Fallout from Navy-flubbed jet fuel spill at Hawaii base

On November 20, 2021, 19,000 gallons of jet fuel leaked from Red Hill Bulk Fuel Facility, a fuel depot located just 100 feet above state-designated drinking water near Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. At least 6,100 patients reported a wide range of symptoms, from gastrointestinal and neurological damage to babies’ skin “as red as our flag’s.”

Despite residents’ tap water smelling like jet fuel, the Navy maintained that the water was safe to drink. Amid a groundswell of public complaints, the Navy finally shut off the Red Hill pumps on November 29, a full nine days after the leak.

“Whatever you knew before this incident became widely publicized and picked up internationally by the media is between you and your maker,” said Lauren Bauer, a military spouse, at a town hall.

A new set of reports from the Inspector General of the Department of Defense confirms those suspicions.

According to the IG, the Navy insisted publicly that the water was safe on November 21 and 22 despite never “conducting any laboratory analysis to confirm that was the case.” Nor did the reports “find any Navy media releases that specifically stated either ‘do not use’ or ‘do not drink’ the [Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam] Community Water System drinking water.”

The report also corroborated an earlier investigation which found that “Every person physically present at Red Hill on the evening of November 20, 2021 knew within a short time after arriving that the spill was all or mostly fuel…This investigation also identified a persistent bias by Red Hill leadership toward assuming and reporting the ‘best case’ scenario following incidents,” including a bias toward assuming the best case scenario for environmental risk.” Unable to keep a lid on the fuel tank, the Navy tried to keep a lid on the story.

Ernie Lau is the Manager and Chief Engineer at the Honolulu Board of Water Supply. “The regulators told us they felt that the Red Hill facility was a well run, well-maintained fuel storage facility, which we now know with this latest report from the Inspector General is absolutely not true,” Lau explained in a call with RS. The report detailed a mismanagement of facilities, bad record keeping, failure to alert the the Department of Health about missing fuel, and ineffective fuel release detection methods. The IG’s reports determined that “officials missed multiple opportunities to prevent or mitigate the November 2021 fuel incident and subsequent contamination of drinking water.”

“Unfortunately, the Navy has embraced a pattern of lies, half-truths, and avoiding transparency to the public about what is actually happening. Trust levels are at zero right now,” said Lau.

The Navy finally agreed to defuel and close Red Hill in March, 2022. “This is the right thing to do,” said Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in announcing the decision. Today, 99 percent of the 100 million gallons Red Hill used to hold have been defueled.

Still, contaminants from Red Hill’s leaks continue to threaten the surrounding environment and nearby residents. Over Red Hill’s 80-year history, as many as 1.94 million gallons of fuel spilled. One of the IG’s recommendations included a review of leak detection systems at other fuel support facilities similar to Red Hill.

There are also concerns about other chemicals such as PFAS, a synthetic “forever chemical” linked to weakened immunity and other health risks. In November 2022, a year after the jet fuel spill, 1,300 gallons of a highly toxic fire suppressant that contains PFAS leaked at Red Hill. Between December 2019 and November 2022, the IG identified four incidents involving the fire suppressant. The Navy mishandled most of these incidents, too, failing to “provide evidence indicating that they carried out required incident response actions, including reporting, and properly” cleaning up affected areas.

The Navy last tested for PFAS near Red Hill over a year ago and has rejected repeated requests by the EPA to test all monitor wells. “When I see this effort to not find the contamination, it tells me that they probably know that it is contaminated,” Elin Betanzo, president of Safe Water Engineering, told Hawaii News Now. A Government Accountability Office report in April found at least 32 sites of soil and groundwater near Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam with known or potential PFAS contamination. Cleanup could take decades to complete.

According to a 2022 analysis by the Environmental Working Group, the Pentagon likely serves PFAS-contaminated water to some 600,000 service members every year. Lau told RS that the vice governor of Okinawa even visited multiple times to learn from them in “how to deal with the military.” The U.S. military has likely polluted the drinking water for a third of Okinawa’s population.

It has been difficult for the community to get straightforward answers from the Navy. During a contentious meeting held by the Red Hill Community Representation Initiative, a community-led oversight group, last December, Navy officials refused to answer a basic question about whether they are testing for ethylene dibromide, a carcinogen found in jet fuel. Navy officials refused to attend the next meeting.

“The Navy has all of these weapons systems. They fight wars. They destroy things. You would think that they would have thicker skins when it comes to facing the community, but they don’t,” said Lau.

Not taking responsibility may be business as usual for the Pentagon. For affected families, the contamination of water is life-altering, and they are still seeking accountability and answers. The latest Red Hill Community Representation Initiative meeting ended with Mai Hall, a Native Hawaiian and military spouse, fighting back tears:

“Tomorrow morning, I just want you to say a little prayer for my son…I want everyone to remember his name. Tiberius Hall. He's going in for his second surgery on his left kidney, and I'm 100 percent positive it's due to the water. This is a real thing. These are real people we’re talking about, this is not something that the Navy can go under the rug.”