The Honolulu Board of Water Supply is justifiably assertive in its message to customers that the Navy’s aging, underground fuel storage facility at Red Hill poses a serious threat to Oahu’s supply of safe drinking water.

The World War II-era facility, which has leaked in the past, sits a mere 100 feet above the groundwater aquifer that supplies water for BWS customers from Moanalua to Hawaii Kai.

While the water supply is safe for now, the fuel-storage facility, in its existing state, "poses a serious threat to the aquifer’s long-term ability to provide safe drinking water," the BWS wrote to its customers. The utility rightly wants the military to double-line the fuel tanks, install advanced leak-detection and tank anti-corrosion systems and clean up fuel that has already leaked.

Best defense can be defense training

The ultimate college-rape prevention lies in changing the mindsets of that subset of young men who prey on young women. Absent that cure, which rightly focuses on the predators, new research highlights the importance of also helping females avoid becoming victims.

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that teaching young women specific avoidance and deterrence techniques substantially lowered their risk of being sexually assaulted, a risk that tends to be highest their first year on campus. A basic self-defense class clearly has a place in any college-prep curriculum.