Editorial: Progress at Red Hill

Good news came Tuesday, when Joint Task Force-Red Hill (JTF-RH) announced that the anxiously awaited defueling of its massive tanks would start much sooner than expected, and at a brisk pace that could have the tanks 99.85% emptied by Jan. 19. That accelerates completion by nearly a year over the original timeline — and if successful, would ease worries that the 104 million gallons of fuel stored in the facility could leak and further contaminate Oahu’s drinking water, as occurred disastrously in November 2021.

Still, the Department of Defense acknowledges that 100,000 to 400,000 gallons of fuel — a substantial amount — would remain at the very bottom of tanks after the mass defueling, residual amounts requiring more technical drainage to ensure total removal.

That last bit will certainly need addressing as this iterative defueling operation progresses. But for now, the pace, oversight and meticulous work of JTF-RH under Navy Vice Adm. John Wade seem to be paying off.

No longer, for instance, are military personnel and contractors allowed to casually move in and out of the Red Hill Bulk Storage Fuel Facility. After November 2022, when firefighting foam spewed into a tunnel due to a contractor’s error and contaminated Red Hill grounds with toxic “forever chemicals,” JTF-RH instituted a robust risk-management process that includes a weekly master list of work that requires Wade’s approval, strict badging and military escort for every job.

Such level of oversight had not existed before, a stinging indictment of the military’s laxness that enabled the past two years of disastrous spills to occur.

The public is right to demand that today’s better protocols and higher regard for safety standards will carry through in the tanks’ upcoming defueling: to begin Oct. 16, if state and federal regulatory approvals are secured. Gravity draining will be done in four main steps, with the fuel to be transferred into tankers and relocated to approved defense fuel support points.

With the safety of Oahu’s water at stake, residents should review JTF-RH’s latest plan for draining the 20 massive fuel tanks, which sit just 100 feet above a major aquifer (see 808ne.ws/RedHilldefuel).

Repairs to the Red Hill facility are now 75% complete, fixes deemed essential to the aging WWII-era system before draining can even begin. The JTF-RH plan also details various “what if” defueling scenarios, and says that safety and spill response drills have been executed, with more scheduled in the months ahead; just last month, a defueling fire protection plan was submitted to state and federal regulators.

Much is at stake in the coming months. If all goes well, defueling will begin five months from now, a three-month operation that will rid the Red Hill tanks of most stored fuel by mid-January. Till then and throughout defueling, “safe” and “expeditious” will be words to live by.