State rejects Navy’s way to evaluate Red Hill

The state Department of Health on Monday said the Navy is not in compliance with its Dec. 6 emergency order requiring it to empty its Red Hill fuel facility after determining the contractor hired by the Navy to do an assessment of the work was not in a “position to act independently.”

The DOH’s emergency order requires the Navy to hire an independent contractor, approved by DOH, to assess the facility and recommend repairs and improvements for safely draining its underground fuel tanks.

The Navy hired Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Inc. on Jan. 11, informing DOH just hours before executing the contract, according to state health officials. After asking for more information about the contract and reviewing it, DOH said it has determined the Navy has too much control over the evaluation and work.

“This disaster is about more than just engineering — it’s about trust,” said DOH Deputy Director of Environmental Health Kathleen Ho in a news release. “It is critical that the work to defuel Red Hill is done safely and that the third-party contractor hired to oversee that work will operate in the interests of the people and environment of Hawaii. Based on the contract, we have serious concerns about SGH’s work being done independently.”

The DOH sent a letter to Rear Adm. Timothy Kott, commander of Navy Region Hawaii, and Simpson Gum- pertz & Heger on Friday informing them of its determination and laying out its concerns in more detail.

The DOH said it had “no objection to the selection of the project team or the project team’s qualifications,” but said the scope and work plan seemed to be crafted in response to an assessment ordered by the secretary of the Navy, not DOH’s emergency order.

The Health Department said it’s concerned the proposed evaluation is based only on information provided by the Navy and that DOH, which has regulatory authority over Red Hill, is not required to be included in discussions or site visits. DOH also said the Navy’s “ability to singularly influence the work product is a concern.”

Rear Adm. Charlie Brown, the Navy’s chief spokesperson, said in a statement that the Navy “will work cooperatively with DOH to address its recent comments so that the Red Hill assessment effort can proceed.”

“The Navy is focused on ensuring the safety and health of those impacted from the November 2021 contamination,” Brown said. “The Navy continues to take proactive measures that will position it to make informed and environmentally-protective longer-term decisions.”

A principal for Simpson Gum­pertz & Heger declined to comment.

The DOH issued its emergency order after fuel from the Red Hill fuel facility contaminated the Navy’s Red Hill well and its drinking water system that serves about 93,000 residents at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam and surrounding neighborhoods in November.

The Navy is appealing the emergency order in court and says it is assessing the future of Red Hill.

The DOH is requiring the Navy to revise its work plan, implementation schedule and contract in order to address the concerns, saying that if it doesn’t, then DOH will not approve the selected team as an independent third party.

DOH spokeswoman Katie Arita-Chang said that if the Navy doesn’t bring the contract into compliance, DOH can pursue a remedy in court.

Last month the Hawaii Sierra Club also raised concerns about the Navy’s contract with Simpson Gum­- pertz & Heger, telling Ho in a Feb. 8 letter that the Navy was giving “short shrift” to the task of assessing Red Hill to ensure the facility can be safely defueled.

“Instead, the Navy focuses single-mindedly on trying to justify continued operation of the Red Hill facility,” wrote Earthjustice attorney David Henkin, who is representing the Sierra Club, in the letter to Ho. “It devotes its primary workplan to ‘developing recommendations to mitigate deficiencies in operations of the facility and integrity of equipment and structures,’ with an eye to keeping fuel in the Red Hill tanks, perched above Oahu’s sole source aquifer.”

Henkin warned that if DOH did not require the Navy to fix the contract and work plans, the Navy “in the future will claim that the conclusions reached in its flawed assessments were based on methodologies that were” approved by DOH.

Meanwhile, as extensive testing being carried out by the Navy after jet fuel from its Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility contaminated its drinking water system in November, the Navy reported Tuesday that a dozen samples collected from the Navy’s drinking water system in January that detected BCEE, a chemical that can increase the risk of cancer, were reported in error by a lab.

According to the Navy, those results have now been reclassified as nondetects.

Several thousand military families have relocated to Waikiki hotels from their homes around Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam as a result of the contamination, while thousands more remain under a “do not drink” water advisory issued by the state Department of Health.

As part of that testing, the Navy has been instructed by an Interagency Drinking Water System Team — composed of DOH, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the military — to test for a wide array of potential contaminants as well as total petroleum hydrocarbons, which are indicative of the presence of fuel.

BCEE, or bis(2-chloroethyl) ether, had been detected during samples collected Jan. 6-12 from fire hydrants in eight flushing zones. The Navy re-sampled the locations where the BCEE was initially detected.

“The laboratory reviewed the original samples and the new samples, and did not detect BCEE in any of them,” the Navy said in a press release. “The IDWST investigation determined, in agreement with the laboratory, that the initial BCEE results were a false-positive. The laboratory implemented corrective actions. Based on these results, there is no concern for health risks from BCEE in the drinking water.”

A spokeswoman for the Health Department said that DOH and the EPA were in concurrence that the detections were the result of a lab error.

BCEE is used in the manufacture of pesticides, according to the EPA, but it can also be used as a solvent, a cleaner and to control rust. It’s also been used in paints and varnishes, to purify oils and gasoline, and occasionally as an additive in petroleum products. The EPA classifies it as a probable human carcinogen.