Removal of the remaining fuel at the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility is set to begin Jan. 17 pending regulatory approval.
Joint Task Force - Red Hill completed defueling the storage tanks last month, but approximately 64,000 gallons remain in the pipelines from that process.
Crews will open low-point drains and vent valves one by one to remove about 60,000 gallons of the fuel. This work is expected to be completed by the end of March.
The newly established Navy Closure Task Force-Red Hill, poised to take the place of JTF-RH and complete the closure operations, will then remove any residual fuel in the pipelines and 28,000 gallons of sludge remaining in the storage tanks.
Navy Rear Adm. Stephen Barnett, the commander of Navy Region Hawaiʻi, is in charge of the closure task force.
The military has said it plans to close the Red Hill facility by January 2027, which was ordered by the state following a fuel spill in November 2021 that poisoned the Navy's water system serving 93,000 people in and around Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
More than 104 million gallons of fuel have been removed from the site so far, mostly from the massive underground storage tanks.
