Service members sue government over Red Hill water crisis

A group of military serv­ice members has filed a lawsuit against the federal government over their exposure to jet fuel-tainted water in 2021 during the Red Hill water crisis on Oahu.

The claimants allege they were sickened and displaced from their homes when JP5 jet fuel from the Navy’s underground Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility leaked into the Navy water system that serves 93,000 people on Oahu.

Thousands of service members, military family members and local civilians in former military housing areas who were exposed reported a series of ailments from rashes, digestive issues and other medical problems.

The current plaintiffs are Army Maj. Amanda Feindt, Army Col. Jessica Whaley, Army Chief Warrant Officer Elizabeth Thompson-­Watson, Navy Chief Petty Officer Brian Jessup and Navy Petty Officer First Class Dustin Wallace. But another 978 active-duty service members have filed pre-­litigation claims with the Navy and are expected to join the lawsuit, which was filed Thursday.

The case will challenge a longstanding legal rule called the Feres Doctrine, which has historically protected the federal government from liability when it comes to injury claims by service members.

Kristina Baehr, the plaintiffs’ attorney, argues that the doctrine should not apply when military members were not injured in a combat zone but exposed to tainted water in their own homes.

The military is working to drain the fuel tanks at the Red Hill facility, which sits just 100 feet over a critical aquifer that most of Honolulu depends on for water.

Local officials had long warned that storing the fuel reserve over the aquifer threatened Oahu’s water supply, but for years the Navy insisted that the World War II-era facility was safe and that it was critical to supporting the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s vast regional operations.

After the November 2021 spill, the Pentagon initially resisted a state emergency order to drain the tanks, asserting Hawaii had no legal authority to make it do so. During a news conference in December 2021, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro pushed back on concerns that the Red Hill fuel farm inherently posed a threat to the health of service members, arguing that “it’s not the fuel itself that’s making them sick; it’s the fuel in the water that’s making them sick.”

But in March 2022, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced the military would drain the tanks and permanently close the facility.

Navy officials began acknowledging that the aging facility had fallen into a state of deep disrepair, had numerous safety problems and that it needed extensive repairs work before fuel could be safely removed without risking further spills or threats to the aquifer.

Defueling operations officially began in October and are expected to last until late January, but the long-term shutdown and remediation of the facility are expected to take much longer. When defueling began 104 million gallons of fuel sat in the tanks above Honolulu’s drinking water.

As of Friday afternoon, Joint Task Force Red Hill had removed 89,223,876 gallons of fuel. The fuel will be redistributed to several fuel storage points around the Pacific as part of a “distributed” fueling strategy that Pentagon officials now say is a superior alternative to storing their strategic reserve at Red Hill.

Separately from the latest case filed by the service members, thousands of military family members also represented by Baehr and her team have their own filed suit and are awaiting trial.