Navy says it will release investigation into cause of Red Hill water contamination

The Navy says it will release its full investigation into what caused the fuel contamination in its drinking water system, clawing back a statement it released earlier this week that said only a summary of the report’s conclusions would be released to the public.

The Navy’s initial statement, from its Washington, D.C., office, ignited a new round of criticism for top Navy leaders in Hawaii who have been working to assure local residents that they are committed to transparency as they clean jet fuel from their Red Hill shaft and drinking water distribution system that serves about 93,000 people in neighborhoods in and around Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.

Those critics included U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, who said it was essential that the public “has a full accounting of the multiple failures at Red Hill.”

The investigation was submitted Jan. 14 to the commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet and forwarded to the Pentagon. The Navy said that the report won’t be released until it completes a review process, but has not said how long that might take.

“The review process is still ongoing. Once the review process is complete, the Navy will release the investigation to the public,” said Rear Adm. Charlie Brown, Navy chief of information, in what the Navy referred to as an “updated statement.”

The investigation was ordered by Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet, after jet fuel contaminated the Navy’s Red Hill drinking water shaft in November, sending petroleum into the faucets of residents. Numerous schools and businesses on the Navy’s water system also have been affected.

As part of the investigation, Paparo instructed an investigating officer to include any connection between the May 6 and Nov. 20 fuel spills at the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility. Those incidents are thought to be the cause of the current contamination.

A prior investigation by the Navy into the May 6 spill concluded that all but 38 gallons of fuel has been recovered. That conclusion now appears to be grossly inaccurate.

DOH, which has regulatory authority over the Red Hill facility, also hasn’t received a copy of the investigation. Earlier this week Kathleen Ho, deputy director of environmental health for DOH, sent a letter to Rear Adm. Timothy J. Kott, commander of Navy Region Hawaii, requesting a copy of the report and asking for a timeline for making it public. Ho said that if DOH doesn’t receive a copy of the report within 20 days, it will alert its attorneys.

Asked on Thursday how confident she is in the Navy’s investigation, Ho said she was “hopeful” but said that DOH is conducting its own independent investigation.

She said DOH will need to evaluate the Navy’s report. “We will get together with our partners to determine whether it is a document that fits with all of the information that we know of the facility at this time and we will make an evaluation from there,” she said.

Emergency order

The Navy is also facing a Feb. 2 deadline to submit a work plan and schedule for assessing the safety of Red Hill operations as part of an initial step for defueling its tanks. The defueling requirement is part of an emergency order handed down by DOH in early December, which the Navy initially contested but subsequently said it would comply with.

Under the state order, the Navy must show that the aging Red Hill facility, which has been the site of numerous fuel leaks over the dec­ades, can be operated safely before resuming fuel operations. The tank farm includes 18 active underground tanks, each capable of holding about 12.5 million gallons of fuel.

Under the emergency order, the assessment must be completed by a third party approved by DOH.

Brown, the Navy’s chief of information, said Naval Supply Systems Command awarded a contract Jan. 11 to Simpson, Gumpertz & Heger of Waltham, Mass., to do the work. He said in a statement that information about the contract had been provided to DOH.

However, DOH said it has not approved the contractor. Ho said DOH had asked the Navy for the scope of work and contract so that it could evaluate the contractor, but had not received those documents.

“While we fully anticipate that they will give us the report, we have not approved it,” said Ho. “So they do so at their peril.”

Cleaning up

Also on Thursday, DOH authorized the Navy to begin discharging treated water from its Red Hill shaft into Halawa Stream. The Navy will begin pumping water from the shaft into a treatment system designed to remove fuel and degraded constituents.

DOH said that it was important to start pumping the fuel-contaminated water out of the shaft so that it doesn’t migrate to other parts of the groundwater aquifer.

The Honolulu Board of Water Supply, which supplies most of Oahu’s water, has shut down three of its wells out of precaution.