Pentagon shutters Hawaii fuel tank facility that left 6,000 sick

The Pentagon has decided to permanently close a vast fuel tank facility in Hawaii that had sickened thousands of people.

The facility had leaked petroleum into Pearl Harbor’s tap water and left more than 6,000 people ill, the AP reported.

The decision was made by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday.

It was based on a Pentagon assessment, but also an order from Hawaii’s Department of Health to drain fuel from the tanks at the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility which supports US military operations in the Pacific.

Following the announcement Michael S. Regan, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said it was “committed to working collaboratively with our state and federal partners to ensure clean drinking water for the people of Oʻahu”.

The tanks, built into the side of a mountain during the Second World War to protect them from enemy attack, had leaked into a drinking well and contaminated water at Pearl Harbor homes and offices. Red Hill has the capacity for up to 250 million gallons of fuel.

Nearly 6,000 people, mostly those living in military housing at or near Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam were sickened, seeking treatment for nausea, headaches, rashes and other ailments.

Some 4,000 military families were forced out of their homes and are in hotels.

It also raised concerns about the quality of fresh water for broader Oahu, the most populous island in Hawaii. The island has an ageing tank system which sits above an aquifer that provides drinking water to most of the island and has a history of leaks.

While the problem is now being addressed many say it deepened a distrust in the military that dates to at least 1893, when a group of American businessmen, with support from US Marines, overthrew the Hawaiian kingdom.

More recently, Native Hawaiians fought to stop target practice bombing on the island of Kahoolawe and at Makua Valley in west Oahu.

“The military has a long history of poor stewardship of Hawaii’s natural and cultural resources,” Carmen Hulu Lindsey, chair of the board of trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, told AP.

“Time after time the people of Hawaii have been left to clean up after the military ravages our sacred lands — from unexploded ordnance and toxic waste to the loss of cultural and historic sites and endangered species — without even appropriating resources to finance these efforts.”

For some, the water contamination was the last straw.

The crisis has “shattered people’s trust in the military,” said Kawenaʻulaokalā Kapahua, a Native Hawaiian political science doctoral student and one of the activists who pushed to shut down the tank facility.

“I think this is really pushing people to the edge because we all need water to live,” Kapahua said. “And I think it’s a very scary thought for people that their children or their grandchildren may never be able to drink the water that comes out of the tap.”

AP contributed to this report. This article has been updated