DENY the Navy a five-year permit to continue to operate the facility!
URL link to view live streamed Hawai'i Department of Health Contested Case Hearing regarding the Red Hill Underground Storage Tank Facility Permit Application: Feb. 1 – 5, 2021. Each day of the planned five-day hearing will have a unique url that you can use to access the day’s hearing. The urls for each day are:
Feb 1 https://youtu.be/Xg5Nv8A-_VA
Feb 2 https://youtu.be/d7UVDBfP3xA
Feb 3 https://youtu.be/QeFPRlrRoRw
Feb 4 https://youtu.be/7j22rIl1ilQ
Feb 5 https://youtu.be/VkPw4t-ztVM
In Honolulu Star Advertiser on February 2, a story on Red Hill fuel tanks based on the testimonies that are happening at 8am everyday this week:
https://www.staradvertiser.com/2021/02/02/hawaii-news/red-hill-fuel-tanks-have-always-leaked-sierra-club-says/
Tanks have always leaked, testified Kimo Frankel, attorney for the Sierra Club. The Red Hill fuel tanks have constantly had problems. Frankel, attorney for the Sierra Club, said a Navy report concluded that the probability of a sudden leak of between 1,000 and 30,000 gallons over the next year is 27.6%, with that risk rising to 96% over the next 10 years.
“The Navy cannot be given a free pass to ruin our water,” Frankel said. “The Department of Health must conclude that the Navy’s permit to operate its antiquated and leaky tanks is unacceptable.”
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