PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii — The Navy announced this week that an improperly installed part and the failure to properly perform maintenance caused the AFFF firefighting foam to spill last November.
The investigation, led by Maj. Gen. Richard Heitkamp, the deputy commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, blamed the Nov. 29, 2022, spill on two factors. First, a maintenance contractor hired by the Navy improperly installed an air vacuum valve during a temporary modification to the AFFF fire suppression system at the Red Hill facility in April 2022. Second, employees from that same company failed to disable the AFFF pumps from automatically starting prior to running tests on the fire suppression system on Nov. 29, 2022.
The investigation also revealed that it took at least 20 minutes before the AFFF spill was noticed by a contractor, who was working a different maintenance job. After the contractor noticed the spill, it took him another eight minutes to report the spill because there was no accessible phone or radio.
During the spill, 13,000 gallons of a concentrated form of AFFF was released, with some seeping out of the Red Hill facility. AFFF contains PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals,” because they are slow to degrade. PFAS has been linked to many health problems.
The AFFF spill came after the 2021 fuel spill that contaminated drinking water for 93,000 residents. Both of these incidents eroded Hawaii residents' trust in the Navy.
“This mishap was preventable,” said Vice Admiral John Wade, who is the commander of the Red Hill Joint Task Force, during a news conference on Friday. He apologized on behalf of the Department of Defense.
Wade said that during testing on Nov. 29, the AFFF pump turned on and fluid started to move through a pipe, then reached the valve that was improperly installed. The foam then entered another pipe and overflowed, seeping under the door of the facility and onto a road, where it eventually pooled.
“The bottom line is that this mishap was caused by human error, and it was preventable,” Wade said.
Despite contractor errors, Wade said the Navy was to blame, citing shortcomings in the Navy’s quality assurance process, including the Navy’s failure to identify the improperly installed valve and to oversee the maintenance on Nov. 29.
Wade said he submitted a draft proposal to the EPA and Department of Health for the defueling of Red Hill that identifies an alternative to AFFF and is currently awaiting their approval.
“If the EPA and DOH do not approve that, and we have to — for safety for defueling, reintroduce AFFF — before we do so, I will personally validate the integrity of the AFFF system,” Wade said.
Rep. Jill Tokuda, who is a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that the investigation makes clear that "there are systemic problems."
"The Navy needs to act now to hold people accountable for this spill and ensure that its continued work to remediate and close Red Hill meets the standards of quality and safety that the people of Hawai‘i deserve. Moving forward, we need to ensure that our people and our business are the ones leading efforts and doing the work to remediate, restore and protect Hawaii's precious resources and environment,” Tokuda said. “In March, our congressional delegation requested a third-party investigation by the Government Accountability Office into the Navy’s procedures and practices to protect human health and the environment from PFAS at Red Hill. I look forward to reviewing the results of that investigation when it is completed."
After the AFFF spill, a video of the mishap was shared by the Navy with the EPA and DOH. Wade said initially the video was not released to the public because “it could have impacted the integrity of the investigation.” However, once it was determined by investigators that the video did not reveal any additional information about the cause of the spill, Wade said he made the decision not to release the video to the public until the investigation was complete. The redacted video can be viewed here.
He said the video does show several contractors and Navy civilian personnel stepping through the AFFF-concentrate without protective gear, which he described as dangerous for their health and for the environment.
Wade also said he did a review of the cameras in the Red Hill facility and determined many no longer worked. Before the defueling process begins, he said video cameras will be installed.
Michelle Broder Van Dyke covers the Hawaiian Islands for Spectrum News Hawaii. Email her at michelle.brodervandyke@charter.com.