Work on removing remaining fuel and sludge at the Navy Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility began Monday, just as a new military team started taking over from Joint Task Force-Red Hill.
The task force finished gravity-draining 104 million gallons of fuel from the facility in December. The leftover sediment and fuel will be removed by opening low-point drains and vent valves.
The task force this week said it plans to finish this phase of defueling by the end of March. It said there are about 64,000 gallons of fuel and 28,000 gallons of sludge still in the facility.
“We're gonna have to go in there and use some good elbow grease and just remove that sludge, which is common in fuel tanks. We're going to have a contract action, and they're going to take that sludge, and it will be disposed of via normal hazmat material ways,” said Navy Rear Adm. Stephen Barnett, the commander of Navy Region Hawaiʻi.
At that point, the joint task force will also hand over long-term operations to a new task force called the Navy Closure Task Force-Red Hill, which Barnett is also commanding.
The new group will oversee the decommissioning of the storage facility.
Vice Adm. John Wade, JTF-RH commander, said the two task forces will work together until the sludge removal is finished.
“For the next two months, simultaneously, we're going to be working with the new Navy Closure Task Force… Their role will be to close and decommission the facility and to get after the long-term environmental remediation issues that are associated with the facility, whether it's soil or clean water,” Wade said.
The closure task force will also oversee what could be a yearslong remediation plan to remove fuel that leaked into the environment.
Barnett said a site assessment will be conducted by engineers and environmentalists first.
“We should know something (about) how the site assessment is going to look towards the end of the summer… That's what will drive the actual remediation portion of it. But we are committed to being here the entire time. And I want to stress that point. We are committed, this is not just a walk away. This is a ‘fix it and do the right thing,’” he said.
The Red Hill Water Alliance Initiative released a report in November saying that anywhere between 600,000 and 2 million gallons of fuel have spilled into the environment during the facility’s 80-year existence.
The group includes members like Gov. Josh Green, Honolulu Board of Water Supply chief engineer Ernie Lau, state lawmakers and officials.
The military is planning an open house on Feb. 7 at Ke’ehi Lagoon Veterans Hall to allow the public a chance to ask questions about the transition and closure of the Red Hill facility.
