Joint Task Force Red Hill, the military group tasked with draining the tanks at the Navy’s underground fuel storage facility, is slated today to begin “unpacking” 1 million gallons from pipelines that connect the tanks to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.

“In order to defuel, the first step that we need to do is we need to safely remove the fuel from those pipelines,” JTF Red Hill commander Rear Adm. John Wade said Monday at a media briefing. “The unpacking allows us to then conduct repairs, modifications and enhancements so that we can get to the larger defueling effort with the greatest risk reductions possible.”

The unpacking will mark the first time fuel has moved through the pipes in almost a year. The Navy shut down operation in 2021 after fuel from the facility contaminated the Navy’s drinking water system, which serves 93,000 users. After a series of legal battles between Hawaii government officials and the Navy as the service resisted calls to drain the tanks, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in March ordered the defueling and permanent shutdown of the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility.

Capt. Shawn Triggs, commander of Naval Supply Fleet Logistics, said the entire unpacking process will take about six days. Only about 12 hours will involve the actual movement of fuel through the pipes. The rest of that timeline will involve tending to logistics and safety measures.

The pipelines from Red Hill span about 3.5 miles and were built to let gravity deliver fuel from the Red Hill tanks to the base below. After the task force unpacks all the fuel it can with gravity, engineers will pump residual fuel through the pipes. “We are pulling from the closest point that we can get to” in proximity to the Red Hill facility, said Triggs.

Wade said the tanks themselves, which are capable of holding a total of 250 million gallons, are now holding 104 million gallons and that the complete defueling of the facility is expected to be completed by June 2024.

In preparation for the unpacking, the task force went about making preliminary repairs and safety checks, including valve checks. The pipeline’s integrity has been a major concern, with a 2016 internal report warning of serious corrosion, dents and structural problems.

In an October 2021 email obtained by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Triggs’ predecessor, Capt. Albert Hornyak, told his superiors he had found leaking valves and warned “there are multiple valves in the Red Hill pipeline system (that) are potentially leaking.” In November, residents living in neighborhoods around the joint base began complaining of nausea, vomiting and skin rashes, as well as fuel smells coming from their faucets and sprinklers. Days later, water samples and a visual inspection of the Red Hill shaft found it was polluted with jet fuel.

Hornyak was relieved of command in April after another fuel leak in the facility that month.

But Triggs said he’s confident in the strength of the pipelines and valves to withstand the unpacking process. “The valves are holding,” he said. “I was just up there for equalization, and they’re packed; there was no leak by those valves.”

There are three pipelines carrying different kinds of fuel, which must be drained and stored separately.

The task force will begin with a pipeline containing 162,000 gallons of F-24, a commercial jet fuel. Another holds 216,000 gallons of JP-5, the kerosene-based jet fuel that ultimately contaminated the Navy’s Red Hill well. The pipe with the most fuel, 691,000 gallons, moves F-76 diesel fuel that is used to power the Navy’s ships and is expected to take two days to unpack.

“The fuel will be drained out the Red Hill pipelines down to the outlet here on Joint Base Pearl Harbor- Hickam, and then we will distribute that 1 million gallons to above-ground storage tanks and to fuel barges down at Hotel Pier and within Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam,” said Triggs. “The fuel will then be used to support both local ships and aircraft, so it’s not leaving the area.”

Earlier this month both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Health gave the Navy the green light for its unpacking plan. JTF Red Hill was set to begin Oct. 17. But on Oct. 15 the Navy water system sustained three water main breaks, disrupting service to the entire system as it lost water pressure. The loss of pressure affected fire hydrants and other parts of the Navy’s firefighting systems, prompting the task force to delay unpacking operations while repairs were underway.

“When you’re dealing with fuel, you have to think about worst case,” Wade said. “We waited for the repairs to be complete, made sure the pressures were safe, and then we did our timeline to make sure that everything was good.”

In March the Honolulu Board of Water Supply called on Oahu residents and businesses to voluntarily reduce their water use by 10% to prepare for the summer season, citing less-than-normal rainfall and the Red Hill crisis as factors in that move. When fuel contaminated the Navy’s Red Hill well, the BWS shut off other wells in an effort to contain potential further contamination. The 20 Red Hill tanks — each large enough to envelope Aloha Tower — sit 100 feet above a critical aquifer that provides the majority of Honolulu’s drinking water.

“The most dangerous aspect of this mission is the potential for fuel to enter the aquifer. I mean, that’s the bottom line,” said Wade.

Under the supervision of EPA and DOH officials who are expected to be on-site throughout both the unpacking and defueling processes, military officials said the task force has been training for spill containment in the event of an accident. In response to the Star-Advertiser reaching out to the DOH for comment, a department spokeswoman provided copies of the DOH’s approval letters for the unpacking plan.