'This is egregious,' said one Hawaiian official, noting that the firefighting foam spilled at a notorious Naval facility contains forever chemicals and 'groundwater contamination could be devastating to our aquifer.'
The Navy said Tuesday that"the AFFF release is not related to the ongoing defueling effort" but the Joint Task Force-Red Hill—established by the U.S. Department of Defense to defuel the complex—is aware of the incident.During a media briefing, Navy officials said the leak occurred during a maintenance activity run by engineers and contractors that work with the Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command.
The aim of the exercise was to ensure the system works, according to Navy Adm. John Wade, but something went terribly wrong. During the incident, the entire contents of the AFFF storage tank—1,100 gallons—were drained, Navy officials said. They said the foam was released via a system pipeline, but they did not specify whether it came out of a broken pipe or an open valve. The cause of the leak is under investigation, they said.
"This is egregious," said Kathleen Ho, deputy director of environmental health at DOH."AFFF contains PFAS forever chemicals—groundwater contamination could be devastating to our aquifer." "While details are limited at this time, the Joint Task Force and Navy need to be transparent about how this happened," Ho added."Regulators will hold the Department of Defense accountable and will press the operator to take any and all appropriate corrective action throughout the defueling and decommissioning process."reported that Wade agreed the situation is"serious" and added that"after talking with Ms. Ho, I don't disagree with what she said.
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