Pentagon announces new Red Hill defueling timeline to be completed by July 2024

The 24 Red Hill fuel tanks sitting just 100 feet above an aquifer are expected to be fully defueled by July 2024. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser first reported the news that the Pentagon planned to move its timeline up by five months while also revealing that Department of Health officials are awaiting yet another supplemental plan in this process. A supplemental plan released earlier this week may well get rejected by the Department of Health, which rejected the Navy’s initial plan for lack of information.

With the latest supplemental plan, details are vague for seemingly everything from key safety measures to be taken during the defueling process to environmental concerns, though the Environmental Protection Agency is in agreement with the Defense Department (DoD) that the plan is “iterative,” and could therefore change along the way. Attention to detail seems to be lacking on the Navy’s side of things according to yet another amazing work of reporting from the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. As the Red Hill water crisis was unfolding, hundreds of water samples were never tested.