Eighty years ago, when we were still a territory and when the military intelligence predicted a potential conflict with Imperial Japan, the federal government decided to build fuel tanks for the Pacific Fleet. The problem was that that much fuel in the open made the islands vulnerable to an aerial attack.
The mountains between Pearl Harbor and downtown Honolulu were the ideal spot. Construction began in 1940 to dig out the hill and install fuel tanks; workers were on the job nonstop until 1943. (In fact, Dec. 7, 1941 was the only day when no work was done, but that’s another story.)
The plan originally called for horizontal tunnels burrowing through the mountain range, but a last-minute change scrapped it. To shorten construction time, the project went vertical. The storage facility went deeper underground.
This facility is officially called Kapukaki, but everyone calls it Red Hill. There are 20 steel-lined tanks encased in concrete deep inside the mountain. Each tank can store up to 12.5 million gallons for a total of 250 million gallons of fuel. Pipelines connect the tanks to pumping stations that fuel the ships in Pearl Harbor and the planes at Hickam Air Field.
The tanks, pumping system and hollowing out of an extinct volcanic hill is an engineering feat. It was top secret for many years. Long after the war the American Society of Civil Engineers deemed it a National Historic Engineering Landmark in 1995.
But all is not well in Halawa. Every public school kid at this point has been taught in some educational video, lecture or illustration and should be able to tell you where our water comes from. Misty clouds swirl and hover atop most mountains in Hawai’i. Rain soaks the mountains and seeps down to form a gigantic lens of fresh water. That’s the only freshwater source for thousands of miles.
That’s the problem. Eighty years ago, the military started storing and pumping jet fuel from tanks sitting about 100 feet above an aquifer supplying more than 75 percent of Oahu’s drinking water. What could go wrong?
This Thanksgiving, families near Red Hill reported that their water started to smell like gasoline. Anecdotes about folks feeling dizzy, vomiting and suffering from rashes. They blamed the fuel tanks and the Navy.
The complaints and the gasoline water didn’t go away. Nearby residents — particularly military families — went public to voice their concerns that the jet fuel leaked into the drinking water. They were joined by local activists critical of the ongoing military presence in the islands. Fortunately for them, top military brass happened to be in town to commemorate the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The Navy admitted that petroleum leaked into the drinking water. The city and state reacted with surprising speed. Ernest Lau, manager of the City’s Board of Water Supply — an engineer who, like many in his profession, is not wont to emotion and drama, stood before the cameras wearing his classic government-worker aloha shirt, identification card pinned to his chest, and a lanyard around his neck.
He announced that as a precaution, the city shut down water in Halawa — that’s about 20 percent of water users in Honolulu. Then he did something astounding. He got emotional.
Lau started to get choked up and shook his head. “We cannot wait any longer. The water resource is precious. It’s irreplaceable. It’s pure. There is no substitute for pure water, and our lives depend on it.”
That really changed the perception of crisis. Demonstrators and protesters demanded that the military shut down Red Hill. Congressman Kai Kahele went on the offensive but stopped short of calling for a shut down. Gov. David Ige ordered the military to stop storing fuel at Red Hill — at least for now.
The Navy has refused. Last weekend, it “flushed the tanks” in the area by opening hydrants and water supplies to drain the contaminated water. Of course, the gas-smelling water flowed down sidewalks, into gutters, and now is in the ocean.
The Department of Health even ordered the Navy to empty the tanks. The Navy challenged it. One Navy official refused to call it a crisis.
The tanks and this facility are older than the State of Hawai’i itself. It was constructed in anticipation of a conflict, finished in the middle of a war, and it’s been in use ever since. Now it’s leaking poison into our water supply. Contaminated water has been washed out into the ocean.
The State of Hawai’i — perhaps for the first time since Kahoolawe — has asserted itself against the military in a dramatic and public way. Who will blink first is anyone’s guess.
* Ben Lowenthal is a trial and appellate lawyer, currently with the Office of the Public Defender, who grew up on Maui. His email is 808stateofaloha@gmail.com.
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