Environmental Protection Agency launching investigation into Navy’s Red Hill fuel facility

The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday that he’s launching an investigation into the Navy’s Red Hill fuel facility, telling reporters gathered in downtown Honolulu that it’s important the agency plays “its strong, independent role” in upholding environmental laws and regulations.

“No family should have to question the quality of their drinking water. No family should have to worry about whether or not the drinking water is safe for their children or their parents or their grandparents,” said EPA Administrator Michael Regan.

The federal agency has kept a low profile since fuel from the facility contaminated the Navy’s drinking water system in November, leaving it to the state Department of Health to lead public response efforts.

But Regan said the EPA “has been there since Day One,” assisting state health officials and the military with resources as it focuses on restoring safe drinking water and returning people to their homes.

“Now that that process is coming to a completion, now it’s time for us to turn and be less of a facilitator and a team player, and this phase is about EPA doing its job, and we are ready and focused on that phase,” Regan said.

Regan and Martha Guzman, the EPA’s regional administrator for Region 9, which includes the Pacific southwest, visited Hawaii this week to tour Red Hill and meet with political leaders and affected residents.

They declined to specify a timeline for the investigation or what aspects of Red Hill the EPA will be focusing on. But Guzman said the agency has the authority to look at the Red Hill facility “in its totality” and intends to scrutinize the pipelines and drinking water system.

She said EPA will look at whether the facility is in compliance with the federal Safe Drinking Water Act and Clean Water Act, as well as other laws and regulations.

There’s “not too much detail that we can provide, because we do want to keep the investigation as confidential as possible,” Guzman said. “But I will say that we have a team of experts in this arena that are coming both from the region and from headquarters.”

The EPA investigation isn’t the only probe of Red Hill. Navy Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet, ordered an investigation into the fuel facility following 2021’s contamination. That investigation was completed in mid-January.

While Navy officials say they will release it publicly, they have not responded to media questions about when. DOH documents indicate it might not be released until late April.

The Pentagon’s Inspector General’s Office said in December that it too was launching an investigation into the operation, maintenance and safety of Red Hill. And DOH told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in January that it was conducting its own investigation into the 2021 spills at Red Hill.

Hawaii Congressman Ed Case, who also spoke at the EPA news conference, said the investigation by the federal agency was particularly important.

“This is a completely independent, objective, walled-off investigation,” Case said. “They don’t owe anything to anybody, only to federal law. They’re not responsible to national security. They’re not responsible for any of the other arguments that swirl around Red Hill.”

The EPA has for years partnered with DOH in the oversight and regulation of Red Hill. After 27,000 gallons of fuel spilled in 2014, the two agencies signed onto an administrative order of consent designed to make sure the fuel facility was operated safely.

The enforceable agreement required the Navy, as well as the Defense Logistics Agency, to undertake an array of studies looking at the safety of Red Hill and to implement infrastructure upgrades and better leak detection and monitoring systems.

The agreement has provided a wealth of new information about Red Hill, including troubling findings about the mounting risks of future leaks from the aging World War II-era facility and the decades that can pass between tank inspections.

But it’s also frustrated critics, such as the Hawaii Sierra Club and Honolulu Board of Water Supply, who for years have warned of the risks the tanks pose to Oahu’s drinking water.

Under the agreement, the Navy doesn’t have to significantly upgrade the tanks until 2037. The Navy has tried to push that deadline to 2045, saying it is working on a secondary containment system.

Critics say the recent fuel contamination emergency shows the regulatory agreement largely failed.

Guzman said “anyone who has been impacted by this has all the validity to feel that way,” but added the agreement didn’t anticipate the types of problems that caused the current fuel contamination.

“The previous order that put in place a monitoring regime, groundwater monitoring, risk assessments and planning really was focused around preventing the previous incident and monitoring downstream from the facility and around the facility,” she said. “This incident was not forecasted. The scenario of direct oil into the shaft is nothing we could have ever imagined at that time. This is a level of direct contamination which was not anticipated.”

The Navy’s own consultant reports have long warned about the risks Red Hill poses to the Navy’s Red Hill drinking water well, which sits just makai of the massive fuel farm. But Guzman said the focus was on groundwater contamination, and in this case a previously unknown pipe nearby where fuel was spilled led directly into the Red Hill shaft.

Both Regan and Guzman have served in their positions for less than a year after being appointed by President Joe Biden, and Regan said it was hard to comment on what happened during previous administrations.

“The bottom line is there has been a lot of lessons learned here over the years at the expense of the communities, and that’s not right,” he said.

Hawaii Sierra Club Director Wayne Tanaka, in response to the EPA officials’ comments, said the fuel contamination should never have happened.

“Bottom line, after the 2014 release, the EPA and the state should never have tolerated the continued storage of hundreds of millions of gallons of fuel in a leaking, antiquated facility a hundred feet above our island’s precious groundwater aquifer,” he said by email. “We can’t wait around for another months-long investigation, we don’t need more promises to do better, we need actual action to shut this facility down for good.”

While the EPA and DOH have shared regulatory oversight over Red Hill, the EPA has been silent on the state’s Dec. 6 emergency order instructing the Navy to defuel its tanks.

The Navy, which is represented by the U.S. Department of Justice, is suing the state over the emergency order in federal and state courts. The EPA has stressed that its role is separate from the rest of the federal government, but neither Regan nor Guzman would say Thursday whether the EPA supports the state’s defueling order.

“Our job is to protect the drinking water for the communities. Obviously, there is ongoing litigation between the state and the Department of Defense. So I don’t think it would be wise for us to comment too much right now, and let that litigation play out,” Regan said.

“I think what we do want to stress is the importance of EPA’s role, which is as an independent actor coming in and doing the investigation so that we can ensure that as we continue to move forward that people have safe drinking water.”