Defueling of the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility starts in mid-October, but before that, the pipes need to be prepped.
Joint Task Force Red Hill began what it calls repacking the pipelines on Monday, which is where they'll add fuel back into the lines to remove air.
Joint Task Force Commander Vice Adm. John Wade said it's a deliberate process that will be closely monitored.
"It's serves two purposes," Wade said. "One: to remove air from the pipeline to ensure a uniform and smooth flow when we conduct the gravity defueling. But it's also an opportunity to check the integrity of the system."
Internal investigations found human error, lack of training and erroneous data caused the fuel leaks that contaminated drinking water back in 2021. Now, the facility is defueling and shutting down under state and federal orders.
To get this done, the JTFRH completed 253 mandatory repairs needed to shut down the site. The state Department of Health conditionally approved these and the repacking plan.
"Repacking is a critical step toward defueling,” DOH Deputy Director of Environmental Health Kathleen Ho said in a release. “While we continue to work as quickly as possible in tandem with the EPA, our primary concern remains ensuring that defueling can be completed safely.”
Brig. Gen. Michelle Link, deputy commander of JTFRH, showed off some of the repairs to the piping during a recent tour of the underground facility. She said that in addition to the repairs, 400 protective measures were put in place and response measures were added to mitigate spills during the defueling.
About 104 million gallons of fuel sits in 14 of the 20 tanks. To get that out, JTFRH will use a gravity defueling process. An estimated 103,000 gallons of fuel will be left in the system when it's completed around mid-January 2024.
"Over the months after that, we'll continue to focus on those areas of residual fuel, removing the threat to the aquifer and the environment to make sure that when we do the final transition to closure that we are at an appropriate point for the Navy to continue with the closure and the pipeline removal," Link said.
The facility is being monitored by roving patrols and dozens of operational cameras that were added after a November 2022 spill of a highly concentrated fire suppressant.
