It’s the first time so-called PAH’s have been detected at the shuttered wells, although regulators disagree about whether the chemicals stem from the Navy’s fuel spill. Honolulu Board of Water Supply tests taken this summer indicate that a plume of contaminants found in fuels and other industrial sources recently drifted through a pair of shuttered and sealed drinking wells in Aiea. The local water agency believes the plume of so-called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, may be linked to the Navy’s 2021 Red Hill fuel spill and that remnants of the spill, which sickened hundreds of military families through a separate water system, could be drifting further west underground.
“There’s no reason for secrecy any more, no reason not to share the complete history of the facility so we know what we’re dealing with there,” BWS Manager and Chief Engineer Ernie Lau said of the Navy’s recently closed Red Hill underground fuel storage complex. The Navy should also test more frequently and at more sites to better understand how leaked fuel and other pollutants that pose health risks are moving underground, he said. “They definitely have to install a lot more monitoring wells,” Lau said.
Traces of PAHs were detected in the local water agency’s shut-off Aiea wells first on May 13 and then on June 4 in higher amounts, according to BWS officials. The chemicals were not found in subsequent weekly test samples, leading agency officials to conclude the plume moved past that area. The fact that the PAHs weren’t found during the May 20 weekly tests could indicate that the plume was “patchy” or not evenly distributed, according to BWS Deputy Manager Erwin Kawata.
The Aiea wells are less than two miles west of the Navy’s massive underground fuel storage tanks. They were among the five wells and shafts that BWS shut down in its efforts to keep the leaked fuel out of Oahu’s municipal water supply. Those wells are sealed and no longer supply water to the public, but BWS continues to use them to test and monitor the aquifer.
PAHs are found in various industrial emissions and fuel sources, including jet fuel, and chronic exposure to the chemicals can pose risks of cancer . The state Department of Health has a set maximum exposure standard for one PAH, Benzo(a)pyrene, and it says that the levels detected at the Aiea wells were below that standard. The plume, Lau said, showed that BWS made the right call in shutting down the wells and shafts closest to Red Hill, which collectively supplied some 20% of Oahu’s municipal water.
It takes six to eight weeks to analyze the water samples, according to Lau and Kawata, so if the wells were active they would have been supplying water for weeks before the contaminants were detected. Lau last month implored regulators at the state DOH and U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency to require the Navy to be more forthcoming with information on the Red Hill fuel storage facility’s 80-year history. State and federal regulators responded to the recent findings by expressing doubt about whether the plume stemmed from Red Hill. In a joint letter sent to BWS, DOH and EPA asked the water agency for more information on its testing methodology.
The regulators further wondered whether the PAHs instead stemmed from the nearby Aiea Sugar Mill, which closed in 1947, or from recent heavy rains and runoff from roads. Separate samples taken by the Navy and provided to Civil Beat by BWS appear to corroborate the water agency’s results for the PAH plume, detecting the chemicals in roughly the same area and roughly the same time frame. However, the Navy said in a statement Monday that it does not concur with BWS’ conclusion that the contaminants stem from Red Hill based on its own testing from more than 40 groundwater monitoring wells around that area.
Generally, Lau said, the reports that the Navy shares with BWS are heavily redacted and don’t include maps showing the area’s underground geology, the location of monitoring wells and tables with results on what the military branch is finding in its water tests. “What we need them to do is become transparent,” he said. It makes sense to redact information where there’s a true national security reason, he said.
Otherwise, “they should be willing to share this info about a facility that’s destined for permanent closure.” Read BWS’ entire report on its test results at the Aiea wells here: Civil Beat’s community health coverage is supported by the Cooke Foundation , Atherton Family Foundation and Papa Ola Lokahi . As a nonprofit newsroom, we rely on the generosity of readers like you to keep all of our stories and resources free during election season—and every day.
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