A trial for a mass environmental injury case began Monday in Honolulu, more than two years after the military's Red Hill facility poisoned thousands of people when it leaked jet fuel into Pearl Harbor's drinking water.
The lawsuit seeks compensation from the military for its admitted negligence that led to the fuel spill in 2021. The federal trial before Judge Leslie Kobayashi is expected to take about 10 days.
Kristina Baehr represents thousands of military families and civilians in various cases, including this one, against the military for Red Hill-related damages.
"Liability has been established. That means that the government has admitted that it contaminated the water. The government calls it contaminating, the people behind me call it poisoning — that has been established. And now we go forth to prove the extent of the harm," she said before entering the courthouse.
Baehr said this is a case of the government abandoning its people and how residents of Hawaiʻi supported the affected families.
The issue received national coverage on a recent episode of the CBS show "60 Minutes." Assistant Secretary of the Navy Meredith Berger and Honolulu Board of Water Supply Chief Engineer Ernie Lau were among those interviewed.
"Navy leadership has apologized for this spill but has not said that the contaminated water is the cause of the ongoing illnesses," correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi said in the "60 Minutes" segment.
Marti Townsend, the former head of the Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi, also chairs the Red Hill Community Representation Initiative. She expressed skepticism about the timing of the release of two reports by the Navy late last week.
One report included a health survey documenting how many people reported ill effects from the fuel contamination.
"It's outrageous that at this point, with how much documentation we have of the harm that people have suffered, that the Navy is still taking the position that it's mostly in people's heads. Like that's just deeply offensive and outrageous. And it goes to show they haven't learned their lesson," Townsend said.
Drinking water in six Oʻahu homes on the Navy water system tested positive for trace levels of petroleum hydrocarbons in October 2023.
A new follow-up report pointed to false positives of petroleum contamination, which the Navy believes were caused by the reaction of chlorine in the water.
The water samples were contaminated in the laboratory, said Chris Waldron, one of the experts on a "swarm team" responding to the recent complaints from residents about continuing sheens and odors in tap water.
Waldron said samples that tested positive resulted from chlorine in the drinking water interacting with the testing substances — and a different method of testing did not detect any fuel traces.
Waldron said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has “generally concurred” with the report's findings.
Meanwhile, state health officials are close to wrapping up their independent review of the water complaints filed in recent months.
This interview aired on The Conversation on April 29, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
