Kapilina Beach Homes residents want rent waived amid tainted water crisis

Residents of Kapilina Beach Homes in Ewa Beach say that for weeks they have been stuck in limbo, lacking the financial resources to find temporary shelter or move as the Navy works to clean jet fuel out of its water distribution system.

Many of the residents of the former military housing are civilians who have been shut out of the robust assistance that has been offered to military families, including per diem and hotel rooms. The Navy says that it will reimburse civilians for the costs of alternative housing that they procure on their own, but residents fear it could take weeks or months to get paid back. In the meantime their landlord continues to charge them rent and utilities even though they haven’t been able to drink the water coming out of their taps for a month and a half.

“For self-procurement, plus paying rent — how are we going to do that? We don’t even have a guarantee that they are actually going to reimburse us money and when,” said Xavier Bonilla Lozano, who lives in Kapilina Beach Homes. “We are stuck here.”

Lozano said that his teenage son was rushed to the emergency room in early December after taking a shower and brushing his teeth. His throat and eyes were swollen, and he had bleeding gums, said Lozano. He said the doctor determined it was a toxic reaction.

At the time, the community, which includes about 1,400 homes, had been told that it wasn’t on the Navy’s water system, which turned out to be false.

Lozano lives with another family that also suffered health symptoms. Taeler Owens said his fiancee felt like her skin was on fire after taking a shower Dec. 3. He said she was vomiting, dizzy and had itchy eyes.

Both families have children in the house, including a baby. They say they have been constantly opening up the windows in their house to air out fumes.

Both Owens and Lozano are part of a class-action lawsuit that was recently filed against Kapilina Beach Homes, a subsidiary of Carmel Partners, which is headquartered in San Francisco. Attorneys for the plaintiffs recently filed an emergency motion asking that the company stop charging rent and utilities until safe water is restored. They also want the court to order the company to waive residents’ exit fee, which is equivalent to two months’ rent, if they want to break their lease. Attorneys for the plaintiffs say Kapilina Beach Homes has told tenants that if they want to end their lease, they will waive the fee only if they release the company from any injury claims. A hearing on the emergency motion is scheduled for today.

Attorneys with Honolulu’s Bickerton Law Group said residents are stuck in their homes because they can’t afford to pay the first and last months’ rent for a new home, as well as a two-month exit fee for early termination. A family that pays $3,000 rent would need to come up with $12,000 to move.

The lawsuit and motion were brought by Bickerton Law Group and Wayne Parsons Law Office, which is working with Andrews & Thornton, a national firm that specializes in personal injury law.

Until clean water is flowing through the pipes of homes, “cash should not be flowing the other way,” said attorney Jim Bickerton of Bickerton Law Group.

Bickerton said the lawsuit is focused on the economic damages that residents have suffered from being left with uninhabitable homes.

“When you enter into a lease, if they do nothing else, it has to be habitable. And if your water has toxins in it and actually makes kids go to the hospital, that is not a habitable home,” said Bickerton. “It’s a breach of the lease, and that is why the landlord is being sued.”

Kapilina Beach Homes management did not address the issue of continuing to require that residents pay rent, but said that it has waived water charges. The management company said that it had worked with the Navy to extend its alternative housing assistance to civilians living at Kapilina Beach Homes and that the company has been providing residents with large water bottles, credits for off-site laundry and access to shower facilities.

The company also said that in late December it stopped charging termination fees for residents who want to end their lease and stopped asking residents to release the company from injury claims.

”Our residents’ health, safety, and comfort is our top priority at Kapilina Beach Homes,” the company said in a statement.

Kapilina Beach Homes said that it also continues to encourage residents to follow official Department of Health guidance. That includes not using the water for drinking, cooking or oral hygiene, and if a fuel odor is detected, also not using the water for bathing, dish- washing and laundry.

The Navy has been working to flush its main water distribution lines, as well as the water in individual homes, throughout all the neighborhoods in and around Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam as it works to make sure the water meets safe drinking water standards. Approximately, 93,000 people are served by the Navy’s water system. The Navy didn’t provide a definitive timeline for when the water at Kapilina Beach homes will be determined safe to use, but said it has been working with lease owners and property owners to make sure homes, schools and child care faci­lities are tested.

The source of the fuel contamination is believed to be a Nov. 20 pipe rupture at the Navy’s Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility. In late November residents began reporting fuel odors coming from their tap water, as well as a host of health symptoms, including vomiting, diarrhea, skin rashes, burning skin and headaches. Health officials say those symptoms can occur from drinking or having contact with petroleum-contaminated water.

Chelsea Campbell, who has two young children, is also a resident at Kapilina Beach Homes. She said her family began experiencing a host of symptoms toward the end of November, including vomiting and diarrhea, hives, rashes and soar throats. She felt like she had to move to protect her family and signed an agreement that released Kapilina Beach Homes from any claims in exchange for waiving $5,272 in termination fees, according to a Dec. 16 document provided to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

“I didn’t feel like I had another option,” said Campbell.

Her attorneys are asking the court to block that. “She shouldn’t have to release her claims to escape from the poisoned water,” said Bickerton.

While Kapilina Beach Homes has said that it has since stopped requiring residents to release the company from injury claims in exchange for waiving termination fees, attorneys for the plaintiffs say they have heard differently.

“We’ve heard from a number of other residents, including as recently as (Thursday), that they were told by Kapilina management that they would have to pay the lease break fees in order to exit early,” said Rob Siko, an attorney with Andrews & Thornton.