Hoses serpent down the shaft at the Red Hill also as , Navy , swimmers work to remove petroleum from the waters.
As a result of a national size tort lawsuit brought on behalf of the families of the affected families, government witnesses will take the stand this week to defend the Navy’s and the Army’s response to the Red Hill water crisis.
The president’s legal team is arguing that JP- 5 jet fuel from the Red Hill energy center that entered the , Navy ‘s , Oahu , liquid program, which serves 93, 000 people, always made its way through the entire program and that some of the defendants were never even exposed.
The government also contends that the lack of fuel in the system led to a wide range of health issues, that there is no conclusive proof that JP- 5 exposure caused the long-term symptoms that residents reported on the waterline, and that they were actually internal reactions to the crisis ‘ stress.
The issue began on Nov. 20, 2021, when energy spilled at the center and leaked into the Red Hill water also, which therefore entered the hull.  , Navy , officers who responded believed they had contained it and chose not to tell their leaders, state authorities or the government.
Residents reported strange-smelling water in the following days and, in some cases, seeing an oily sheen in their water. Many also reported a variety of ailments, including rashes, headaches, diarrhea and vomiting.
The , Navy , decided to shut down the Red Hill well on , Nov. 28 , and it finally shut it off completely on , Nov. 29. The state , Department of Health , put out an advisory telling residents not to drink the water, but the , Navy , put out a release telling the community” there is no immediate indication the water is not safe” and that it was investigating complaints.
Under cross- examination, Dr.  , Mike McGinnis , — who at the time was the Pacific Fleet’s chief medical officer and adviser — defended the statement as accurate, testifying” I am not aware of any positive results on , Nov. 29 , that the water was not safe”.
Sherri Eng, the director of the environmental business line at the Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command and the director of the environmental program for the Navy Region Hawaii, said her first confirmation of the well’s fuel was on December 5th. Results came back on a sample taken from the well.
Many of the plaintiffs claimed last week that they were told by contaminated water by the government, including the Navy and the government. That includes plaintiff , Patrick Feindt , who, along with his wife Army Maj.  , Mandy Feindt, lived on , Ford Island. Even after the , Navy , did acknowledge fuel in the water, officials later sent a notice that said , Ford Island , and several other areas were n’t affected. McGinnis testified that he was” not aware of significant reports from , Ford Island”.
Walter Grayman, a water systems expert testifying for the government, said on Wednesday that because health complaints did n’t
begin until days after the , Nov. 20 , spill, that” suggests it did n’t enter the distribution system” until then. He argued that the contamination reached its “plateau” on , Nov. 27. He added, however, that the fuel did n’t have to travel through the entire system.
In particular, he was adamant that it would n’t have reached , Ford Island, arguing it was served by a different well. He dismissed the findings of , Paul Rosenfeld, an environmental specialist who testified for the plaintiffs and who previously had worked on environmental remediation projects for the , Navy , in the , San Diego  , area. On Tuesday, before the government began presenting its case, Rosenfeld testified that the , Navy ‘s , Oahu , waterline is” so interconnected there’s no way to avoid that from happening”.
Rosenfeld claimed that the fuel “gummed up” the pipes even after the Red Hill well was shut off, and that the water from the other wells on the system continued to spread JP- 5 through the waterline. He claimed that “once it got in the pipes, it was just there”
The Red Hill facility sits just 100 feet above a critical aquifer that most of , Honolulu , relies on for drinking water. For years, the , Navy , insisted the World War II- era fuel farm was both safe and critical for national security. The military initially resisted a state emergency order to drain the tanks and sued the state, arguing it lacked legal authority to give the , Navy , the order.
But in , March 2022, Defense Secretary , Lloyd Austin , announced that Red Hill would be defueled and permanently shuttered. The facility’s mission was completed in March when a task force of experts from each military branch was assembled by the Pentagon. Since then, a new , Navy , task force has taken over to carry out remediation and closure operations, a process expected to take several years.
In , Washington, D. C., in a Wednesday congressional hearing,  , U. S.  , Sen.  , Brian Schatz , asked Austin about the closure process and treatment for people reporting long- term symptoms from fuel exposure.
According to Austin,” I’ve had personal conversations with both the task force leader and, most importantly, the Navy’s secretary, about how crucial this is and how important it is that they make sure we get this right going forward.” ” We owe it to the members of the community to ensure that we do, in fact, do this”.
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