After months of work, on Wednesday the military task force charged with removing the fuel from the Navy's underground Red Hill storage facility announced it had extracted the last of the “accessible residual fuel ” from the facility.
Since officially beginning defueling in October, Joint Task Force Red Hill has now successfully removed 104,703,574 gallons. It's a major milestone in the long Red Hill saga, but far from the end.
” The Environmental Protection Agency and Hawaii Department of Health are now conducting a Regulatory Interim Defueling Inspection to ensure and document all JTF-RH actions stipulated in the EPA Consent Order and DOH Emergency Order are complete, ” JTF-RH said in its announcement. “The inspection is expected to conclude this week. Simultaneously, JTF-RH continues their turnover with the newly established Navy Closure Task Force to ensure continuity of mission for safety, security, and community engagement.”
The Red Hill facility's massive fuel tanks sit just 100 feet above a critical aquifer that most of Southern Oahu relies on for drinking water. It was built underground during World War II both to hide it and protect it from Japanese Imperial forces.
After the war it became a critical strategic fuel reserve for the U.S. Navy's Pacific fleet, but also a subject of controversy. Local officials and activists raised concerns that it was a threat to Oahu's water, while Navy officials maintained it was vital for…
