Navy censures officers for ‘leadership failings’ on Red Hill

The Navy has sent letters of censure to three retired admirals and seven Navy captains regarding “leadership failings” that it says set the stage for the 2021 Red Hill water crisis.

“You failed to identify and mitigate against lack of oversight of contracting and installation of a critical system at Red Hill which contributed to the fuel spill and subsequent contamination of the water distribution system,” Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro wrote Thursday in each of the censure letters to the admirals.

The water crisis began when fuel from the Navy’s underground Red Hill fuel storage facility tainted the service’s Oahu water system, which serves 93,000 people, including military families and civilians in former military housing areas.

In May 2021 fuel from a pipeline spilled, which the Navy said it cleaned up, but much of it actually leaked into the facility’s fire suppression system. In November 2021 a worker at the facility accidentally ruptured a pipe in that system that was made out of PVC piping, spilling fuel that made its way into the Navy’s Red Hill water well and throughout the Navy water system.

Del Toro issued censure letters to retired Rear Adm. Peter Stamatopoulos, who served as commander of Naval Supply Systems Command during the May and November 2021 spills; retired Rear Adm. John Korka, who commanded Navy Facilities Engineering Command Pacific from May 2018 to September 2019; and retired Rear Adm. Timothy Kott, commander of Navy Region Hawaii during the November 2021 spill.

“What happened was not acceptable and the Department of the Navy will continue to take every action to identify and remedy this issue,” Del Toro said in a Thursday news release. “Taking accountability is a step in restoring the trust in our relationship with the community. We are determined and committed along with all of our partners in this effort to making the necessary changes. We can and will take care of our people, while also preserving and protecting our national security interests in the Pacific and at home.”

U.S. Fleet Forces commander Adm. Daryl Caudle issued “letters of instruction” to Rear Adm. Dean VanderLey, who commanded NAVFAC Pacific during the November 2021 spill, and retired Rear Adm. Robert Chadwick, who commanded Navy Region Hawaii during the May 2021 spill.

Caudle also issued nonpunitive letters of censure to the seven captains and letters of instruction to a Navy commander and a lieutenant commander. Three of the Navy captains who received censure letters have pending boards of inquiry to decide whether they will continue their naval service, according to the Navy release.

In the letter to Stamato­poulos, Del Toro wrote that as the officer in charge of the Pearl Harbor Fleet Logistics Center, he failed to ensure necessary guidance for training, qualifications, operational practices or assessments at fuel support points.

“This failure contributed to the lack of performance assessment and feedback required to ensure proper readiness to respond to a complex fuel spill inside of Red Hill,” the letter reads. “The inadequate response to the 20 November 2021 fuel spill was the primary cause of the drinking water contamination.”

Stamatopoulos was also the officer who approved the initial investigation into the May 2021 fuel spill. The letter said the investigation was “cursory, contained little independent analysis, did not recommend meaningful corrective actions, and failed to investigate the response efforts during (the spill).”

“This inadequate investigation was the largest missed opportunity to properly identify the error in fuel accountability after the 6 May 2021 fuel spill,” Del Toro wrote. “The failure to fully account for the fuel spilled in the 6 May 2021 incident was the primary source of the 20 November 2021 fuel spill.”

Korka oversaw NAVFAC Pacific when the PVC piping was installed, which Del Toro said he was responsible for, writing that it was “a proximate cause of the fuel spill at Red Hill.”

Del Toro admonished Kott for lack of oversight over contractors as well. He also told Kott that he “negligently failed to adequately deploy your environmental management team” during the November spill and that “despite the fact that fuel was actively spilling for approximately 34 hours,” he did not have his personnel assess the spill at the scene, which Del Toro said would have allowed them to identify the threat to the water much earlier.

Del Toro also faulted Kott for not immediately notifying the public when he shut down the Red Hill water well, telling him, “You had a duty to timely communicate that pertinent information to the public. … The delay in reporting negatively impacted the public trust and gave some members of the public the impression that the Navy was not transparent in their reporting.”

U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono said the letters are a step in the right direction but that she thinks the Navy needs to do more to restore trust.

“After nearly two years, today the Navy acted to hold certain individuals responsible for the crisis at Red Hill accountable,” Hirono said in a news release. “Accountability being meted out to individuals is important, but true accountability for this disaster requires the Navy to address the systemic command and control failures, and a lack of requisite attention to infrastructure, that caused this disaster to happen.”

The Navy has spent millions on warships and weapons systems, but over the years has been playing catch-up in funding the facilities that support and maintain them. The Navy for years insisted the World War II-era Red Hill facility — which sits just 100 feet above an aquifer most of Honolulu relies on for water — was well maintained, but has since acknowledged that its tanks and pipelines have fallen into deep disrepair.

“I have yet to see adequate evidence that Navy leadership is treating these service-wide issues with the seriousness or urgency they demand,” said Hirono. “The Navy has an obligation to protect service members and the communities in which it operates.”

Wayne Tanaka, director of the Sierra Club of Hawaii, told the Honolulu Star- Advertiser that “those retired admirals will continue to enjoy their retirement, and their pensions, while we are left with a contaminated aquifer, ballooning water bills, and hundreds if not thousands of community members struggling with the uncertain long-term health impacts of jet fuel poisoning.”

Tanaka also said he believes other leaders, such as U.S. Indo-Pacific commander Adm. John Aquilino and Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Samuel Pa­paro, have not been adequately questioned on their roles.

Army Maj. Amanda Feindt, whose family was among those sickened during the crisis and is a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the government, said, “I think it’s clear that the U.S. Navy and Red Hill-impacted families have completely different definitions of the word ‘accountability.’”

She expressed frustration that President Joe Biden has nominated Pa­paro to succeed Aquilino as top commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, and said she wanted to see accountability at the “highest levels.”