Tunnel inside the Red Hill Underground Fuel Storage Facility in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, January 26, 2018. (US Navy via AP, document).
In a paragraph released Wednesday, the officer in charge of fueling the Navy's Red Hill underground fuel facility promised that "the last drop will be removed."
Joint Task Force Red Hill began defueling in October after more than a year of repairs and upgrades to World War II-era facilities and the pipeline connecting Joint Base Hickam in Pearl Harbor. Since then, just over 10.4 billion gallons of water were removed, which the military says is 999% water.
Last week, Joint Task Force RH announced that it had successfully removed all "usable fuel" from the facility. In the ** update, Joint Task Force RH Commander Gen. John Wade said that about 64,000 gallons of "residual fuel" remained in the tanks, with an estimated 28,000 gallons of sludge deposits at the bottom of each tank.
So far, the military has relied on "gravity unloading". The facility, built inside a mountain, allows the tank to use gravity to fuel the pipeline connecting Red Hill and the joint Pearl Harbor-Hickam base, saving the energy needed to pump fuel through the pipeline. But the military** said the remaining fuel could not be removed by gravity alone, requiring additional clean-up work.
The facility is located 100 feet above the critical aquifer on which much of Honolulu depends for drinking water. Despite warnings from local and community leaders that this poses a significant threat to Oahu's water supply, the Navy insists that Oahu is safe and that the facility is critical. But in November 2021, fuel from the facility polluted the Navy's Oahu water system, which serves 93,000 people.
After months of boycott, the Pentagon agreed to permanently close the facility in March 2022. It formed the Joint Task Force RH in September 2022, which began repairs to the dilapidated tanks and pipelines to ensure no further leaks occurred during the unloading process.
JTF-RH is tasked with removing fuel from the tank and is expected to be completed by the end of January, but the facility's long-term shutdown and environmental remediation are expected to take longer. The Navy is currently in the process of forming a new task force for closure.
"Let me be clear, the Department of Defense will continue to provide fuel to the Red Mountain Bulk Fuel Storage Facility — every drop will be removed under the Hawaii State Emergency Order and the Environmental Protection Agency Consent Order," Wade said. ”。The Secretary of Defense has instructed the Joint Task Force Red Mountain and the new Naval Closure Task Force, which is currently being formed, to remove most of the remaining fuel, or to remove any remaining residual fuel and sludge. ”
Wade said over the next month his team will "continue to coordinate closely with the new Navy Closure Task Force and prepare for a formal handover from January to March." This allows them to learn Xi our safety, security, and community engagement processes and procedures to ensure mission continuity. ”
Wade said most of the task force will be on Christmas leave, but "all risk controls put in place for safety and security will remain in place around the clock." ”