Honolulu Board of Water Supply sues Navy for $1.2B over Red Hill fuel leaks

By Ian Bauer

The Honolulu Board of Water Supply announced Tuesday that it has filed a federal lawsuit in connection to massive jet fuel leaks at the Navy’s Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility in 2021.

In a nearly 100-page federal civil tort complaint filed in the U.S. District Court of Hawaii, BWS says it’s suing the Navy “for negligence, nuisance, and trespass resulting in damages where the government of the United States of America, if a private party, would be liable to the BWS.”

BWS has estimated the cost of past, current and future impacts from the fuel leaks at $1.2 billion.

“This case involves tortious conduct by the United States of America, and more specifically, the United States Department of the Navy, in causing and/or allowing contaminant
releases to enter Oahu’s EPA-designated sole source aquifer, impacting the water resources upon which the BWS relies and the BWS water distribution system,” the complaint states.

“The Navy has caused, allowed, and/or failed to contain releases into the environment of substantial but indeterminate quantities of jet propellant fuel, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (‘PFAS’), and other contaminants that have entered the sole source aquifer from which the BWS withdraws potable groundwater for public use and consumption,” the lawsuit states.

“BWS seeks to hold the Navy accountable for its contaminant releases of any nature that have impacted and/or threatened the BWS’s water supply and caused the BWS both to shut down its impacted infrastructure and to incur fees, costs, and expenses to respond to the Navy’s Contaminant Releases, both actual and threatened.”

The Navy Closure Task Force, assigned to permanently shut down the Red Hill facility, declined to respond to questions about the BWS lawsuit.

“The Navy does not comment on ongoing litigation,” a Navy spokesperson said.

BWS spokesperson Kathleen Elliott-Pahinui confirmed its federal lawsuit is associated with a $1.2 billion claim the water agency filed against the Navy in 2023 in order to recover costs for its response to the Red Hill fuel leaks. Filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act, the claim asserted the Navy’s culpability for catastrophic fuel leaks that occurred at the once top-secret underground fuel facility near the mouth of Halawa Valley.

Those included a Nov. 20, 2021, incident in which 20,000 gallons of fuel leaked into the Navy’s water system, which serves 93,000 people on Oahu, including military families and civilians in former military housing areas.

But the initial BWS claim for $1.2 billion, filed with the Navy’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps in Norfolk, Va., was later rejected, according to Elliott-Pahinui.

“The Navy denied it on Jan. 10, 2025. They denied our claim and that started the clock, and we had six months to file the lawsuit if we decided to go that way,” she said. “And our board of directors made a decision (Monday) as part of their fiduciary responsibility to file the lawsuit to help recoup some of the costs that we lost in dealing with this issue for our ratepayers.”

Elliott-Pahinui said the
latest lawsuit is “at the very beginning stages of the process, and we’re not sure how long it’s going to take.”

“We can’t speculate on that,” she added.

In a subsequent news release issued Tuesday, BWS states, “The Navy itself has acknowledged responsibility for the massive environmental and human health crisis caused by the November 2021 fuel release, but it has refused to accept responsibility for the costs that the BWS has and will incur to
respond to the Navy’s
contaminant releases.

“Residents served by the Navy’s water system of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam suffered serious injuries from the November 2021 release, while the BWS’s ability to provide clean, safe, dependable water to Oahu residents was and is severely impacted,” the release said.

“To protect against contamination of its own water sources, BWS made the difficult but necessary and reasonable decision nearly
4 years ago, to shut down its Halawa Shaft and the Aiea and Halawa wells.”

In response to the fuel leaks, BWS claimed it “implemented enhanced water quality testing, started planning for additional groundwater monitoring wells and shifted to alternate water sources to make up for
lost water supplies, all in
response to the Navy’s
contaminant releases.”

BWS said “past, ongoing, and future restoration, remediation and mitigation efforts are currently estimated to total approximately $1.2 billion.”

In the aftermath of the fuel leaks, BWS claimed it detected polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs — a class of chemicals found in coal and petroleum known to cause cancer and other health issues — at its closed Aiea wells in water samples collected in May and June 2024.

The types of PAHs detected at the Aiea wells were also detected at the Navy’s monitoring well, NMW 24, in samples collected in June 2024, indicating a contaminant plume might be migrating west of the Red Hill facility.

In its federal complaint, BWS notes that to the extent it must replace its Halawa and Aiea water sources due to the Navy’s contaminant releases, the estimated cost to do so ranges from $1.18 billion to $1.43 billion.

“The BWS reserves the right to identify additional damages it has or will incur,” the lawsuit asserts.

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