Navy officer relieved of duty after latest Red Hill fuel spill

The Navy officer who oversaw operations at the service’s Red Hill fuel storage facility was relieved of duty on Monday after another fuel leak.

In a press release, the service said it had relieved Capt. Albert Lee Hornyak of the Naval Supply Systems Command Fleet Logistics Center “due to a loss of confidence in his ability to perform his duties following a series of leadership and oversight failures at the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility.”

“Capt. Hornyak’s relief was specifically due to lack of procedural compliance during a recent dewatering event inside of Red Hill and not due to any previous incidents,” said Naval Supply Systems Command spokesman Richard Spiegel.

The service has been moving toward shutting down the facility, which is the source of jet fuel that contaminated the Navy’s watersupply on Oahu that serves 93,000 people. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced last month that he had ordered the Navy to permanently shut down the underground fuel facility, which keeps its large subterranean tanks above a critical Oahu aquifer.

On Friday, the Navy announced in a press release that it was “investigating a release of no more than 30 gallons of a water and fuel mixture in the vicinity of tanks 13 and 14 in the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility.” But in a separate email to Hawaii lawmakers, a Pacific Fleet official said that “50 gal of fuel/oil mixture was spilled and subsequently collected in absorbent material on site.”

When asked for an explanation of the differing numbers Navy officials did not respond.

The Navy said that Rear Adm. Kristin Acquavella, another Naval Supply Systems Command officer, will be temporarily assigned as commanding officer while a formal replacement is identified.

Hornyak took command of his post in August after a pipe leaked in May. Within months, he was beginning to raise safety concerns with Navy officials regarding the condition of pipelines.

In an Oct. 3 email Hornyak sent to other top Navy officials, a copy of which was obtained by the Star-Advertiser in November, he said that a visual inspection of three pipelines leading into an underground pump house found a “sagging pressure condition,” which was similar to the conditions that led to the May 6 leak, according to Hornyak’s email.

“Red Hill operations will remain paused until the root cause creating the sagging conditions is determined,” Hornyak wrote, adding that his team was going “line by line” through data to check if the operation order for transfers was adhered to and if “additional out of balance situations have occurred.”

“Additionally, based on the May 6th event as well as this most recent event, I believe there are multiple valves in the Red Hill pipeline system (that) are potentially leaking,” Hornyak said in the email.