Red Hill defueling to begin in October

HONOLULU (KHON2) — The Department of Defense is moving up its timeline for the defueling of Red Hill.

In its supplement to its defueling plan submitted Tuesday, May 16 to the EPA, State Health Department and the public, Joint Task Force Red Hill projects it will begin the process on October 16; and the process will end by January 19, 2024.

Initially, the Navy expected defueling to take until June of 2024.

This process will remove 99.85% — or 104 million gallons of fuel — from the tanks.

“This supplement to the defueling plan presents a detailed roadmap and timeline for work we must accomplish and identifies the conditions that need to be met to begin the safe and expeditious removal of fuel from the facility ahead of our original plan,” said Vice Adm. John Wade, commander, JTF-Red Hill.

Wade went on to explain further.

“It describes responsibilities, approvals, and safety requirements that need to be accomplished for each step. Defueling Supplement 2 is a result of finding efficiencies in our facility repair and defueling process. We are grateful for the collective partnership, collaboration and coordination of the EPA and DOH, added Vice Adm. Wade.

Between 100,000 and 400,000 gallons will remain, which will be addressed at a later time.

The DOD indicated that in order to avoid any confusion or ambiguity and “in the spirit of transparency”, they said they acknowledge the probability that a substantial amount of fuel (between 100,000 and 400,000 gallons) will remain in RHBFSF at the conclusion of this stage of defueling.

DOD also said that they will provide additional supplements to comprehensively address all additional actions necessary to ensure removal of all fuel from RHBFSF.