Eight of the 18 active tanks have also not been inspected, much less repaired, in over two decades - some for over three decades. Trapped moisture has corroded the steel walls of these tanks to less than a third of their original, quarter-inch width in some places. Originally buried in Kapukaki eight decades ago, the Red Hill facility currently stores well over 100 million gallons of petroleum fuel in a “farm” of underground storage tanks, located a mere 100 feet above Oahu’s sole-source aquifer - the only and irreplaceable source of drinking water for everyone from Halawa to Maunalua. The whistleblower emails indicate concern about the questions the leak may have raised, regarding an even greater, potentially existential threat to our health and environment: the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage facility. So why not be forthright about this latest pollution event?
#Maui revealed 2014 upgrade#
Just this year, it begrudgingly agreed with the Environmental Protection Agency to upgrade its wastewater treatment plant, due to improper operation and maintenance that “led to excessive toxic pollution discharges into Pearl Harbor and unacceptable worker safety risks.” Fishers have been advised not to eat fish from Puuloa since 1998. It is no secret that the Navy has failed to steward Puuloa’s once-rich waters, known and prized for their abundant fisheries and Hawaiian fishponds.
Whistle- blower emails indicate that Navy officials were concerned about the optics of an “active leak,” and a Navy witness in legal proceedings denied any knowledge of a potential fuel spill even after two failed pipeline tests and a civilian contractor all but confirmed the leak’s existence. Recent news reports have highlighted what can only be described as an apparent Navy cover-up, of the release of an unknown but significant amount of fuel into the waters of Puuloa, or Pearl Harbor.
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