A federal judge has partially unsealed a fraud complaint filed against defense contractors working at the Red Hill fuel facility. But the U.S. Justice Department has opted not to pursue the case. So what does it say about what may have led to the Red Hill fuel spill and contamination of drinking water?
First, let's recap some Red Hill-related events you may not know about.
Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro was in town. He gave a speech last Thursday at a ceremony on the deck of the USS Battleship Missouri, transferring power over the shutdown and draining of Red Hill from a joint Department of Defense team back to Navy Region Hawaiʻi.
Fuel leaked into the military's drinking water system and displaced thousands of families in 2021 under the Navy's watch.
"We are pledging continued collective commitment because there is still much work to be done as has been said before," Del Toro said at the event.
The Conversation asked to talk to Del Toro, but we were told his schedule didn't allow for it. It's not clear if he knew that a federal judge would be partially unsealing a complaint filed by Lt. Cmdr. Shannon Bencs, who was the fuel director at Red Hill.
Two years ago she filed a fraud complaint against defense contractors at considerable risk to her military career. The complaint raised questions about whether the contractors did the maintenance work they were paid to do.
If so, why were more than 200 repairs required to the pipe system before the fuel tanks were drained?
Bencs said she tried to tell higher-ups about her suspicions that something was not right at Red Hill. The U.S. Justice Department looked into it and Friday decided it would not pursue the case.
The Conversation has not been able to talk to anyone to understand why. Bencs and her attorneys agreed to withdraw their complaint, which alleged that the contractors failed to properly maintain the system and that the Navy relied on that representation.
Consider that snapshot and probe added pressure to Vice Adm. John Wade, commander of the now-closed Joint Task Force - Red Hill. The pressure of safely defueling more than a hundred million gallons of fuel from 20 underground tanks was already on his shoulders.
Wade had not seen the tanks before getting his orders to safely defuel more than a million gallons. Here's part of a candid conversation we had with Wade last week.
"While there has been criticism, I accept it because I know that people are angry, frustrated, disappointed. But again, all I could do was focus on what I could control, and that was to be safe and to do it as quickly as possible, and then to execute it flawlessly," Wade said. "I had many sleepless nights, but that's OK. You know, I was asked to lead this team. And I didn't want to fail."
We can tell you that Bencs was transferred to Marine Corps Base Hawaiʻi in Kāneʻohe. In an unusual move, Bencs showed up at a recent Red Hill Community Representation Initiative public meeting. HPR was there back in February.
Bencs offered her expertise as a fuel director and shared insight into what some say could be the more dangerous part of the closure: vapors in the massive tanks — dangerous not just for the workers inside but for surrounding neighborhoods.
"Now that you defueled the tanks and the pipelines, now there's poisonous toxic fumes in those tanks, and the only way to vent them out is through the top of Red Hill and then through the adits. Are you going to notify the families when you start venting those out? Because that's extremely toxic, and it will flow down to Hālawa Valley, down to Pearl Harbor," Bencs said at the meeting.
The military said four of the 20 underground tanks have already been cleaned, but there are 16 to go.
But let's get back to the deck of the USS Missouri.
We asked Rear Adm. Stephen Barnett, commander of Navy Closure Task Force – Red Hill, about addressing Bencs' concerns about making sure that a petroleum engineer was on the team.
"I went to engineering school, so I am an engineer. I'm not a professional engineer. But I think with my team, I know just enough to be able to ask those questions, you know, that can make us think outside the box so we can do this safely and do it as efficiently and as quickly as possible," Barnett said.
We also asked about his first impressions of seeing the massive Red Hill tanks. Each tank measures 100 feet in diameter and 250 feet in height.
"It utterly shocked me of just the immenseness of it. And, you know, how many tanks and what had been here within plain sight that I hadn't seen. But it is a big project. But I've got a great team," Barnett told HPR.
Getting back to the fraud complaint. We talked to the Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi this morning. It has been battling the Navy since the 27,000-gallon fuel leak 10 years ago in 2014.
Environmentalists haven't been happy as they believe the Navy has been hiding information about the Red Hill leaks for decades.
Executive Director Wayne Tanaka shared his thoughts on learning of the fraud complaint lodged against five contractors — some of whom are still doing work related to Red Hill.
"This facility that was supposed to be, you know, in top shape and was exceeding industry and regulatory standards, why did it take so long? Why did it take 200 repairs just to get it to safely defuel itself?" Tanaka said. "If you look at the complaint, it does kind of detail a lot of the alleged neglect on the part of contractors."
We also asked officials from the state departments of Health and Education and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for comment but have yet to hear back.
There are still lingering questions about why the contaminants continue to show up in the drinking water, if all of the jet fuel has been safely drained from the tanks.
Just as the ceremony on the USS Missouri was getting underway last week, the DOH and DOE issued an advisory saying the water at Hickam Elementary School was safe to drink after high levels of TPH, total petroleum hydrocarbons, were initially found earlier in the year.
Retests showed the water was safe. So that's still the other mystery — what's in the water and where is it coming from?
This story aired on The Conversation on April 3, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1. Sophia McCullough adapted this story for the web.
