The state Department of Health is seeking $1.5 million in emergency funds to cover its ongoing costs from responding to the Navy’s Red Hill water crisis.

The funding, if approved, would cover the costs of laboratory tests, staff overtime, supplies, outside experts and consultants as well as “crisis communications assistance,” according to a measure before the Legislature.

The funding request includes $246,000 in overtime pay, $522,000 for laboratory testing and $40,000 for supplies relating to specimen collection. DOH also estimates its costs for outside experts and consultants at $691,000.

Those consultants, including Tetra Tech, PENCO, iQ 360 and Windsor, have assisted with such tasks as data analysis, tracing groundwater movement, providing technical assistance with regulatory proceedings, and public outreach and communications support, according to DOH spokesperson Kaitlin Arita-Chang.

She said the estimate covers the costs from Nov. 28, when jet fuel from the Red Hill facility contaminated the Navy’s drinking water supply, through June 30, the end of the fiscal year.

DOH hopes the Navy will reimburse those costs, but that could take up to a year. There is also no guarantee the Navy will pay, Kathleen Ho, DOH’s deputy director of environmental health, told the House Committee on Health, Human Services and Homelessness and Committee on Energy and Environmental Protection during a Tuesday hearing.

DOH, which has regulatory authority over the Red Hill facility, has played a key role in reviewing hundreds of water samples taken by the Navy as it has worked to restore safe water to affected residents. The department has also juggled two contested cases related to Red Hill, one involving its emergency order requiring the tanks be drained and another case involving the Navy’s permit application to continue operating Red Hill.

Those cases now appear to be largely moot after the Pentagon announced earlier this month that it would permanently shut down the Red Hill fuel farm. But DOH still has an oversight role in ensuring the tanks are safely drained and the environment remediated.

DOH said in testimony on the measure that without the funding its response to the ongoing situation could be hampered, and that it’s important to retain its reserves in the event of other emergencies.

The costs incurred by DOH are just a fraction of the total tab that taxpayers are shouldering as a result of the water contamination. The Navy’s response, including cleaning up the spilled fuel, testing and restoring safe water, and covering the costs of displaced military families and other residents, is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Congress has so far budgeted more than $680 million to respond to the crisis; about $100 million of that is expected to help cover the costs of draining the tanks.

The ripple effects from the Navy’s fuel spill are also playing out in the broader Oahu community, with the Honolulu Board of Water Supply calling on residents to cut back on water consumption and warning that it may have to implement a moratorium on new construction.

The Board of Water Supply shut down three of its wells in 2021 following the fuel contamination to ensure the fuel did not migrate through the aquifer to its water system, which would touch off a more catastrophic public health emergency. The BWS says it doesn’t know when or whether it will be able to reopen those wells.

BWS Manager and Chief Engineer Ernie Lau has called on Oahu residents, particularly in the urban Honolulu and Aiea-Halawa areas, to reduce their water consumption by 10%.

In a letter to Lau on Tuesday, Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole (D, Kailua-Kaneohe), who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, asked that the BWS try to buffer the impacts on low-income residents and the construction of affordable housing.

“During these difficult and uncertain times ahead, we ask that you and the board consider principles of equity should continued — or more drastic — water conservation measures need to be taken,” according to the letter, which was cosigned by 29 other legislators.

“While across the board reductions in water use may seem the most fair and straightforward means to address our supply constraints on O‘ahu, they will not be felt equally by all in our community. Rationing a resource as necessary as water will hurt the poor and disadvantaged disproportionately and inequitably.”

The legislators are requesting that the BWS restrict “luxury and recreational uses of water,” such as for swimming pools and fountains, and that the development of affordable housing be prioritized in issuing water meters.

“For example, a 10% reduction in water use for a hotel or vacation home may be achieved by simply adjusting the interval on water sprinkler use,” according to the letter. “However, the same reduction for a family or retired couple living in an apartment with no nonessential consumption might require significant disruptions to their way of life. If voluntary calls for conservation become mandatory, would they be expected to buy bottled water instead of using it from the tap? Or reduce the number of showers they take?”

The BWS, in response, said it will take the suggestions under consideration in the event it has to implement mandatory conservation measures.

“However, we can avoid this if we all reduce our consumption by 10% — please do not water your lawns or wash your car. Take 5 minute showers. This will all help,” the BWS said in a statement.