The Hawaii Department of Health cleared one neighborhood in the Pearl Harbor area to begin drinking tap water again this week, but thousands of people in other zones in the area remain under health advisories months after water was discovered to be tainted with petroleum.
The water was contaminated from a World War II-era fuel tank farm above an aquifer, and a Nov. 20 jet fuel spill was determined to be the source of the petroleum in the water. The Navy’s water system serves about 93,000 people near Pearl Harbor.
The single neighborhood cleared this week includes 135 Army-managed homes and Red Hill Elementary School, according to Hawaii Gov. David Ige. But 18 other zones are still undergoing flushing and testing.
“We understand that many are wary, and we will continue to investigate complaints and hold the Navy accountable to provide safe drinking water,” Deputy Director of Environmental Health Kathleen Ho said in a statement Monday.
Thousands of military and family members were displaced from their homes in December and moved to hotels after a sample found petroleum at a level 350 times what is considered safe in drinking water.
Hawaii legislators have called on the Navy to defuel the storage facility, with state Reps. Kai Kahele and Ed Case announcing federal legislation to permanently shut it down last week. The military is appealing to a Department of Health order to drain the fuel tanks.
“We must not forget that this disaster shouldn’t have happened in the first place,” Ige said at a press conference Monday. “We are here because the Navy contaminated drinking water with fuel.”
‘A CRISIS OF ITS OWN MAKING’:Thousands of military families displaced from Hawaii military base after jet fuel contaminates drinking water
“As long as there is fuel in the Red Hill tanks, there remains imminent peril to all water drinkers,” Ho said.
The Red Hill well contains 20 large underground fuel tanks that date back to World War II. The Navy built the tanks, each as tall as a 25-story building, in two rows of 10 inside a mountain ridge three miles inland from Pearl Harbor.
State health officials said the cleared zone was declared safe after “extensive cleanup and testing” that showed trace amounts of petroleum at just one site, but “there is no contamination above the project’s screening level,” according to state toxicologist Diana Felton. They said at the press conference that a 10% geographically spaced sample of homes and buildings were tested. They said samples will continue to be tested over the next two years.
Some community members are pushing for 100% of homes to be tested, according to local news outlets.
“Anything less than 100% testing is unacceptable,” Army Maj. Amanda Feindt told hawaiinewsnow. “How do you expect me to trust that the home and the water system that once poisoned my family is good without having any sort of test results?”
Wayne Tanaka, executive director of the Sierra Club of Hawaii, echoed residents’ concerns.
“They’ve heard this before – before hundreds, if not thousands, of people, including infants and children, were poisoned,” he said in an email to The Associated Press.
Thousands of people were treated for symptoms of exposure and ingestion of petroleum-contaminated water late last year, including nausea, rashes and headaches. Households and elementary schools also complained about water smelling like fuel.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism