A Navy official blamed poor workmanship and poor quality control during routine repairs for the 27,000-gallon leak in January of jet fuel from a tank at the military’s Red Hill fuel facility. Even so, he assured a state task force investigating the matter that other tanks that have been repaired the same way over the past decade or so are just fine – despite the fact that state Department of Health officials are finding contamination levels in a well near the facility that exceed safe drinking water standards.
The Navy reported earlier this year that it had spot-tested about four dozen of the more than 600 patches inside Tank 5 and found 17 had the potential to leak. At the Red Hill Task Force meeting on October 7, Navy Captain Mike Williamson said, “to be completely safe and make sure we’ve covered anything that could possibly go wrong,” the Navy’s contractor will now be vacuum-box testing all patches applied to Tank 5.
Williamson described how the Navy maintains its 20 underground storage tanks at Red Hill, each of which is 100 feet in diameter, 220 feet high, and 70 years old. He said that every couple of decades, the Navy takes three tanks out of operation, and then proceeds to clean, inspect, and repair them. Tank walls are tested for thickness using magnetic resonance imaging and ultrasonic testing, in addition to visual inspection. Quarter-inch plates are placed on thinned areas so that over the next two decades, the tank walls, which gradually corrode, will get no thinner than a tenth of an inch, he said.
“By the time you get back into the tank 20 years from now you want .1 inch left,” he said. Another Navy representative said that standard complies with those set by the American Petroleum Institute for above-ground tanks.
He said that work was stopped on the two other tanks taken out of service at the same time as Tank 5, while “we did forensics on Tank 5 [and identified] what processes, procedures, workmanship issues needed to be addressed.”
Gary Gill, head of the state Department of Health’s Environmental Health Administration, asked which tanks had already gone through the Navy’s repair cycle and when.
Williamson listed five tanks, in addition to Tank 5, that had gone through the “service life extension process.” Another Navy official estimated that the most recent round of repairs were done in 2000.
Steve Linder of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency asked how many spots in Tank 14, one of the three that are currently out of operation, had been identified for repair or service life extension. Williamson did not have an answer, but said that that information would be included in an inspection report he would be submitting later.
Honolulu Board of Water Supply’s Ernest Lau asked how the Navy determined the rate of corrosion.
“We look at the last time this tank was touched, the wall thickness, and divide by 20 years,” Williamson said. “We’ve got a pretty good feel of the corrosion rate.”
“At some points in the tanks, the corrosion rates were 300-plus years before you hit that minimum. In places [where] you have a nick or a weld, in 70 years we’ve reached a threshold to put a plate on it. I don’t have an average rate. It’s specific to the tank. It varies from 20 years to 380 years or greater,” he said.
In the case of Tank 5, Williamson said the Navy will ensure that qualified observers oversee the repairs full-time. When asked how long it will take to vacuum-box test the 600 “life extension” plates, he said, “as long as it’s going to take. There’s no rush. The purpose is to do it the right way.”
Both Gill and Linder asked Williamson about the accuracy of the technologies being used to measure wall thickness. Linder asked whether any feasibility studies on different techniques had been done to see which would provide the best resolution.
“Good question,” Williamson said. He answered simply that as technology progresses, the Navy would require contractors to imple- ment the most current technology.
“We’ve requested the latest technology to be used in the tanks. Are we using the latest and greatest? I don’t know,” he said.
Water Monitoring
Williamson acknowledged that total petroleum hydrocarbon diesel (TPHD) levels in its groundwater monitoring well Number 2, located near Tank 5, spiked around the time of the leak, as well as once during 2008.
The January spike reached action levels, but has since receded to historic levels, he said. Gill noted that historic levels persistently show contamination. And according to an official with the DOH’s Hazard Evaluation and Emergency Response branch, those levels exceed the 100 parts per billion limit for drinking water or wells above a drinking water aquifer.
“In the last monitoring, it was 1200 ppb,” he said, adding that it has gone as low as 300 to 400 ppb. However, he said, the contami- nation doesn’t appear to be moving toward the Navy pump station.
Williamson admitted that the contamina- tion was consistently above drinking water levels, but added that levels remain well below action levels in the Navy’s monitoring plan.
The HEER staffer tried to explain the discrepancy, stating that the Navy’s 2008 groundwater protection plan may have allowed TPHD levels to exceed safe drinking water levels because those standards are “always being revised”.
The Navy was to have completed the installation of two new monitoring wells to help track any migration of contaminants from the Red Hill facility. Aaron Poentis of the Naval Facilities Engineering Command
Hawai‘i said the good news is that neither of the wells, which had already been drilled at the time of the meeting, showed any staining that might indicate contamination from either the January spill or any historical releases.
In addition, Williamson said the Navy planned last month to drill small holes in the base of Tank 5 to suck out with a vacuum box any fuel that might be trapped between the tank wall and the surrounding concrete. Any recovered product would also be age-tested, he said.
“As you know, I volunteered to do that myself,” Gill joked.
A plan for the Navy’s work at Red Hill has yet to be submitted to the task force. At the meeting, it was clear that Lau and Williamson disagreed on what its scope should be.
Williamson said the plan will address Tank 5 only. Lau, however, said he thought the plan should address how the entire 250- million gallon, 20-tank facility should be managed and how leaks should be monitored.
“We’ve been also clear that two wells is a good start but it shouldn’t end there,” Lau said. “We don’t believe it’s adequate to characterize the site.”
Some are hoping the EPA’s proposed new regulations for underground storage tanks will prompt more changes at Red Hill. The rules require the installation of monitoring devices and double walls, as well as systems that address spills and overflow, among other things, in all field tanks. Those improvements would need to be completed within three years, according to BWS’s Barry Usagawa. Linder said the EPA may adopt them some time within the next six months, but added that he wasn’t sure how they would affect the Red Hill facility. In any case, the state will still have to adopt administrative rules to mirror the federal rules. Despite the pressure from Lau and others to improve the entire Red Hill facility, Williamson said it wouldn’t happen any time soon.
“It will probably take 20 years for us to fold in all the tanks into a secondary containment configuration,” he said.
The Navy has already addressed wall thinning in five tanks, he continued.
“In terms of those tanks leaking in the future, we’ve got a high degree of confidence … we’ve got a safe facility going forward,” he said.
When Red Hill will have secondary containment is “just a matter of when the technology is available that supports tanks of this size and configuration,” he said.
Water Commission
At a meeting of the Commission on Water Resource Management held about a week before the task force meeting, commissioner Jonathan Starr wanted to know whether the Navy had admitted that having such a large, old, single-wall steel, underground facility, “in the middle of probably the state’s most productive aquifer and well fields,” was not sustainable.
“I think there’s some evidence they have a problem whether they admit it or not,” said commission geologist Patrick Casey, who represents the Water Commission on the task force.
“The tanks are pretty difficult to deal with. The Navy’s position is they will want to maintain them,” he said. “There’s some effort on their part to protect the resources.”
Starr said that given that the Navy has not said that it will be replacing the tanks or lining them with a second wall, “what it sounds like to me is the Navy is stonewalling and they are going to continue to string us along until another one blows out and spills.”
“We’re looking at an existential situation,” he continued. He added that as a water commissioner, he felt some responsi- bility for protecting O‘ahu’s water supply.
“To a certain extent, we’re responsible now that we know about it,” he said.
DOH director Linda Rosen, who also serves on the Water Commission, said the Navy has admitted that the tank leaked, but has not agreed on how serious an impact a future leak would have on the water supply.
Commissioner Kamana Beamer asked staff about the role the Water Commission might play in enforcing laws to protect water.
“Can we enforce policy? … I agree with Jonathan’s concerns. We are trustees of the water,” he said. He added that while he supported the defense of the country, “if we’re poisoning our aquifers, that’s not a form of defense.”
“The DOD has a serious budget. I’m not moved by the argument it’s going to cost a lot of money [to upgrade the tanks],” he said. Water Commis- sion director William Tam said the commission clearly has some authority here, adding that perhaps the commission could start a dialogue with the Navy on the maintenance and moni- toring of the facility.
Starr said if there is ever again a major leak from the facility, and it makes its way to O‘ahu’s drinking water sup- plies, it could “threaten the ability of Honolulu to continue as a great city.”
Rosen agreed that it would be ap- propriate for the Water Commission to encourage more discussion with the Navy. She said the Navy needs to know all of the different parties that want to hold it accountable.
“One of the things frankly that concerns me, we can ask for transparency, we can ask for answers, that’s not always the way it works with the military,” she said. “They didn’t think they needed to tell anybody [about the leak].”
However, she added, “If you poke them too hard, they clam up and don’t have to tell you anything.”
Starr said that at the commission’s meeting in November, he would like staff to provide an analysis of the legal framework regarding the Water Commission’s responsibility and authority to press for action regarding Red Hill. — Teresa Dawson
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