(Tribune News Service) — The Navy waterline serves 93, 000 people, including service members, military families and local civilians living in former military housing areas.

In October, after returning home from an off-island trip, Richelle Dietz and her family began experiencing digestive problems, strange rashes and other ailments.

This wasn’t the first time this had happened—they live on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam and were among the many island residents who got sick when jet fuel from the underground Red Hill fuel storage facility tainted the Navy’s Oahu water system. The military flushed the system and pumped thousands of gallons of tainted water out of the pipes until in March 2022 Navy and state officials declared that it had been cleaned and was once again safe for consumption.

Like many other affected families, Dietz said she had doubts but gradually began using the water again, explaining, “We had to kind of decide is it economical to continue to buy water to wash your hands—with which it just wasn’t—or do we have to kind of put a little bit of faith that the quantity of fuel is small enough that we’re not going to constantly break out.”

She said that for more than a year, it was mostly fine—until October when symptoms returned.

“I couldn’t believe it was happening, honestly, “ said Dietz. “Me and my husband started to have that very telltale stomach burning, throat burning ; my children had other gastrointestinal symptoms. ... Those are all exact symptoms we had during 2021. I mean exact.”

Navy officials tested the water—which came back apparently clean—and the Dietz family were told their symptoms were coming from something else. But now, more than two years after the November 2021 incident, a report from the Environmental Protection Agency released this week confirmed that there are still detectable levels of fuel in some homes on the Navy water system.

EPA investigators tested four homes of residents complaining of symptoms. Three of them had traces of petroleum in the water—including the Dietz family’s. In each case, previous Navy testing had shown no traces.

“This confirms what we have been saying at countless meetings for nearly two years now : that people are still being exposed to contaminated water and are still getting sick, “ said Wayne Tanaka, director of the Sierra Club’s Hawaii chapter. “While the findings are expected, it’s beyond frustrating that it took just a handful of inspections by the EPA to validate what affected families have been begging Navy leaders to recognize since early 2022.”

The Navy waterline serves 93, 000 people, including service members, military families and local civilians living in former military housing areas.

The state Department of Health said in a statement that it “is closely monitoring the laboratory detections from drinking water samples taken in some homes on JBPHH. To date, DOH has not confirmed the presence of jet fuel in samples taken from the common water supply and distribution system. Together with the EPA, DOH has directed the Navy to investigate the nature and cause of these detections and to determine whether they are the result of jet fuel contamination.”

In a separate statement the Navy acknowledged the fuel found in water at the homes but also said throughout the rest of the system, “continued monitoring and sampling of the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam (JBPHH ) water system, done in coordination with regulators, shows the water meets safe drinking water standards.”

“My team has worked with the EPA and numerous stakeholders to sample and test these homes so all our residents can be assured their water remains safe and clean, “ said Rear Adm. Stephen Barnett, commander of Navy Region Hawaii. “We remain committed to constant communication with EPA and DOH, our residents, and the broader community as we continue to ensure this water remains safe.”

The report laid out several recommendations, including calling for the Navy to further investigate the root cause of the petroleum findings. It also called for extra training for Navy personnel responding to residents’ questions and concerns, developing pamphlets outlining sampling and testing processes, and a plan to extend the Navy’s Drinking Water Long Term Monitoring Plan program beyond its originally planned end date of March.

“This is the first time that a federal agency has validated that people are still getting sick and the water still has fuel in it, “ said Maj. Mandy Feindt, an Army officer that was among those sickened in 2021 when she was still stationed in Hawaii with her family. She is part of the EPA’s Community Representation Initiative—a panel of community members overseeing Red Hill’s closure and remediation—as an affected resident.

“They have validated these residents’ concerns who are just still crying out for help two years, “ said Feindt.

Dietz said that she welcomed the report’s findings and is glad that it’s now public, but expressed disappointment in its recommendations.

“As a mother and a resident who’s on the waterline, I don’t love to hear that the people who are supposed to be investigating are the ones who caused the problem, “ said Dietz. “I would love if we could have a little more EPA (and ) Department of Health involvement in investigating and testing, maybe get a more third party involved.”

“The EPA and Department of Health need to step up their game and force the Navy to revise its defective water testing protocols rather than continue gaslighting sickened families, “ said Tanaka. “And we should all heed the cautionary lessons about what may happen if Honolulu ʻs municipal water system gets contaminated—and why self-serving assurances by the military must always be taken with a huge grain of salt.”

The military is working to remove the last of the fuel from the underground Red Hill facility. The aging World War II-era fuel farm—which sits just 100 feet above a critical aquifer most of Honolulu depends on for drinking water—as well as the pipelines connecting it to JPBHH required extensive repairs to ensure fuel could be removed without further risks to the environment.

Defueling began in October, and more than 104 million gallons has been removed through the pipeline, and military officials insist only three gallons leaked during the process—which they said was promptly contained before it entered the environment. A remaining 64, 000 gallons of “residual fuel “ will require specialized techniques to remove, and is expected to be removed between January and March.

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