Urge President Biden to shut down Red Hill now to protect Oʻahu’s drinking water

In November, 14,000 gallons of fuel and water were released from the Navy’s Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility. Despite the Navy’s claims that the leak had been contained, fumes in nearby neighborhoods spark 911 calls. A week later, reports were made of oily sheens and fuel like odors in the water along with hundreds of complaints of symptoms consistent with petroleum exposure—headaches, vomiting, rashes, and sores. Now, those reports are in the thousands and many of the families have been displaced from their homes with little information on what will happen next.

The contamination is currently limited to the Navy’s drinking water system but the water source is shared with all of Honolulu, whose system serves roughly 400,000 people. The Honolulu Board of Water Supply has shut off its nearby drinking water wells as a precaution and is asking residents to conserve water. This water crisis will only get worse unless the facility is shut down for good and fuel relocated.

Since its construction in 1943, the facility has leaked more than 180,000 gallons of fuel into the surrounding environment. Data shows that fuel has reached the groundwater and soil beneath the tanks before but up until recently the drinking water source remained safe. Now with at least one tainted drinking water well, Oʻahu’s drinking water future remains uncertain.

The Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility was built during WWII. It is built directly into Kapūkaki, the mountain range between Hālawa and Moanalua. The facility holds 20 massive underground storage tanks that hold 12.5 million gallons of fuel each, all of which sit only 100 feet above the main drinking water aquifer for Honolulu.

While the Pentagon has conceded that the Red Hill Facility poses an imminent threat to Oʻahu's water supply and agreed to shut down Red Hill, there is still over 100 million gallons of fuel in those tanks and the Navy has yet to come up with a concrete timeline to defuel the facility. Now we are calling on President Biden to do everything in his power to shut down Red Hill now and prevent any further destruction Oʻahu’s health and safety.

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I urge you as the U.S. Commander in Chief to exercise your responsibility and take all necessary steps to protect Hawaiʻi’s water and demand accountability and transparency from the Pentagon.

I appreciate that the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Navy have ordered the Red Hill Fuel Facility, which has already poisoned thousands of Oʻahu residents, to be shut down, and that they have acknowledged that the outdated, WWII-era facility places the primary drinking water source for Hawaiʻi’s most populous island in imminent peril. I also appreciate their long-overdue acknowledgment, despite years of Navy assertions to the contrary, that this facility is not actually essential to national or regional security, and that a new fuel facility does not in fact need to be constructed from a defense standpoint.

Nonetheless, the water and the people of Oʻahu still remain in harm’s way, with no concrete commitment to a timeline for defueling the over 100 million gallons of fuel that remain in the Red Hill Facility.  Moreover, the current contamination of the island’s groundwater will likely lead to water conservation mandates or shutdowns that could exacerbate Hawaiʻi’s housing crisis and socioeconomic challenges for years to come, due in part to the Navy’s failure to fulfill its obligations under an Administrative Order of Consent that it entered into over six years ago.

That is why I strongly implore you to:
1) Demand a commitment from the U.S. Navy to defuel its Red Hill Facility by September 2022, NOT May 2023;
2) Demand full transparency for all information regarding the status of the Red Hill Facility and the safety of our water, including but not limited to the completed and pending investigative reports over the 2021 spills, the status of the 350 pipeline repairs that were urgently needed in 2016, the presence of PFAS “forever chemicals” in the Red Hill Facility, and all monitoring well and water testing data;
3) Demand that the Department of Defense compensate all residents, workers, schools, businesses, and government agencies, including the Board of Water Supply, for the costs incurred and that will be incurred from the contamination of our aquifer that has already taken place;
4) Ensure that the community has full oversight in the clean-up and restoration of the current contamination of Kapūkakī and the groundwater aquifer below it; and
5) Ensure that alternative fuel arrangements do not threaten the water and foundation of life for other communities in Hawaiʻi or elsewhere.

The massive and decrepit Red Hill facility has a long history of leaks, and sits just 100 feet above the primary drinking water resource for almost half a million Oʻahu residents. With the fuel that still remains in the facility threatening to turn our years-long water contamination crisis into a lifelong catastrophe, we call on you, President Biden, to exercise your executive power as Commander in Chief to order the Department of Defense to use all of its available resources to defuel the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility as immediately as possible, and to follow through on the promises of transparency, accountability, and good stewardship that have yet to be delivered for the people of Hawaiʻi.

I urge you as the U.S. Commander in Chief to exercise your responsibility and take all necessary steps to protect Hawaiʻi’s water and demand accountability and transparency from the Pentagon. I appreciate that the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Navy have ordered the Red Hill Fuel Facility, which has already poisoned thousands of Oʻahu residents, to be shut down, and that they have acknowledged that the outdated, WWII-era facility places the primary drinking water source for Hawaiʻi’s most populous island in imminent peril. I also appreciate their long-overdue acknowledgment, despite years of Navy assertions to the contrary, that this facility is not actually essential to national or regional security, and that a new fuel facility does not in fact need to be constructed from a defense standpoint. Nonetheless, the water and the people of Oʻahu still remain in harm’s way, with no concrete commitment to a timeline for defueling the over 100 million gallons of fuel that remain in the Red Hill Facility. Moreover, the current contamination of the island’s groundwater will likely lead to water conservation mandates or shutdowns that could exacerbate Hawaiʻi’s housing crisis and socioeconomic challenges for years to come, due in part to the Navy’s failure to fulfill its obligations under an Administrative Order of Consent that it entered into over six years ago. That is why I strongly implore you to: 1) Demand a commitment from the U.S. Navy to defuel its Red Hill Facility by September 2022, NOT May 2023; 2) Demand full transparency for all information regarding the status of the Red Hill Facility and the safety of our water, including but not limited to the completed and pending investigative reports over the 2021 spills, the status of the 350 pipeline repairs that were urgently needed in 2016, the presence of PFAS “forever chemicals” in the Red Hill Facility, and all monitoring well and water testing data; 3) Demand that the Department of Defense compensate all residents, workers, schools, businesses, and government agencies, including the Board of Water Supply, for the costs incurred and that will be incurred from the contamination of our aquifer that has already taken place; 4) Ensure that the community has full oversight in the clean-up and restoration of the current contamination of Kapūkakī and the groundwater aquifer below it; and 5) Ensure that alternative fuel arrangements do not threaten the water and foundation of life for other communities in Hawaiʻi or elsewhere. The massive and decrepit Red Hill facility has a long history of leaks, and sits just 100 feet above the primary drinking water resource for almost half a million Oʻahu residents. With the fuel that still remains in the facility threatening to turn our years-long water contamination crisis into a lifelong catastrophe, we call on you, President Biden, to exercise your executive power as Commander in Chief to order the Department of Defense to use all of its available resources to defuel the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility as immediately as possible, and to follow through on the promises of transparency, accountability, and good stewardship that have yet to be delivered for the people of Hawaiʻi.

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