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Navy says Red Hill defueling complete; tank cleaning, pipeline removal and long‑term site assessment continue
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Summary
Navy officials briefed FTAC on tank cleaning progress, pipeline pigging, environmental monitoring and drinking water recovery; regulators described oversight and next steps, including a site assessment that will inform remediation and monitoring into the 2030s.
Navy representatives told the Fuel Tank Advisory Committee on Oct. 1 that defueling at the Red Hill bulk fuel facility is complete and that work has moved into tank cleaning, pipeline removal and a multi‑phase environmental site assessment.
Rear Admiral Mark Williams, speaking for the Navy, said, "we are on plan to close and decommission the bulk fuel storage facility, per the regulatory agencies' approved plans and schedules." Commander Ben Dunn, deputy for environment and remediation, described a multi‑step tank cleaning protocol that includes preparation, degassing, center‑tower and catwalk repairs, pressure washing and third‑party wipe verification.
What the Navy reported: The Navy said eight tanks are in cleaning or preparation stages. Pressure washing is complete on some tanks; others are being prepped for degassing, which the Navy expects to begin in the weeks ahead. A cloth‑wipe test has been used to evaluate interior tank cleanliness; where wipes show visible residue, officials plan more detailed wipe sampling with solvent‑soaked wipes evaluated by ASTM methods for extractable petroleum hydrocarbons (EPH), volatile petroleum hydrocarbons (VPH), semi‑volatile organic compounds (SVOCs), metals and total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) fractions.
Pipeline removal and recovered fuel volumes: The Navy reported that pipeline cleaning ("pigging") of roughly 10 miles of internal facility piping is underway and that contractors have recaptured residual fuel as those lines are cleaned. The Navy gave these partial tallies: approximately 480 gallons recovered from the F‑24 pipeline, about 1,300 gallons from a JP‑5 line, and about 730 gallons from an F‑76 line (total >2,500 gallons recovered from pigging). Combined with tank cleaning capture, Navy officials said they had recaptured 4,034 gallons of fuel to date.
Environmental monitoring and remediation process: Commander Dunn said the Navy is executing a phased site assessment to locate historic releases and to define the nature and extent of contamination; that work is being coordinated with the Hawaii Department of Health and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The Navy is performing groundwater monitoring, installing sentinel wells off‑site, conducting a soil vapor extraction pilot, and running a groundwater modeling program. Dunn described the site assessment as "deliberative, data‑driven and iterative."
Drinking water monitoring and well recovery: Navy officials said the extended drinking water monitoring program (EDWM) for the Joint Base Pearl Harbor‑Hickam public water system has concluded and that, to date, the Navy reports it has collected more than 16,000 drinking water samples without detecting fuel during the EDWM period. The Navy said two production wells (the Aiea‑Halawa shaft and Red Hill Shaft) are being pursued for recovery; the Aiea‑Halawa shaft reactivation is a few months away pending final engineering and Department of Health (DOH) inspection and approval, while Red Hill Shaft is further from reactivation and will require additional treatment infrastructure and regulatory concurrence.
Regulators' oversight and timelines: Joanna Seto, administrator of DOH's Environmental Management Division, and Allison Fong, assistant director of EPA Region 9's RCRA branch, described ongoing review of closure designs, site assessment plans and pilot studies. EPA and DOH said they have conditionally approved parts of the Navy's phase‑1 closure plan and will continue oversight of degassing, pressure washing, pipeline removal and sampling verification. EPA said the Navy completed defueling in March 2024 (removal of about 104,000,000 gallons) and that facility closure work is expected to continue through mid‑2029 with environmental remediation and long‑term monitoring continuing later into the 2030s.
Why it matters: The briefings outline the near‑term path for preventing future large releases (defueling and infrastructure removal), for measuring whether contamination persists in soils and groundwater, and for restoring drinking water production. Regulators emphasized the iterative nature of the work and that additional data from site assessment will inform remedial selection.
Ending: Navy and regulators told FTAC members they will continue regular public engagement, post technical reports and updates to the Navy Safe Waters and Closure Task Force sites, and return to FTAC with updated sampling results and closure reports.
