Editorial: Pattern of toxic spills, secrecy must end

The aging, dysfunctional — and extremely hazardous — Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility has been the subject of intense scrutiny since November 2021, when fuel spilled inside the massive facility escaped to contaminate the Navy’s drinking water system for Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, sickening military families.

The Pentagon in March 2022 agreed to shut down the facility, forming a joint task force responsible for defueling the huge tanks and cleaning up the site.

Despite the poor oversight and cascading errors that led to the Red Hill catastrophe, however, it’s now known that a pattern of lax procedures and oversight continued at the facility, leading to another toxic spill — of concentrated aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF), nearly a year after the calamitous fuel spill. It’s this pattern of disturbing mishaps and after-the-fact revelations that prompt ongoing mistrust of the Navy’s ability to keep Hawaii’s environment safe.

In November 2022, about 1,300 gallons of AFFF spilled into the soil from a tank adjacent to the fueling structure. AFFF is a subject of environmental and health concerns because it is infused with toxic “forever chemicals,” per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) that lurk indefinitely in the environment and have been linked to cancers and other health problems.

Contractors had been performing maintenance on the AFFF tank at the time of the incident, so there was little doubt as to the cause of the spill. But to the dismay of local officials and environmental watchdogs, the military took more than five months to release results of its investigation.

Finally, on Friday, the report publicly concluded that contractor error and the Navy’s failure to provide adequate oversight were to blame.

“On behalf of the Department of Defense, I’m truly sorry,” said Navy Vice Adm. John Wade, who oversees the task force charged with defueling Red Hill, at a news conference.

Wade, appointed in September 2022 to lead the defueling effort, initially did not have oversight of the AFFF tanks — but soon after last November’s spill, imposed overdue new access and procedural rules for the facility to add safeguards.

Still, it does little to relieve concerns about the Navy’s behavior before Wade’s appointment.

The AFFF system has a history of problems. It played a role in the Red Hill water contamination, in that fuel had first spilled in May 2021, then ran undetected into a fire suppressant drain line, which was then ruptured by a worker in November 2021. And only after last November’s AFFF spill did the Navy reveal two larger previous AFFF spills — an estimated 1,500 gallons on Dec. 7, 2019, and a 5,000-gallon spill of AFFF and water on Sept. 29, 2020.

Given this history, there should already have been “stricter safeguards” and “more assertive oversight” in place, as Wade frankly admitted last week.

Kinetix, the military contractor maintaining Red Hill’s fire suppression system, incorrectly installed an air vacuum valve in April 2022, the investigation found. While quality checks should have detected this, they did not.

In November, when Kinetix tested the system, it failed to disable AFFF pumps from automatically starting, again in an unchecked procedure. The combined errors caused an “uncontrolled release” of fire suppressant, which flowed underneath a tunnel door and contaminated soil nearby.

Video of the incident shows the AFFF flowing out of the tunnel door, and contractors and Navy civilian personnel trudging through the fire suppressant without protective equipment. Workers have been advised to seek medical advice, Wade said.

The report’s findings make clear that without an ironclad, systemwide commitment to fail-safe procedures at Red Hill, errors that threaten Hawaii’s water supply and the health of Oahu’s residents facility can recur. “Vigorous” oversight is required, as Kathleen Ho, the state’s deputy director of environmental health, rightly stated — and local agencies must insist on the military’s ironclad agreement to ongoing transparency.

On Tuesday, top state and city officials signed a declaration of “unified” commitment to Red Hill aquifer remediation. There can be no wavering from this: All agencies involved — particularly, the military — must follow the highest standards in protecting our lands and aquifers.