Editorial: Navy must commit to safety of aquifer

The “unpacking” or removal of 1 million gallons of fuel from pipelines that connect tanks at the Navy’s Red Hill storage facility to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam is expected to wind up this week. That alone is worthy of a sigh of relief, as the pipelines’ integrity has been a concern.

It’s also reassuring that both Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Hawaii Department of Health (DOH) officials were on site to observe and supervise — a close involvement by those agencies that must continue as the Navy proceeds into a more complex phase. Next come extensive pipeline repairs and safety modifications, in preparation for draining about 100 million gallons from its World War II-era underground tanks without further spills or accidents.

Trepidation remains high, as public trust of the Navy remains low after a grueling year. A November 2021 spill of jet fuel contaminated the water supply serving neighborhoods around the base and sickened hundreds, leading also to closure of a city water supply and necessary water conservation throughout Honolulu.

On Tuesday, the Navy submitted a post-defueling plan to the DOH detailing the process it intends to use to clean out sludge and waste left in the tanks, remediation plans for cleanup of any contaminated soil and groundwater, and finally its plan for permanently closing Red Hill.

The plan goes beyond defueling, cleanup and remediation to present potential options for closure. These could include removing the facility or “closure in place,” which could involve filling it in or finding another “beneficial” use for for the structure.

There’s some room for potential enthusiasm about future use here — but with defueling expected to continue through June 2024, and full closure targeted for August 2027, it’s important to keep a firm grasp on the top priority: protecting the Red Hill aquifer and Honolulu’s water supply.

To that end, it’s imperative that any plan for Red Hill beyond closure includes continuing Navy responsibility for any additional contamination or water delivery issues caused by the Red Hill disaster, in perpetuity. DOH must protect public health for Oahu’s water users by locking in a cooperative process that includes continued oversight.

There may be good reason to leave tanks underground, once emptied and scrubbed, and if remedial work on the surrounding soil can be carried out successfully. The expense is just one justification; it could disturb the ground and potentially affect water flow and the aquifer to do a large-scale extraction.

There are also productive possibilities here: The Navy has suggested a hydro-power project may be feasible, using gravity and flowing water to generate power. Other uses could include making the tank infrastructure available for filmmaking, or even as a tourist attraction. The fuel tanks are, after all, a civil engineering marvel, and have played a crucial part in military preparedness in times of war and peace.

Today, however, the tanks present primarily a looming danger to Honolulu’s water supply.

One of the best arguments for finding a productive future use is that this could help ensure future oversight, by keeping eyes on the structure, and also, possibly, by generating revenue that could support continued testing and protective action.

It’s also possible that after the tanks are emptied, leaving them and the support structures in the ground could result in leaching of materials from rust and corrosion, or the breakdown of the structural materials. This also must be carefully considered. At the Manchester Fuel Depot in Washington state, the largest Department of Defense single-site fuel facility in the continental United States, a modernization project now underway entails removing aged underground fuel storage tanks; however, these tanks are not as massive as at Red Hill.

Surely, some problems not foreseen now will arise in the future. This is why an ironclad contract between the Navy and state is necessary to commit Navy action as issues arise — whether the defueled tanks are repurposed for use in the future, or not.