ВМС США завершат ликвидацию последствий разлива топлива на объекте Red Hill в 2028 году

With the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Facility on track to close in 2028, the Navy is shifting its focus toward environmental cleanup and remediation — though it still does not know exactly how much fuel it will have to clean up. In a House Special Committee on Red Hill informational briefing Tuesday, the Navy Closure Task Force-Red Hill shared its progress in retiring the facility where a jet-fuel spill contaminated drinking water for about 93,000 Oahu residents in 2021. Adm. Lester Ortiz, deputy commander for the task force, said 12 of 20 tanks have been degassed, six have been fully emptied and 99% of the 10-mile pipeline has been cleaned. The Navy is in the process of cutting and removing the pipeline before shipping it to the mainland to be recycled. Ortiz said the efforts at the facility should conclude in 2028, at which time the task force will sunset and environmental monitoring and remediation efforts will be transferred to other branches within the Navy for a project manager to oversee. The Navy’s Halawa Shaft water source has been shut down since the 2021 fuel spill, but the Navy has requested approval from the Hawaii Department of Health to reopen it, citing a lack of evidence that the shaft was affected by the spill. The Navy also hopes to reopen the Red Hill Shaft for drinking water, and plans to install a temporary treatment system for it, said Commander Ben Dunn, environment and remediation deputy director for the task force. A permanent water treatment facility is planned but will take several years to complete, he added. Ortiz said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also found the Joint-Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam drinking water system to be free of fuel contamination. With the facility’s closure looming, the task force said it has ramped up environmental monitoring of the water system and its surrounding areas. The Navy expanded its groundwater monitoring well network, Dunn said, and has commissioned field and site investigative studies to determine where fuel exists and how much of it is in the environment, as well as some remediation studies to figure out how to clean it up. The Navy does not know how much fuel remains in the environment, Dunn said, but it has not found evidence of fuel traveling outside of known affected areas. The task force is using historical records of past releases and spills, and locations of certain infrastructure, to determine where to monitor and test for fuel, Dunn said. Those historical records include reports within the Navy and reports to regulators, like Hawaii DOH or the U.S. EPA. Dunn assured Committee Chair Rep. Linda Ichiyama (D-Fort Shafter-Salt Lake-Pearl Harbor) the investigation would trace “basically the skeleton of the fuel infrastructure,” when she shared concerns over potential releases and spills that may not have been reported to regulators. Still, he added, “it’s not going to be conclusive. That’s why we’re going back through and looking. You start with what you know and then you move from there.” Areas that were not sites of a known spill will only be tested depending on the historical activity or past infrastructure, he clarified. Both the Hawaii DOH and U.S. EPA will approve the test locations as the agencies must also approve the work plans, Dunn said. For remediation, Dunn said, the Navy is studying whether soil vapor extraction could remove fuel from dry soil. Clean-up techniques for affected areas of the aquifer, like the groundwater directly underneath the tanks, is still being studied. There is evidence of “natural breakdown processes” of fuel in some areas, he added. Results from the investigative and remediation studies should be available for a briefing by next year, Dunn said. PFAS is being studied and addressed separately from the task force under the Navy Environmental Restoration Program because its a national issue, unlike the Red Hill fuel spill, which was an isolated incident, Ortiz said. Environmental monitoring and cleanup will go well beyond 2029, both Dunn and Ortiz said, adding that they will bring a tentative timeline with cleanup targets to the next briefing. A major challenge the Navy faces is restoring community confidence in the Navy’s water system, Ortiz said. In February, the EPA no longer required the Navy to meet with the Community Representation Initiative, or CRI. The group was a panel of 10 people tasked with engaging directly with the Navy about community concerns and was formed under a 2023 consent order. Ortiz said open houses provide community members the opportunity to ask questions privately, and the Navy will continue to hold them for the foreseeable future. The Navy has an open house and town hall scheduled on Sept. 17 at the AmVets West Oahu Veterans Center in Ewa Beach from 5 to 7:30 p.m.