U.S. Navy Contests State Order to Drain Red Hill Tank Farm

Hawaii's Department of Health has ordered the U.S. Navy to drain and empty the strategic Red Hill fuel storage facility, a 250-million-gallon tank farm carved into solid rock on the outskirts of Honolulu. The service has informed the state that it plans to contest the order.

The Navy reported a 14,000 gallon spill of an oil-water mixture at Red Hill in November, drawing the ire of residents and activists who have long warned of the hazard the facility might pose to the area's water supplies. Over the past two weeks, hundreds of Navy servicemembers and dependents who live near Red Hill have begun reporting detectable levels of fuel in their drinking water, including an odor, flavor or visible oily sheen. Some have reported minor medical symptoms from drinking contaminated water. 

Later testing proved the presence of petroleum hydrocarbons in a Navy water supply well near Red Hill, and the Department of Health has advised all 93,000 users of the Navy's Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam water system to stop using their tapwater for drinking, cooking or oral hygiene (or bathing, if a fuel odor is detected). The Navy is providing hotel housing for 700 of the most affected servicemembers and has opened up a temporary shower facility.

On Sunday, all of the state's top political leaders called for the facility to be shut down, including the governor and all members of the Hawaiian congressional delegation. The next day, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro confirmed that operations at Red Hill would be temporarily paused for an investigation. 

“The safety, health and well-being of our service members, civilians, contractors, their families and our communities here in Oahu is of the utmost importance to me,” Del Toro said. “This is not acceptable and the Department of the Navy will take every action to identify and remedy this issue."

The State Department of Health - which holds permitting authority over the site - has gone one step further. On Tuesday, it issued an emergency order requiring the Navy to drain Red Hill's 20 fuel tanks. The Navy has 30 days to come up with a plan to carry out the order; after it fixes any problems that might prevent safe drainage, it has up to 30 more days to finish emptying the system out. The order requires the service to get approval from the state before refilling the system. 

“The Department of Health is taking action to fulfill our mission of protecting human health and the environment,” said Health Director Dr. Elizabeth Char. “The Navy’s contamination of drinking water has impacted all O‘ahu residents - military and civilian - and we must take appropriate steps to safeguard the drinking water we all share as a community.”

The Navy has informed the state that it intends to contest the emergency order, and the timing for an initial hearing is under discussion. 

“The Department of Health and Navy are negotiating the terms of a continuance and we will provide an update when one is available," a state spokesperson told the Star-Advertiser. 

The Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility is a unique strategic asset for Navy operations in the Pacific. Between 1940 and 1943, miners carved 20 giant tanks out of a solid basalt ridge outside Honolulu, then connected them by pipeline to the piers at Pearl Harbor. The site's elevation provides gravity-assisted flow, and its underground location is harder to hit in the event of an enemy attack. 

The site operates under a permit from the State Department of Health, renewable every five years. The renewal process is currently under way, but it has been delayed by the state's concerns that the Navy may not have been forthcoming with key details about the site's history. “[The state] has received information and is investigating allegations that the full extent of the [Red Hill] system infrastructure including pipelines may not have been disclosed as part of the application and proceedings, and that information regarding corrosion history may not have been disclosed,” State Deputy Attorney General James Paige advised in October.