The Hawaii water commission is moving to exert greater pressure on state and federal authorities to negotiate a tougher agreement with the Navy to upgrade its aging Red Hill Underground Fuel Storage Facility where 27,000 gallons of fuel leaked last year.

On Tuesday the seven-member commission, chaired by Suzanne Case, director of the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources, voted to send a letter to the Secretary of the Navy, Joint Chiefs of Staff, President Barack Obama, Hawaii’s congressional delegation and Department of Health urging the Navy to move faster in installing better leak detection and prevention technology and cleaning up leaked fuel.

The move comes amid dissatisfaction with a proposed agreement that the Health Department and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reached with the Navy and Defense Logistics Agency in June. The proposal gives the Navy two years to evaluate the best options for upgrading its tanks and 20 years to implement the improvements at the World War II-era facility.

“To sit there and say go another 20 years before finishing up the job — those tanks are going to be 100 years old,” said William Balfour, a member of the water commission, during Tuesday’s meeting.

“We need to get somebody to really be our hammer, because I don’t think we have the wherewithal to get the (Navy) to move.”

The criticism from the water commission, which is tasked with protecting the state’s water resources but has no regulatory authority over the Navy’s Red Hill operations, echoes grievances already aired by the Honolulu Board of Water Supply and lawmakers who represent Red Hill communities.

Officials at the Health Department, who have been reviewing about 140 public comments on the proposal, are expected to decide in the coming weeks whether to approve, amend or scrap the agreement, termed an Administrative Order of Consent.

Steven Chang, head of the Health Department’s Solid and Hazardous Waste Branch, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that he understood the frustration with the pace of progress in shoring up the facility. But he said reopening negotiations with the military could further delay upgrades and efforts to find leaked fuel.

“It’s a tough one because how much pressure can you put on the Navy without getting them to walk away from the table?” he said.

The Navy has already committed to the proposal, which officials spent about a year negotiating. If health officials were to amend the document to include more stringent requirements — such as requiring the Navy to upgrade the tanks faster or shut down the facility while improvements are underway — the Navy could decide not to sign it, Chang said.

Alternatively, the EPA and Health Department could slap the Navy with “administrative orders” to make improvements at the facility in accordance with federal and state laws. But Chang said that this could lead to lengthy litigation. Under the current agreement the Navy has agreed to certain concessions that aren’t necessarily afforded by law, he added.

For example, the Health Department could require the Navy to remove plates within the tanks to look for leaked fuel.

After thousands of gallons of fuel leaked from the facility last year, media investigations revealed that there have been dozens of leaks at the facility dating back to the 1940s. The 20 underground tanks, each big enough to envelop Aloha Tower, sit 100 feet above an aquifer that supplies one-fourth of urban Honolulu’s drinking water.

The Navy’s own reports over the years have warned of the potential for a catastrophic failure at the facility, which could pollute Oahu’s drinking water for decades to come. The Navy has been particularly concerned that a major fuel leak could contaminate a nearby Navy well that supplies drinking water to about 65,000 people at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.

“If this (fuel) ever hits the aquifer, we are in deep trouble,” said Balfour. “It’s going to be so tragic. You have a time bomb sitting there ready to go off.”

So far, tests of area wells have shown that the drinking water is safe. And the Navy has stressed that the facility, which supplies jet and marine fuel to the military’s Pacific operations, is critical to national security.

The letter being drafted by the water commission will combine official testimony Case already submitted to the Health Department on the proposed agreement with more strident remarks submitted by commission members Jonathan Starr and Michael Buck, in their individual capacities.

The testimony from Starr and Buck criticizes the proposed agreement for being too lenient and allowing the Navy too much time to conduct further studies and make upgrades.

“The documents lack public transparency, corrective action specificity, and the immediate implementation of improvements that will protect our groundwater and environment,” wrote Starr in his testimony. “Studies could potentially continue for years in the name of practicality, while the existing situation remains unchanged.”

“The U.S. Navy must acknowledge that the life and welfare of a huge community, including many Department of Defense personnel and facilities is at stake here,” Starr continued.

Chang said that the current agreement allows the Health Department to implement a series of deadlines that the Navy has to comply with in upgrading the facility or face fines of $5,000 a day.