Hawaiʻi Water Emergency: Tell Congress to demand emergency water protections!

The latest spill involves fire-fighting foam (AFFF) concentrate, a type of PFAS "forever chemical" known to cause cancer, birth defects, thyroid disease, and other serious health issues. Highly toxic, only a few gallons of PFAS "forever chemicals" may be enough to render hundreds of trillions of gallons of water potentially unsafe to drink.

This is a disaster of the Navy's making. The Department of Defense has repeatedly failed Hawaiʻi residents demanding better safeguards for their water. With the Navy's persistent failure to protect this critical water supply, it's time for Congress to get involved to demand emergency water protections.

Take Action: Tell your members of Congress to demand emergency protections to safeguard Oʻahu's water supply!

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Hawaiʻi Water Emergency: Demand emergency water protections now to safeguard Oʻahu's water!

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A spill of over 1,000 gallons of toxic firefighting foam is threatening the water supply for hundreds of thousands of Hawaiʻi residents on the island of Oʻahu. It's just the latest disaster at the U.S. Navy's Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility, where leaky fuel tanks sickened families last year and caused the temporary shut down of the facility. The latest spill involves fire-fighting foam (AFFF) concentrate, a type of PFAS "forever chemical" known to cause cancer, birth defects, thyroid disease, and other serious health issues. Highly toxic, only a few gallons of PFAS "forever chemicals" may be enough to render hundreds of trillions of gallons of water potentially unsafe to drink. This is a disaster of the Navy's making. The Department of Defense has repeatedly failed residents in Hawaiʻi demanding better safeguards for their water. With the Navy's persistent failure to protect this critical water supply, it's time for Congress to get involved to demand emergency water protections. Given the Navy's involvement in this crisis, Congress must act immediately to ensure an appropriate federal response. Across the country, Department of Defense facilities are one of the the main sources of PFAS contamination. By standing with people in Hawaiʻi to see that this emergency is handled appropriately, we can ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place to protect communities all across the country from similar spills. Oʻahu needs you to act with the utmost urgency to obtain immediate, emergency federal action to 1) fully excavate all contaminated soil and infrastructure from this latest spill event, before any more AFFF concentrate seeps and spreads into the environment 2) establish an independent, non-Department of Defense on-island laboratory that can test soil and water for PFAS and jet fuel constituents 3) install multiple additional monitoring wells with weekly testing of water samples 4) construct municipal-scale water filtration systems that can serve the hundreds of thousands of people who may be left without clean drinking water if and when the water supply becomes contaminated from existing and future spills 5) obtain full disclosure of ALL AFFF facilities currently and formerly in use at military installations in our islands, and all records of any releases of AFFF whether intentional or not 6) remove the Navy and its contractors from their role(s) in defueling and decommissioning the Red HIll Facility, to be replaced by an interdepartmental, civilian-led task force comprised of top government experts and members of the local community. Please act now to protect Hawaiʻi's water and ensure that no other community faces a similar crisis without an appropriate federal response.