‘Thousands have lived without love, no one without water’…
What if you wake up one fine morning knowing the water you drink is poison?
Let’s sail through the story of thousands of people who became sick, drinking tainted potable water.
To make it in a nutshell,
Four families who lived on a military base in Hawaii are suing the Navy, claiming to have been ill after drinking water contaminated by two different jet fuel leaks.
The culprit is the Navy jet fuel storage facility at Red Hill, which stores 175 million gallons of jet fuel. Let’s flip the pages back to 1943 when the Red Hill Gasoline Storage Facility was constructed, which is now the talk of the town for jet fuel spills.
The Red Hill Gasoline Storage Facility
The facility was constructed as a wartime project from 1940-1943 during the second world war. The storage facility has a total capacity to hold 250 million gallons of fuel. It consists of 20 steel-lined underground storage tanks, each with a storage capacity of approximately 12.5 million gallons of jet fuel.
The Red Hill site was selected for the project for its geological uniqueness to accommodate ample storage tanks, providing safety from aerial attacks of the enemies.
The Red Hill storage facility is located just 100 feet above the island’s primary drinking water source, which serves over 700,000 people in Hawaii.
JP-5 Jet Fuel Spills Hawaii
How did the Navy poison Hawaii’s water?
In May and November of 2021, there were two silent jet fuel spills in Hawaii, causing JP-5, the jet fuel propellant, to leak and contaminate the water resource of Oahu.
When a valve-opening procedure was “incorrectly completed,” the fuel line “violently” ruptured, resulting in the spill of jet fuel in May 2021. Then, on November 20, a pipe’s overhead-valve cracked, letting roughly the jet fuel flow out and soak into the groundwater for several hours.
It was just another happy day for the people without knowing the disaster about to shadow their lives. Without realizing the danger, thousands of people used the water source. Until the next two days, there was no notification from the Navy about the spillage. After two days, the Navy claimed no signs or indication of any environmental releases, and the drinking water was safe.
After a week, the Department of Health started receiving umpteen complaints from the people around the naval base complaining about the jet fuel smell in the water. There were hundreds of cases reported in the ER on a daily basis, where people had burns, skin rashes, and neurological and gastrointestinal disorders.
The recurring symptoms and health issues puzzled the people, making their days hopeless. One of the victims, Jamie Simic recalls the shocking moment when she found the ice cubes from her freezer to be yellow, smelling jet fuel. With that incident, she could connect all the unknown health issues and symptoms, her whole family had for months.
Is jet fuel harmful to humans?
As per the research studies, volatile hydrocarbons from these jet fuel spillages have the potential to depress the central nervous system (CNS) at high concentrations and to produce anesthesia or suffocation at large dosages. Prolonged exposure to jet fuel contents can cause coordination issues, narcosis, and gait disturbances.
The following are the health issues reported by the victims involved in the Hawaii jet fuel spills.
- Internal bleeding
- Abdominal pain
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Memory loss
- Skin rashes and lesions
- Brain fog
- Eye irritation
- Seizures
- Teeth and gum issues
The victims of the Red Hill Hawaii fuel leak claimed that they were healthy and active before the jet fuel leak.
How did the Navy respond to the allegations of the jet fuel spills victims?
When the affected people started voicing out, the Navy acknowledged that over 30,000 gallons of fuel were leaked in 2021 due to operator error. They accepted that the Red Hill gasoline storage facility had two leaks, one in May 2021, leaking 19,000 gallons of fuel, and another in November 2021, making 12,000 gallons of fuel enter Oahu’s main water supply.
The reports and investigations on the jet fuel spill in Hawaii indicated that the authorities waited an entire week after fuel gushed into that tunnel to shut down the drinking water well. The shocking fact is that the water source was just 380 feet away.
The victims claim that they were unknowingly exposed to jet fuel-contaminated water for an extended period. They are numbed to realize that they were drinking and bathing in jet fuel for over six months. They were consistently exposed to harmful jet fuel contents on a daily basis.
Addressing the complaints, the navy officials accepted that they failed to notify and warn the people immediately about using the contaminated water source about the jet fuel spills from the storage. However, Captain Michael McGinnis, the U.S. Pacific Fleet doctor, claims that the Hawaii fuel spill was during a very brief period.
They defend that no evidence supports the chronic, long-term, ongoing event regarding jet fuel exposure or contamination. The Navy claims that they are open to any discussions with the victims about their health issues and concerns.
Hawaii Fuel Spill 2013- A Turn Back
Concerning the current Hawaii jet fuel spills, it is to be noted that a previous leakage had been reported in December 2013. Tank 5 at Red Hill was noted to have a leakage while filling the tank with jet fuel (JP-8). The leakage incident resulted in a 27,000-gallon jet fuel loss to the Hawaii Department of Health and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. However, subsequent studies reported no contamination of the drinking water resources.
What is happening with the 2021 jet fuel spills in Hawaii?
Investigations after the jet fuel spills indicated that it was the aftermath of the Navy’s ineffective immediate responses to the 2021 fuel leaks and failure to learn from prior incidents. Sampling studies by the Department of Health found that the water source was contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons, 350 times more than the acceptable level for drinking water.
TPH-d (total petroleum hydrocarbons diesel) is detectable in water through smell and taste at a level of 160 parts per billion (ppb). In 2017, the Hawaii Department of Health upstretched the safe level of gasoline in the drinking water from 160 parts per billion (ppb) to 400 ppb, which prompted the Board of Water Supply to object. The Navy denied the seriousness of the 2021 Hawaii jet fuel leak spillage, claiming that the issue was not persisting.
On the other end, the plant was shut down in March 2022, with the historic legislation introduced by the congress called the Red Hill Watershed and Aquifer Initiative (WAI). A task group was formed to ensure the fuel was properly disposed of. The Navy announced that it would install 12 new groundwater wells to monitor the passage of the spilled fuel.
On June 30, 2022, the Navy submitted the initial Red Hill Bulk Fuel Facility Defueling Plan to the DOH and EPA. The Navy is currently attempting to empty the Red Hill storage tanks of all the fuel, which will be a tedious mission that will last until July 2024. As of January 2022, the cleanup activities of the Navy in Hawaii’s water have already cost $250 million.
The Voice of the Victims
The families impacted by the tainted water due to the Navy’s jet fuel leak worry about the chances of cancer. Four families have already filed a lawsuit claiming that the Navy harbored toxic secrets, turning once-healthy adults and children into victims of jet fuel toxicity.
The U.S. Navy and Hawaii Department of Health now assert that the water is currently safe to drink after cleaning and flushing. As per the EPA, the water meets all federal drinking water standards. But months after the breach, officials have continued to record problems with petroleum traces in the water pipes. The Red Hill tanks have still not been defueled.
The DOH had ordered the Navy to provide alternative drinking water for the roughly 93,000 people who may have been affected. As per the attorneys standing for the current plaintiffs, hundreds of plaintiffs will join the lawsuit, suing the Navy for their negligent actions. Will the Red Hill Closure Plan be executed by the Navy on November 1, 2022? Will the law answer the victims of jet fuel spill Hawaii? Let’s wait and watch for the Hawaii water contamination update.
“You’ve got American citizens being poisoned by an American asset on American soil.” Let’s present these words of the plaintiff Army Major Amanda Feindt, before the Navy.
Not just the victims and their loved ones but the entire U.S. is awaiting a favorable outcome for the affected in Hawaii water problem. LezDo TechMed, the medical record review partner of expert personal injury attorneys is looking forward to review the medical records of the victims of jet fuel spills and prove their damages.
Navy Failures at Red Hill: Key Findings from Inspector General’s Report
A recent report by Inspector General Robert P. Storch highlights serious problems with how the Navy handled the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility in Hawaii. These issues led to a jet fuel spill that contaminated the drinking water for over 90,000 people, displacing more than 4,000 families. Here’s what went wrong:
- Lack of risk awareness: The Navy did not fully understand the dangers of storing large fuel tanks above a drinking water well at Pearl Harbor. Despite having engineering plans and environmental studies pointing out the risks, they failed to act on this information.
- Poor communication: After a major fuel spill in May 2021, the Navy did not report the missing fuel to the Hawaii Department of Health. This delayed important regulatory action and oversight.
- Slow emergency response: In November 2021, the Navy missed four chances to activate emergency response plans, even after residents reported smelling chemicals and fuel in their water.
- Misinformation to the public: In November 2021, the Navy assured the public that the drinking water was safe, even though they hadn’t conducted proper lab tests to confirm this.
- Failure to assess contamination: The Navy did not follow their emergency response plan to assume the fuel spill had contaminated all of Pearl Harbor’s drinking water system. This likely led many residents to unknowingly use polluted water.
These failures caused widespread contamination, forcing thousands of families to leave their homes and deal with unsafe water. The report calls for the Navy to improve how it manages fuel storage and water systems to avoid similar disasters in the future.
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1/6 What if you wake up one fine morning knowing the water you drink is poison? Jet fuel spills in Hawaii make the victims sue the Navy for negligence. #RedHillLeak #RedHillFuelLeak #ShutDownRedHill pic.twitter.com/zjKbT7zU9s — LezDo MedLegal (@LezDoMedLegal) October 21, 2022
