Hawaiians Demand U.S. Navy Shut Down Its Leaking Fuel Tanks

Environmental groups in Hawai’i are demanding the US Navy shut down a series of underground fuel tanks near Honolulu after nearly 14,000 gallons of fuel-laced water leaked from the facility.

Photo Insert: Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility

The leak is the latest in a series of accidents dating back to the facility’s construction in the 1940s, Mark Armao reported for the online environmental magazine Grist.

Located on a hillside above Pearl Harbor, the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility provides fuel reserves for the Navy and consists of 20, subterranean fuel tanks each capable of holding 12.5 million gallons of fuel.

According to the Sierra Club, those tanks, which are lined with thin steel plates and nearly eight decades old, are buried roughly 100 feet above a groundwater aquifer that serves as the primary drinking water source for 400,000 residents on the island of O’ahu.

“Enough is enough. We’ve lost all faith in the local Navy command,” said Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi director Wayne Tanaka at a news conference. According to the Navy, the latest leak did not get into the water supply or environment.

However, in 2014, a tank leaked 27,000 gallons of jet fuel, resulting in an enforceable agreement between the Navy, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the state’s Department of Health to monitor and consider upgrades to the facility.

The Navy has conducted increased tank testing and groundwater monitoring since the agreement, and in 2019 it submitted proposals for upgrading the tanks within the existing steel-and-concrete structures.

In October, Honolulu Civil Beat reported that the Navy withheld information about an ongoing leak into Pearl Harbor amid hearings related to a pending permit for the facility. In response, all four of the state’s congressional delegation wrote a letter to the Navy citing concerns that the branch was “not appropriately forthcoming” about the leak.

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