On Saturday morning, the sun was hot and the water was calm at Pearl Harbor at the Kilo Pier as both military and local officials gathered for a traditional blessing ceremony ahead of Monday, when fuel tankers will begin the long process of draining the massive tanks of fuel at the Navy’s underground Red Hill fuel storage facility.
The ceremony, led by prominent Hawaiian cultural practitioner Kumu Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu and clergyman Kahu Kordell Kekoa, sought to show solidarity and hope that the complicated operation — which is set to conclude by late January — proceeds safely and smoothly. Local officials and activists had long warned that the tanks — which currently hold 104 million gallons of fuel and sit just 100 feet above a key aquifer most of Honolulu relies on for drinking water — was a threat Oahu’s water supply.
The Navy for years insisted it was safe and critical to supporting its operations. But in November 2021 fuel from the facility tainted the Navy’s Oahu water system that serves 93,000 people, including military families and local civilians living in former military housing areas.
The water crisis deeply strained relations between military leaders and Hawaii residents — as well as affected service members and their families. After initially resisting calls to drain the tanks, in March 2022 the Pentagon announced it would do so and permanently close the facility.
“(The crisis) has sent our community in many different directions,” Wong-Kalu told attendees at the ceremony. “It has also done the opposite. It has galvanized our community around one very important thing, and that is wai, water … today, our commonality is that water is our most precious life-giving resource and all the efforts that have gone into making today successful and all the days following, to do what must be done to ensure safe, healthy and clean drinking water for all of our people — whether we wear a uniform or not.”
It’s the culmination of more than a year of work by Joint Task Force Red Hill, the military organization created to ultimately drain the tanks.
After military officials acknowledged that the World War II-era Red Hill facility, and the pipelines connecting the fuel tanks, had fallen into disrepair and needed extensive repairs to safely remove the fuel without risking further spills or threats to the aquifer, the task force became responsible for making those repairs, a process that involved a wide array of service members, government civilians and contractors.
Task force commander John Wade told attendees at the ceremony that throughout the process of making repairs and preparing for defueling, he and his team worked to engage with the local community “not only to communicate what we’re doing and why, but to also listen.”
“While some of the things that we heard were difficult to hear, we had to hear it,” said Wade. “It helped us understand the concerns of the community, it’s given us greater purpose and meaning for what we’re about to do.”
Today some residents are rethinking their comfort level with the large military presence in the islands, as military initiatives face increasing scrutiny after the 2021 spills and other subsequent discharges of toxic materials. But on Saturday at Kilo Pier, the mood was one of optimism.
As Kekoa asked the assembled crowd to look makai, a cool breeze rolled in from the ocean.
“We are not here to argue with one another or fight one another, because Hawaii is not about differences, Hawaii is about togetherness,” said Kekoa. “We can work together. It’s not about our differences, it’s about our similarities. We all drink wai, we all drink water.”
Ernie Lau, the manager of the Honolulu Board of Water Supply, who was among the early critics warning that Red Hill threatened Oahu’s water, attended the ceremony. He told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser “this is a wonderful first step. I pray that it’s going to be successful, that nobody would get injured that’s doing the work and no more fuel will be spilled out over the aquifers … so very hopeful. We seem to have alignment so far, and that’s a positive.”
But Lau added that “we have to stay vigilant.”
“We wouldn’t be at this place if it wasn’t the whole community working together, because just the Board of Water Supply by itself wasn’t moving the Department of Defense,” said Lau. “But when everybody came together — and unfortunately after the the incident at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam — that I think opened everybody’s eyes to the danger.”
