Federal bill includes funds to drain Red Hill fuel facility

Members of Hawaii’s congressional delegation have secured funding to defuel the underground tanks at the Navy’s Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility, and included language in proposed legislation that explicitly ties the funding to a state-issued emergency order to drain the tanks — a directive the federal government has so far resisted.

Though the Navy has complied with several portions of the order and is working to remediate contamination touched off by jet fuel leaking into a drinking water well in a system that serves 93,000 people on Oahu, the service has continued to mount legal challenges to the defueling provision. Department of Justice lawyers entered the fray on the Navy’s behalf last week, filing an appeal in federal court contesting Hawaii’s emergency order.

But in a Senate appropriations bill, a provision included by U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, specifies $100 million in funding “for the Secretary of Defense to conduct activities in compliance with the State of Hawai‘i Department of Health Order.”

The measure was introduced Monday. Schatz, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, worked with Republicans and Democrats to include the provision in the spending bill, according to his office. The legislation must pass to avoid a government shutdown.

“This bill funds defueling, and it establishes Congress’s position on Red Hill: the DoD must defuel and follow the state’s order immediately,” Schatz said in a news release. “We still have more work to do, but we are making good progress to protect our water and get this right.”

A companion bill in the House of Representatives contains provisions from U.S. Rep. Ed Case, D-Hawaii, that include $100 million to implement the emergency order, $250 million to address drinking water contamination resulting from the Red Hill leak and $53 million in existing general operational funding that will be now directed specifically to Red Hill.

In a separate news release, Case said, “It is highly unusual to include new funding in such a continuing resolution and is reserved for truly urgent matters that cannot await the normal appropriations process.”

He added, “This initiative to include desperately- needed Red Hill funding was led by Senator Schatz, who negotiated the funding request with the executive branch and his Senate colleagues. I contributed to securing agreement within the U.S. House and our Appropriations Committee, where all federal appropri­ations must originate.”

During a congressional hearing held in January, Navy officials told lawmakers they would defuel the tanks but would not rule out future legal challenges. At that time Case responded by asking the Department of Defense to recognize the state’s legal authority.

Addressing Navy leaders, Case said, “This is coming off as a voluntary compliance, and a voluntary compliance can at some point in the future be reversed, and that is the fear of the state of Hawaii.”

The Sierra Club and Earthjustice nonprofits, which has been deeply involved in the legal process, welcomed the funding appropriation and the language tying it to the state’s emergency order, calling it an “important step toward defueling Red Hill.”

Wayne Tanaka, director of the Sierra Club’s Hawaii chapter, said. “Congress has now rejected the Navy’s dismissive attitude toward the catastrophic contamination of Oahu’s water supply.” Further, “With these funds and Congressional directives it’s clearly time for the Navy to own up to its mistakes, withdraw its legal appeals, and prioritize above all else the safe defueling of Red Hill, before it is too late.”

The state’s emergency order requires the Navy to defuel the tanks but allows space for the Navy to refuel them at a later date if it can make repairs and improvements that meet standards that satisfy state officials. But Schatz’s office said he wouldn’t support that and ultimately wants to see the facility shut down permanently.

The facility’s 20 tanks were built to hold up to 250 million gallons of fuel used in military vessels and aircraft. The emergency order gives the Navy 30 days to defuel after developing a plan. However, it’s not clear where the fuel would be relocated.

Michael Inacay, a spokesman for Schatz’s office, pointed out that the while funding bill does not include engineering analysis, it provides resources for that purpose.

In the short term, the military has several above-ground fuel tanks around Hawaii, but many are already in use and it’s not clear whether they could quickly take on Red Hill’s massive reserve.

State and Navy officials have been in talks with Par Hawaii Refining LLC exploring whether its above-ground storage tanks could safely store at least some of the fuel from Red Hill — either in the short term or for the long haul.

Par executives say the company’s Campbell Industrial Park in Kapolei offers a total storage fuel capacity of 6 million barrels — or roughly 252 million gallons. Most of it is already in use, but the company estimates that about one-third of Par’s capacity could be made available to store fuel from Red Hill.

Par officials said in De­- ­­ce­mber that it would require a contract with the Navy to move forward. Par spokesman Marc Inouye said Monday that the company had no updates.

The most recent iteration of the National Defense Appropriations Act, Congress’ annual defense funding bill passed in December, included a last-minute provision requiring the military to conduct an assessment of alternatives to its Red Hill facility, including possible locations outside of Hawaii.