Capt. Randall Harmeyer, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam public works officer, inspects water flushed through granulated activated carbon filters from the Waiawa Shaft water supply in December 2021. (Christopher Thomas/U.S. Navy)
HONOLULU (Tribune News Service) — The Navy is upgrading and renovating its Oahu water system that serves 93, 000 island residents, having demolished an old water storage tank with a replacement currently under construction — and with more planned upgrades along the way.
The Environmental Protection Agency released a report in October based on an inspection it conducted in June, which included findings of small traces of petroleum and other contaminants, and listed several maintenance problems. The report also said the Navy failed to produce several documents when requested.
After the EPA quietly posted the report online, the Navy sent out a news release and a link to the report. In the release, the Navy said that “the inspection, completed over the summer, determined the JBPHH (Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam ) water remains safe for consumption.”
Navy officials later expressed frustration about how the report was written and subsequent media coverage and reactions in the community, asserting that several items the EPA listed in the report had important context missing. Notably, the EPA documented maintenance problems at facilities that the Navy has already identified as in need of replacement — including those it’s already working to replace.
In a statement to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in response to a request for additional information, a Navy spokesman wrote that “most of the observations made by the EPA (in its report ) have already been addressed. One storage tank, referred to as S-2 tank in the report, is being replaced. The old tank has been demolished and construction has started. The other storage tank has been identified to be replaced in the coming years (after the new S-2 tank goes into commission ).”
When asked why the October report did not note that one of the facilities in question did not even exist anymore — and that the other is already slated for replacement — an EPA spokesman said that “once the Navy provides a formal response to the inspection report (in the next few days ), they will be able to formally describe the status of the tanks.”
The Navy’s Oahu water system has been under heavy scrutiny ever since jet fuel from the Navy’s underground Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility tainted its Red Hill water shaft in November 2021.
The Navy shut off the Red Hill well, but fuel still made its way into the Navy’s water system and thousands reported getting sick. Several families affected by the spill took the U.S. government to court this summer as part of a mass tort lawsuit, with a verdict still pending.
By March 2022 the Navy and the state Department of Health said they had successfully cleaned the contaminated water system. Since then the Navy has relied exclusively on its Wai awa well to provide water to the system.
But the aging water system has continued to pose challenges to the Navy. In October 2021 several water main breaks on the system put the system under a boil-water advisory and briefly delayed operations to defuel the Red Hill tanks. The Navy has requested funding to address several maintenance problems across its Hawaii facilities.
In December the EPA released a report after testing four homes of residents complaining of similar symptoms to those residents reported in 2021, and found three of them had traces of petroleum in the water and that in each case previous Navy testing had shown no traces. In January an influx of complaints from residents on the Navy water system prompted the Navy to extend its water monitoring programs for an additional year.
The EPA’s report in October stated that Navy officials objected to inspectors’ plans to test for per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, dubbed PFAS, which are widely known as “forever chemicals ” because they are slow to degrade in the environment.
The report said Navy officials objected to the tests and “believed (the tests ) exceeded EPA’s authority,” though the report also concedes that Navy officials ultimately agreed to the tests though stood by their objections.
The Navy later clarified that it did not object to PFAS testing itself, but rather questioned how the EPA was going about it, including tests in facilities not currently supporting the water system — the Navy’s Aiea and Red Hill water wells — as well as the use of an experimental PFAS testing method rather than the standard EPA-approved methods.
In a statement released last week, the Navy said, “Navy personnel questioned the need for the EPA to test water shafts that are not in use as they are not currently connected to the water distribution system. However, the EPA did test the Waiawa shaft using Modified Method 537, an experimental non-standard (non-drinking water-specific ) technique. The Navy also tested the shaft using EPA-certified methods and EPA-certified labs, which resulted in no detection of PFAS at the Waiawa shaft, currently the sole source of drinking water for JBPPH. EPA inspectors were on hand to observe the Navy sampling process.”
An EPA spokesman said that “the Aiea and Red Hill wells are currently inactive, but were sampled as they may return to service in the future. Drinking water data characterizing the source water quality is important to determine what steps may be necessary for regulatory approval in the event the Navy requests the wells return to service.”
The EPA’s testing found small traces of PFAS that were below the “environmental actions limit” — the amount that requires a water system’s owner to act — but the report noted that at least one test at Aiea Ha lawa Shaft exceeded the EPA’s and the state of Hawaii’s “maximum contaminant level,” the level at which is considered the highest acceptable reading.
Testing for PFAS has become especially fraught. The substance was widely used by the military in firefighting foam designed to put out fuel fires, and has been used around the country by other industrial users for other purposes. PFAS contamination of water at Camp Lejune in North Carolina was tied to cancer in several Marine Corps families and led to a major lawsuit.
The administration of President Joe Biden recently approved tight new regulations on PFAS limits in water.
The EPA said it decided to use the experimental testing techniques on Oahu this summer because “this modified method allows for a more comprehensive analysis of PFAS — this method can analyze 75 PFAS (varieties ), allowing for further characterization of the potential presence of any PFAS compounds in the water.”
The EPA’s report also said the Navy failed to provide inspectors documents — among them operations manuals, maps and water tank inspection reports — and that representatives of the Navy water system “stated that several tanks had not been cleaned or inspected since 2013.”
But a Navy official said the release of many of the reports was delayed because officials had to clear them with those higher up the chain of command. Military leaders worry that infrastructure at bases could be targets of sabotage and cyberattacks to disrupt operations.
In a statement, the Navy said, “The records requested by EPA prior to the inspection was ready for EPA review during inspection. During the inspection, Navy personnel informed EPA that documents were available to be reviewed on-site and a copy would be formally sent to EPA after the inspection. After the inspection, the documents were formally sent in two submittals. The first submittal was sent on July 8, 2024. The remainder of the documents asked for were sent to EPA on October 8, 2024.”
A Navy official did, however, concede it was true that several tanks in the system had not been cleaned or inspected for more than a decade.
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