The Navy has determined that its Red Hill drinking water well is contaminated with petroleum.
The shaft, which pulls water from the aquifer below, has been shut down since Sunday after military families began complaining about a chemical or fuel odor in their tap water, as well as symptoms such as rashes and gastrointestinal problems.
While the well has been closed, Navy officials said Thursday evening during a virtual town hall meeting that they believe fuel from the well contaminated the drinking water distribution system, and they are working to flush it out with clean water and restore it to federal health standards.
Military officials say so far they have received complaints from nearly 1,000 military households and that the neighborhoods most affected include Moanalua Terrace, Halsey Terrace, Doris Miller Park, Catlin Park, Radford Terrace, the Hickam community and Aliamanu Military Reservation.
“Now that the source has been identified and isolated, we are developing a plan to restore the potable water system to EPA standards and identify how this contaminant got in the well and fix the well,” said Navy Rear Adm. Blake Converse during the virtual town hall, which was livestreamed on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam’s Facebook page. He was joined by other high-ranking military officials who fielded written questions for about an hour.
Converse said two tests confirmed the presence of petroleum product, which he said was likely jet fuel or gasoline. One test was conducted Sunday and sent to a mainland lab, and another was conducted Thursday with new technology that was just brought to the island.
He said the second test found “clear indications of petroleum products in the gap space just above the waterline in the Red Hill well.”
Converse said that so far test results throughout the distribution system have come up negative, but that doesn’t mean there has not been petroleum contamination.
“The way we are going to resolve this is to do significant additional flushing of our system with a good water source to fix that problem,” he said.
Converse said temporary housing will be provided to affected families and that he hopes the water system can be restored within 10 days.
Converse said the source of the fuel contamination remains under investigation.
The Red Hill well sits just 3,000 feet makai of the Navy’s troubled Red Hill Underground Fuel Storage Facility. The fuel farm contains 20 underground fuel tanks, each large enough to envelop Aloha Tower.
The Honolulu Board of Water Supply, environmental groups and state health officials for years have raised concerns that fuel releases from the facility will contaminate not just a source of drinking water for the Navy, but a major source of drinking water for southern Oahu.
The Board of Water Supply has a nearby well at Halawa that provides about 20% of the drinking water for the Honolulu metropolitan area. If the aquifer is significantly contaminated with fuel, officials have warned, it could take decades to restore or be cost-prohibitive.
The contamination of the Red Hill shaft is augmenting those fears.
“The contamination that we said was bound to happen is happening as we speak. And things only stand to get worse from now on,” said Wayne Tanaka, director of the Hawaii Sierra Club, by email. “Local Navy leaders have failed in every way possible, and their false assurances and inability to protect even their own families much less the greater community have been laid bare.”
The Hawaii Sierra Club is demanding the Red Hill fuel facility be shut down.
“We are done being terrified and we are done being quiet,” he said. “We will not watch our water, our most precious resource, continue to be poisoned by the recklessness and incompetence of local Navy command.”
Earlier in the day, Hawaii Congressman Kai Kahele demanded answers from the military during a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee. He said the Navy is “currently experiencing a crisis of astronomical proportions in Hawaii.”
“People are getting sick. Animals are getting sick. And our military families need answers, and the island of Oahu needs answers,” he said.
Kahele said he visited affected military families earlier this week. He said a woman named Amanda invited him to her home where her daughter was taking classes online because her school was shut down due to contaminated water.
“Her family had been drinking the water for days,” Kahele said. “Her dog got sick, was vomiting. Her daughter went to the ER. Her son experienced an unusual sore on his mouth.”
Kahele said Amanda texted him Thursday morning to say she had gone to Tripler Army Medical Center’s emergency room the previous night because she had a headache and irritation in her mouth and throat.
“Her doctor diagnosed her with chemical burns in her mouth,” he said. “She is worried, rightfully so, about her health and the health of her family.”
Kahele said a woman who is six months pregnant emailed him because she had been consuming the water and is worried about the health of her unborn baby. “She is rightfully in a panicked state,” he said.
Kahele noted that Hawaii residents are increasingly calling for the Navy’s Red Hill Underground Fuel Storage facility, which could be the source of the contamination, to be shut down. The Navy has said the massive underground fuel storage tanks are critical to the Navy’s Pacific operations.
If it’s not possible to continue storing the fuel safely, Kahele asked how long it would take to drain the facility, where the fuel would be stored and what that would mean for the U.S. military.
Ricky Williamson, deputy chief of naval operations, said he would need to get back to him with answers to those questions.
“We are committed to find the facts, get the root causes and make the appropriate corrections to anything we discover,” he said.
Williamson said the situation is getting his leadership’s full attention. “We are taking it very seriously,” he said.
