Fuel in tap water alarms Pearl Harbor military families | World News - Hindustan Times
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Fuel in tap water alarms Pearl Harbor military families

AP | , Honululu
Dec 04, 2021 03:34 AM IST

“It was just getting worse every day,” said Burness, whose husband is in the Navy.

Cheri Burness' dog was the first to signal something was wrong with their tap water. He stopped drinking it two weeks ago. Then Burness started feeling stomach cramps. Her 12-year-old daughter was nauseous.

This photo shows a tunnel inside the Red Hill Underground Fuel Storage Facility in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.(AP)
This photo shows a tunnel inside the Red Hill Underground Fuel Storage Facility in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.(AP)

“It was just getting worse every day,” said Burness, whose husband is in the Navy.

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Their family is among hundreds of military families living near Pearl Harbor with similar complaints amid concerns the Navy's water system may have been contaminated by a fuel leak. The problems have afflicted one of the most important Navy bases in the world, home to submarines, ships and the commander of US forces in the Indo-Pacific region. The issues may even threaten one of Honolulu's most important aquifers and water sources.

This week, the state Department of Health said a sample of Navy tap water from an elementary school had tested positive for petroleum product. The Navy says its water samples haven't shown the presence of fuel. But Hawaii's public health officials have told people using Navy water — some 93,000 people — not to drink it. Navy water users who smell a fuel or chemical odor should not use their water for showering, laundry or washing dishes, they said.

Neither the Navy nor the state has identified where the fuel or fuel odor is coming from. They are investigating.

But on Nov. 22, the Navy said a water and fuel mixture had leaked into a fire suppression system drain line in a tunnel at a massive fuel storage facility 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) inland of Pearl Harbor. The Navy said it removed about 14,000 gallons (53 kiloliters) of the mixture, and said the liquid hadn’t leaked into the environment.

In the days after Thanksgiving, Burness’s daughter felt so sick she didn’t want to eat any leftovers, including potatoes, turnips and carrots that had been boiled in water.

“‘I don’t want you to have to throw out food because I know it’s expensive, but I can’t eat this Mom,’” Burness said her daughter told her.

On Sunday, Burness started seeing comments on social media from military families saying their tap water smelled like fuel. She didn’t smell it, but people told her to turn on her hot water and check. She did and smelled it too.

She told her family not to drink the water and not to wash their hair and face with it. She ordered private water delivery for $120 a month. They family has mostly been eating off of plastic and paper plates and eating out.

On Monday, when she gave her dog some bottled water, he immediately drank a full liter's worth and then drank two more liters over the next 12 hours.

The Navy has since starting distributing bottled water.

Burness said her stomach cramps are about 85% better, but not fully. Her daughter's nausea has improved. But they are both now complaining of breathing issues.

Burness has been frustrated with the Navy's response, which she believes has been dismissive of families' concerns. She pointed to a Monday email from the commander of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam that told residents the Navy was testing water samples but it had no immediate indication the water wasn't safe. His email said he and his staff were drinking the water.

“All they had to do was say; ‘We see that there’s a problem, we don’t know what it is and we’re going to do whatever it takes to find out and fix it.’ That’s all they had to do. And instead, we got: ‘Nope. Looks good. Smells fine. Bye,'” Burness said.

Navy Region Hawaii, which oversees all Navy installations in the state, said the commander's email was sent when “numbers of concerns were still very low.”

“Since then, the Navy has aggressively increased sampling, testing, communication to families and others impacted, as well as started response teams of experts to address the issues we all are facing,” the command said in a statement.

On Thursday, the Army, which houses some Hawaii-based soldiers in the Pearl Harbor area with Navy water, said families could go to a community center for help moving to a hotel or a new home or to talk to a health care professional.

The Nov. 22 tunnel leak was only the latest involving the Red Hill Fuel Storage Facility, a complex of 20 underground fuel tanks built during World War II. Environmentalists and Honolulu's municipal water utility have expressed concerns about these aging tanks since the Navy disclosed one of them leaked 27,000 gallons (102 kiloliters) in 2014.

The tanks sit 100 feet (30 meters) above an aquifer that supplies about a quarter of the water consumed in Honolulu, prompting concerns that leaks could contaminate one of the city's most crucial water sources.

Burness said her experience has shaken her confidence in the military. During her decades as a military spouse, she's always believed in doing whatever it takes to support “the mission.”

“This has destroyed all of that,” she said. “I have zero confidence at this point, and I think this has shown that they cannot be trusted with anything."

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