Page 5 - Navy Closure Task News Today

The military began removing “residual” fuel from the Navy’s underground Red Hill Fuel Farm on Monday, marking the beginning of the next phase of the facility’s closure.

The military began removing residual fuel from the Navy’s underground Red Hill Fuel Farm on Monday, marking the beginning of the next phase of the facility’s closure.

Recommendations include: extra training for personnel responding to residents’ questions and concerns; development of pamphlets outlining sampling and testing processes and use of the JBPHH Safe Waters website; and a plan to extend the LTM program beyond its originally planned end date of March 2024. 

In a video released Wednesday, the military officer charged with defueling the Navy’s underground Red Hill fuel facility pledged that “every last drop will be removed.”

Joint Task Force Red Hill began removing the fuel in October after more than a year of making repairs to the World War II-era facility and the pipelines that connect it to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.

The Navy’s plan to permanently shutter the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility will soon involve a different entity: the Navy Closure Task Force-Red Hill.

The Navy’s plan to permanently shutter the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility will soon involve the Navy Closure Task Force-Red Hill, which will replace the Joint Task Force-Red Hill, the multiservice military group tasked with defueling the underground fuel facility that secretly opened during World War II.

Two news stories breaking on Tuesday underscore, very concerningly, the uncertainty of chemical dangers that lurk below Hawaii’s picture-perfect environs.

As much as 2 million gallons of fuel may have leaked and spilled into the ground under the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility since it was built during World War II, an amount far exceeding past estimates.

Underestimate but overdeliver — that’s a good thing, especially if it pertains to the defueling of the massive tanks at the problematic Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility.