Navy to withhold full Red Hill fuel leak report

Top Navy officials have repeatedly vowed to be transparent with the public as they investigate how jet fuel ended up in their Red Hill drinking water well and the taps of residents living in neighborhoods in and around Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.

But the Navy is now hedging on the release of a much-anticipated investigation into the source of the petroleum contamination that began sickening families in late November.

Officials confirmed Monday that the report had been submitted to the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet on Jan. 14, as anticipated. But the Navy says the report remains under review and that it plans to release only a summary of its findings.

“When that review is complete, we expect that the Navy will be prepared to provide a summary of the conclusions in a public release,” said Rear Adm. Charlie Brown, Navy chief of information, in a statement. “The Navy will continue to work closely with DOH on follow on actions.”

The Navy has not responded to repeated questions from the Honolulu Star-Advertiser asking when that review might be complete and did not say why the full report would not be available to the public. The Navy has released investigations into fuel spills at its Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility in the past.

David Kimo Frankel, an attorney for the Hawaii Sierra Club, said the Navy “continues to stonewall the public.” The environmental group has been pressing the Navy for years to relocate its aging, underground fuel tanks that sit just 100 feet above an aquifer that supplies drinking water to much of Oahu.

State documents relating to a contested case hearing on a Navy permit to continue operating Red Hill, which were provided to the Star-Advertiser on Monday, indicate that it could be sometime between mid-February and late April before the investigation is available to state regulators.

In the weeks following the Navy’s water contamination, Navy officials have provided brief insights into their theories about the source of the water contamination, though the accounts have sometimes been conflicting.

During a hearing in December before the state Department of Health, a top Navy official said that as much as 19,000 gallons of fuel may have been released from one of its tanks on May 6 and flowed into a lower tunnel where it ended up being pumped into a fire suppression pipeline. It’s not clear how fuel could have ended up in such a pipeline.

State officials say the Navy told them that a worker then crashed a cart into the pipe months later, on Nov. 20, spewing thousands of gallons of fuel and water into the tunnel.

Navy officials said they were initially stumped as to how that fuel could have ended up in its Red Hill drinking water well, about a quarter-mile away from the pipeline. They told state lawmakers in early December that they pulled out construction drawings from 1943 and found that there was a drain line for rainwater that was a probable pathway for the jet fuel to enter its Red Hill well.

That theory has raised unanswered questions about the Navy’s public statements following both spills. After the May 6 fuel spill, a Navy investigation concluded that all but 38 gallons was recovered. After the Nov. 20 spill, the Navy said it had captured all of the leaked fuel.

Groundwater monitoring wells also registered spikes in total petroleum hydrocarbons in the months after the May 6 spill, suggesting that fuel may have been released into the environment well before the November spill.

Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet, ordered the investigation into the fuel contamination in the Navy’s drinking water system, directing it to cover both the May 6 and Nov. 20 fuel releases.

A hearing officer for the DOH also requested a trove of documents from the Navy earlier this month that could shed light on the events leading up to the fuel contamination. The officer, Lou Chang, is seeking a list and chronology of all unscheduled fuel movements at Red Hill, including releases, suspected releases and pipeline surge events following a January 2014 spill at the facility. Chang also requested a current organization chart that identifies employees in charge of operations and maintenance at the Red Hill fuel facility and all records and reports relating to the detection of petroleum constituents in the Navy’s drinking water supply wells, monitoring wells and water distribution system.

Chang also requested all internal Navy emails referenced in stories published by the Star-Advertiser and Honolulu Civil Beat that suggested that problems at the Red Hill facility were being covered up.