New Leak at Red Hill on 5/7

On Thursday, May 7th 2021, Red Hill Fuel Storage Facility leaked 1,000 gallons of fuel. According to Navy Region Hawaii and Captain Gordie Meyer (commanding officer of Naval Facilities Engineering Command HI), the fuel went into a "containment system" which is located in the same tunnel as the leaked pipeline, and about 700 gallons of fuel were recovered.

Check out these news articles for more details:

Honolulu Star Advertiser Article

Excerpt: "... David Kimo Frankel, an attorney for the Sierra Club of Hawaii, said in a news release, 'It’s not surprising that the Red Hill tanks leaked. They have a long history of leaking. And the Navy itself said there was a 27.6% chance of the tanks leaking up to 30,000 gallons of fuel every single year. 'It’s only going to get worse from here. The tanks need to be drained,' Frankel said. Studies have detected petroleum contamination in the groundwater beneath the tanks, according to the Sierra Club. Since its construction in the 1940s, it is believed the tanks have leaked more than 178,434 gallons of fuel, the organization said. 'This latest leak proves, once again, that the 78-year-old Red Hill fuel tanks are deteriorating and pose a serious threat to drinking water for hundreds of thousands of Oahu residents. It’s time to retire the tanks,' Hawaii Peace and Justice’s Kyle Kajihiro said in a Sierra Club statement. The Department of Health is conducting a contested case hearing to determine what terms the Navy needs to follow to continue to operate the tanks. Opening arguments were made Feb. 1 debating the merits of awarding a five-year state operating permit for the Navy to continue storing up to 187 million gallons of fuel at Red Hill. While the Sierra Club believes the 20 tanks should be relocated and the Honolulu Board of Water Supply maintains they should be moved or rebuilt with secondary containment, the Navy said the tanks and monitoring have improved greatly."

Hawaii News Now Article

Excerpt: “'Our containment system functioned as designed to keep the fuel contained within our facility, with no indication that fuel was released to the environment,' said Capt. Gordie Meyer, commanding officer of Naval Facilities Engineering Command Hawaii. 'We are conducting an extensive investigation to determine the cause of the release and will continue to examine our systems and procedures.' The WWII-era Red Hill facility sits above the Pearl Harbor aquifer, which supplies drinking water to most of Honolulu." ... "The state Department of Health’s Environmental Management Division says they were notified of the leak Friday morning. They were told 700 gallons of fuel was recovered during the cleanup. They said they don’t know if any reached the aquifer. 'The groundwater aquifer is approximately 100 feet below the tanks so it’ll be a while before the fuel would have reached it,' said Joanna Seto, of the division. Seto said the storage facility is currently being cleaned by the Navy so it will take some days until state inspectors will be able to get in to do their own investigation. Leaks at Red Hill have been happening for years and some worry the situation is growing more urgent."

PoA HI agrees that these out dated fuel tanks should be removed and relocated above ground. Or at the very least, they should be built with a secondary containment layer as the Board of Water Supply suggests.