Last November’s Red Hill Water Alliance Initiative (WAI) report, signed by state and city leaders, promises a long-term commitment to the water security of Oahu and future generations of island residents. This commitment, however, cannot be fulfilled without key modifications to this report.

We do acknowledge the many remarkable things in the WAI report, including its:

>> Recognition that the Red Hill facility may have leaked nearly 2 million gallons of fuel over the last 80 years;

>> Demand that this contamination be fully remediated, so that our water is free of pollution; and

>> Call for environmental monitoring and a health registry for those poisoned by Navy tapwater.

Unfortunately, the WAI report’s goals will take decades to realize — during which time future officials may too easily forget the hard lessons we have learned since 2014, and what it has taken, and will take, for full accountability.

As a foundational document for the long road to heal our island, we believe that the report must include the following.

First, the report must acknowledge how government leaders failed to accept the existential threat posed by the Red Hill fuel-storage facility, and how the Navy used its political clout to hide the truth, and gaslight those who questioned its false assurances. The WAI report must not omit the last eight years of lies and blind deference to the Navy that led to our current crisis, and warn against future efforts to mislead. Such a lesson is one we forget at our own peril.

Second, the report must recognize and incorporate the crucial role that grassroots organizing played in getting the Pentagon to order the Red Hill facility defueled and decommissioned. Government-driven responses like the 2015 Administrative Order on Consent proved wholly inadequate, creating an illusion of safety — even as the Navy was repeatedly excused from fulfilling its own commitments. In the end, it was the tireless efforts of community leaders and organizers that carried the day. We must remember this in the decades ahead.

Accordingly, the report must call for investments in independent community capacity-building, such as through a dedicated trust fund, that will be essential to keeping our federal and local governments accountable and on-target over time.

Finally, tasking just a single individual with the responsibility of overseeing the implementation of the WAI report, to be placed in the office of the chairperson of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, only invites future failure.

From the department’s laissez-faire approach to military land leases, to its water commission’s inability to stop the waste of 2 billion gallons of water from the Red Hill shaft, the DLNR has proven to be the agency most susceptible to political pressure and legal tail-chasing, when it comes to military accountability. Under the sole oversight of a governor-appointed DLNR chairperson, the individual “WAI Policy Coordinator” that the WAI report envisions would inevitably transform into a mere apologist for the Navy’s lack of follow-through.

Any government employee or entity tasked with implementing the WAI report must answer not to an appointee of the governor, but to a commission of independent individuals with relevant qualifications, to be appointed by both governmental and nongovernmental entities.

There are a number of other things that the WAI report should include, such as the urgent need for an EPA-certified laboratory for water monitoring, the history of PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or “forever chemical”) spills from the facility, and the need to recognize the full cocktail of toxins in our aquifer and in the bodies of Red Hill-impacted families. However, the above changes at minimum must be considered for inclusion by the signatories to the WAI report.

Anything less risks making the product of their months of work an exercise in futility, and undermines the collective effort to repair Oahu for future generations.

Wayne Tanaka is director of the Sierra Club of Hawaii; Marti Townsend is with Earthjustice’s Mid-Pacific Office.