It might be a bit dramatic to note, but the timing was hard to ignore: Thursday’s annual “Imagine a Day Without Water” observance came within two days of new controversy over the Navy’s Red Hill fuel storage facility, massive tanks that sit just 100 feet above a major Oahu water aquifer.

Concerns already exist over the 18 active World War II-era tanks, especially after a 2014 incident involving faulty repair work that saw some 27,000 gallons spilling into the environment. But on Tuesday, new worries emerged about the Navy’s handling, and forthrightness, after it was revealed — via a June letter from the state Department of Health (DOH) to the Navy — that the military had waited three months before it reported failed detection tests involving a fuel pipeline.

That apparent reporting time gap rightly spurred a dozen state legislators to urge Capt. Darren Guenther, chief of staff for Navy Region Hawaii, to support an independent investigation into whether people under his command hid details or misled state officials. The lawmakers also are asking the Navy to investigate issues such as the cause and extent of a fuel leak detected in Pearl Harbor (at least 7,100 gallons reportedly have been recovered from an area between March 2020 and this summer), how the leak was reported to regulators and if all the fuel was cleaned up.

The Navy insists that particular pipeline is not connected to the Red Hill facility, that it ends at an above-ground storage tank and is some 4 miles away from Red Hill. Still, according to the DOH’s June letter, it took the Navy three months before it reported the two failed pipeline detection tests that had occurred in January — about the time a DOH contested case hearing was about to start over the Navy’s Red Hill permit. The Navy is asking to extend, for five years, its permit to continue operating the underground fuel farm there.

In their call for investigation into the pipeline tests, the lawmakers said: “If true, we ask that violating U.S. Navy officials be held accountable for their failure to be completely truthful with regulators and the residents of Oahu.”

This new concern has now has caused a 30-day delay, until at least mid-November, in the Navy’s request for its Red Hill fuel-tanks permit. And, it raises questions about the integrity of fuel safety systems, as well as the Navy’s assurances on vital oversight that’s needed to protect Oahu’s precious water source. A thorough investigation is needed to bolster those reassurances, and credibility.