 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. Good afternoon. Welcome to Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers, and Reformers Politics in Hawaii series. I'm your host, Carl Campania. Today we're going to be talking about Red Hill. We're going to be getting a bunch of updates we can get, but sort of an understanding of what's been going on, where we are, and maybe some ideas for what we want to do or where we're headed and what's coming next. To give some context, Red Hill is a series of tanks. We'll find out exactly how many tanks of fuel that have been installed, that were installed secretly, originally, that were installed so that we had fuel for the military. It's a military installation of fuel tanks, 27 million, I don't know, some large quantity of fuel. We'll learn more about that as well. To store it for pending war so that no matter what the situation and the circumstances were with regards to war, the military always had access in Hawaii to fuel for ships and planes and so forth. So that was the intent of Red Hill. It was kept secret for a long time. It has been discovered, and we'll find out more about that as much as we can. And find out really the circumstances of that discovery and some of the things such as the leak that happened and whether there was more than one. So to have this conversation is someone who actually knows a lot more about this than me. I know that much. I'm really excited and welcome to the show, Jodi Malinowski, from the Sierra Club. So thank you. Thank you for having us. You've been on the show before, not on the show. You've been on ThinkTech before, so you're familiar with what's going on. But for the audience that pays attention to this show, first of all, tell us a bit about you and what you do and how you got where you are. Sure. Well, I was born on Kauai, raised on Oahu. I went to the University of Hawaii, and I got my degree in environmental studies. So I've always been kind of an environmentalist. I started working for the Sierra Club as their Oahu group coordinator, which is the first ever staff person that they've had about a year ago to focus specifically on environmental issues, some social justice and economic justice issues here on Oahu. So my job is to do a lot of legislative advocacy at the Honolulu City Council level, also deal with fundraising and membership building for the Sierra Club, helping lead the different programs in conservation and outings, and making it all run smoothly, hopefully. So Red Hill is one of the, it's a Hawaii chapter issue. So it's something that our chapter, at the chapter level, has recognized as being its priority. But because it is on Oahu, I also focus on Red Hill and kind of facilitating the advocacy and outreach and making sure people know about it. Sure. Would you say at the moment you're the lead for Red Hill as far as the outreach and communications? We're in the transition of hiring a new person to focus on Hawaii chapter issues. So I do do some of it, but I think our director, Marty Townsend, does a great deal more of explaining the issue, really getting in the weeds. And she knows all the nuances of Red Hill, so she is fabulous. Yes, well, I thank you for being on the show. I've invited her. I know she's very busy trying to get her on the show as well. Sometime in the future would be great. But anyway, OK, tell us now, OK, let's Sierra Club. Tell us, if you would, about the Hawaii chapter of Sierra Club. Sure. The Sierra Club is unique as an environmental nonprofit organization that we focus on pretty much all environmental issues. So water security is a big one. We're focusing on water here as well as some of the issues in East Maui about the diversions of water from the sugar plantations. So water is an issue, ensuring local food security and agriculture, preserving our agriculture lands, our conservation lands, from development. A lot of the lobbying I do is on development, especially on Oahu, as you can, they're trying to develop a lot. And there's a balance that we need to strike. Yes, absolutely. And we focus on everything from complete streets, smart growth, transitory development. Sierra Club National has a priority with clean energy. So we do a lot of clean energy work. So really everything under the sun. There's a lot, and Hawaii is under the sun. So there we go. So excellent. OK, well, thank you for that. Appreciate that, to get some education on Sierra Club and some of your initiatives there. So that's wonderful. Now as far as Red Hill. Red Hill is a big issue. And it's a big issue for a lot of people. A lot of people like to downplay it. Can you give us a little brief history on Red Hill, where we are at the moment, and what has happened in the near past? OK, so Red Hill is a bulk fuel storage facility that was built by the Navy. It's still operated by the Navy. It's located in Red Hill in Moanalua. And Red Hill is a facility with 20 very, very large tanks. They are 100 feet wide by 200 feet tall, each tank. And there's 20 of them. So each tank can hold like 12.5 million gallons of jet fuel. Wow, so 12.5 times 20. Right. Million. Right. So I think that's like over 200 million gallons of fuel capacity. The fuel is for jets and ships. It's buried in the mountains. It was built in the 1940s. And the tanks are getting pretty old now, because they were built in the 1940s. Because they were built in the 1940s? Yes. With 40s technology. Yeah. And 40s materials. Yes. Yes. Yes, people died to build Red Hill. It was a big deal. Yeah. It was crazy. Wow. So anyway, these tanks are located in the middle, buried in the mountain of Red Hill. And unfortunately, the bottom of the tanks are located only 100 feet above a sole source aquifer for Oahu. Yes. So that's the main issue, is these tanks are buried in the mountains 100 feet over our aquifer that serves residents and visitors from the Moanalua to Hawai'i Kai area. So that's a large. Very large chunk of Oahu gets water from Red Hill, or the Moanalua wells and the Halava shaft specifically. The two nearest wells to the Red Hill. And like I mentioned, these tanks are very old. There have been over 30 documented leaks. 30. There have been 30 documented leaks. OK, I wasn't aware of that number. Yeah. Since 1940s? Yes. But of course, because it was 40s technology and it was kept a secret, the facility wasn't disclosed until the 80s. There's kind of primitive methodology of tracking how many leaks there are. It's like basically, you look at old Navy notebooks. It says, like, one drop per hour for five days. So it's hard to calculate how much exactly has leaked. The most recent large leak was in 2014. In January 2014, the Navy reported a 27,000-gallon leak from Red Hill. Yeah, that's the one that most people are familiar about. OK, so January 2014, they reported a 27,000-gallon leak. How did they learn about this? How did they discover this? So tank number five, which is the tank that leaked, was undergoing a maintenance called a tank tightening test. As they were refilling the tank with fuel, the Navy's contractors noticed that there were alarms going off. Like, there's something happening. But they didn't necessarily believe something was happening because they were just undergoing the tank tightening test. So they were like, oh, nothing can be happening. We're just undergoing this maintenance. Must be a false alarm. So a couple days go by, and then they realize, oops, there's been a leak. So at that point, they reported it to the State Department. OK, so 27,000-gallons over a period of time. I believe the alarms were going off for three days. So 27,000-gallons leaked within three days. That's my understanding. Were they able to stop the leak at some point? I think what they did was they stopped filling up the tank, and then they emptied that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they realized it was leaking, and then like, OK. So there was a level in the tank where it started to leak. Is that what it was, or was it down at the bottom, or was it? I'm not sure. What happened exactly? I was not there. Yeah, well, it would be great. And I know there's some technology that can do some of this, is to get an unmanned vehicle, the little monitoring unmanned vehicle that can get in there and swoop around and do that sort of an inspection. That technology exists. I don't know that it's being employed, but that would be a great way of maintaining that. Now, speaking of maintenance of the tanks, what do you know as far as the regularity of the maintenance? You said that they discovered this because they were doing a tank tightening, and alarms were going off. OK, how often are these tanks maintained? I don't know the exact number. I know that they do, since the leak happens, they do quarterly groundwater monitoring reports. I know the tanks, because there's 20 of them, they're in various stages of upgrades each one of being inspected and given the upgrades that are necessary. But as far as the timeliness of how frequently they do certain tests, I'm not too sure of that. I know they have monitoring on it so that if things like a leak happens, they do get the bells and the whistles going off. So they know that something's happening. No, I heard that there was more to it than just the three days, that they were aware that the inspections or the testing for this particular tank or some of these tanks had been sort of ignored for a while. Do you know more about that? That's just a story that I heard. I don't know if there's a reality to that, or as people talk with rumors about what's going on. The three days is one thing, but was there a history of ignoring these bells before? Well, I think it might be safe to say that because the public didn't know about the tanks until the 80s, that there is a lot of unknowns about what has happened at Red Hill. I guess that's a fair statement. Yeah, right. So, sure. 40 years of nobody knowing or saying anything about anything. Yeah, and then they were disclosed in the 80s and of course we still kind of don't know the exact amount or what has happened. Do you know the conditions that forced them or that made the disclosure happen? You aware of that? It's going back a long time. Yeah, I'm not too sure. I wanna say that it must have been a process where the Department of Health was trying to identify the tanks, the field constructed underground storage tanks. So, maybe they initiated a process where they were looking for things. I'm not too sure on why exactly the tanks were disclosed. I just found that interesting because they held it for 40 years and then they disclosed it. I was wondering if there was a specific event or what caused them to disclose it. That might be something interesting to know. Okay, now let's talk a little bit about the 27,000 gallons again. Let's go back to that. 27,000 gallons in three days. There have been a lot of rumors about and a lot of theories about the 27,000 gallons. Some people believe that, and clearly if it's over three days, it didn't evaporate. One of the stories was that it evaporated. It didn't actually leak into anything and that just evaporated. What has been done or what can be done to determine whether there was actually a leak and where it might be? Some people have suggested that it's actually still contained within the concrete and never actually got out into the ground area and ground water. Do we have any way of knowing that? I think it's hard to, without being there and being a hydrologist or a geologist, it's hard for me to say. I've never been to the facility. I have not had the pleasure of my invitation being accepted to go but there have been tests of the basalt rock underneath the tanks, the 20 tanks. So this is outside the concrete, right? 19 out of the 20 tanks show petroleum-based staining in the rock underneath the tank. So it is safe to assume that there has been some sort of leak at some point, whether or not it's recent or, yeah. As far as the 27,000 gallons, we still continue to see with the ground water monitoring reports that they do quarterly that there are still trace amounts of petroleum-based contamination in the monitoring wells. There's like a system of, I think, 12 monitoring wells around the facility and the ones closest to tank number five are the ones that have the contamination. So these are chemicals like TPHD, which is a form of diesel fuel, methanapoline, napoline. So like a petroleum-based contamination, very, very small amounts but they still are detected in the ground water. So I think it's safe to assume that there is some fuel that has leaked actually out of the tank because we're pulling it out of the ground water and seeing that there is a small amount. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. I think that actually is, specifically if you're able to look at the entire perimeter of the facility and say that there is higher concentration around this tank that leaked, it clearly suggests, in a way, that there was a leak and that it had gotten there. And the fact that there are trace amounts within the water at all is also a cause for concern. But then, yeah. So okay, surprise. We're already at the middle of the show. The show goes really quickly. So thank you for joining us. And when we come back, we're gonna talk about your efforts of what you've been doing and what you're planning on doing still. So thank you for joining us. This is Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers and Reformers, Politics in Hawaii series. I'm your host, Carl Campania. And once again, thanks to Ms. Jody Malinowski of the Sierra Club talking to us about Red Hill. See you in a minute. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii, which streams live on thinktechhawaii.com, uploads to YouTube, and broadcasts on cable OC16 and O'Lello 54. Great content for Hawaii from Think Tech. Living in this crazy world, so far up in the confusion, nothing is making sense. We all play a role in keeping our community safe. Every day we move in and out of each other's busy lives. It's easy to take for granted all the little moments that make up our every day. Some are good, others not so much. But that's life. It's when something doesn't seem quite right that it's time to pay attention. Because only you know what's not supposed to be in your every day. So protect your every day. If you see something suspicious, say something to local authorities. Good afternoon, welcome back to Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers and Reformers, Politics in Hawaii series. Again, I'm your host, Carl Campania. And we have with us today Ms. Jody Malinowski from the Sierra Club. We are discussing Red Hill, the issues and concerns, a bit of history. And now for this segment, for this last segment, we're gonna talk about what has been going on, what Sierra Club has been doing, their outreach program, and what we can expect going forward. So with that, once again, welcome to the show, Jody Malinowski. So tell us, since 2014, there's been an awareness campaign. Tell us about that campaign, what you've been doing and then I know there was a specific initiative this summer. So tell us a bit about the overall campaign and then what you've done this summer. So the overall campaign is to get more people on the ground aware of what's happening. Like I mentioned, the water underneath the tanks serves residents from Moanalua to Hoika. So a large portion of Oahu is directly a back end. Knowing who was impacted by this. Right, and I think, I didn't know before I even joined the Sierra Club that this was actually happening. And so getting that public awareness, of course, is key. Last session, well, we've been working on legislative bills for the past couple of years. One resulted in a task force to study Red Hill. And last year, or last session, we had a bill called SB 1259, which was to implement upgrades for underground storage tanks, specifically, well, not specifically, but Red Hill was included in that. That bill didn't pass. So we might pursue additional legislative measures going forward. I'm assuming there was an appropriation for that? It wasn't an appropriation, it was to get rules changed. So the Department of Health to implement rules on underground storage tanks. Rules that would include things like secondary containment, which is basically having the tank in a tank. So that if something leaks, there's at least some extra measure of catching it. So things like that. We're still working with the Department of Health to get them to upgrade their rules on field-constructed underground storage tanks. Are they being collaborative? They are planning to make rules within the next year or two. So we want to... Are they working with Sierra Club? Are they working with you on some of that? We're having frequent conversations about what we would like the rules to include. So I would say to some extent, yes, but it's the State Department and they're dealing also with the Navy. So it is a little bit, I think that they are maybe conflicted a little bit because they have an obligation to protect the water, but yet they have, I think the Navy, I mean it's the Navy, right? So it's military, they're very powerful here. They're very powerful, but what I'm aware of as far as DOD in general is concerned is they don't look to damage where they are. They actually look to take care of. It's part of their installation initiatives is to look after and take care of the community as much as possible, environmentally and otherwise, that they can. So from my conversations and some background, I know that they take an effort to do that. So I'm sure that this isn't something they're enjoying. Right, no, I don't think they're enjoying us. How to handle it from there is... And the Defense Logistics Agency, which is the federal entity that owns the fuel in the tank, they are very concerned about, I mean it's their fuel. So it's a liability. Well there's multiple reasons they're concerned. Not first of all they're liable because hey, we're damaging potentially the environment, but then they bought the fuel that's now gone. Exactly. So they have to value account for that too. Right, so there has been a couple of like, there's people from the Congress are congressional representatives that have included line items for Red Hill and the budget and certain like things, but it hasn't really gone far enough quite yet. Those bills haven't come into fruition, so yeah. Okay, let's talk more. Okay, so first of all the outreach program, the education program has been ongoing for a few years now and it's about getting people aware of what happened, what has been happening and where we are with it. And has it been successful? Have you been able to reach, certainly the people who've been impacted or might be impacted? I see just as much as we can, yes. This includes like, we've done some door-to-door canvassing where we share informational flyers, we've made videos, we do a lot of social media posts because that's how people communicate nowadays. And then this summer I actually have been attending neighborhood board meetings. So there are several neighborhood boards that would be directly affected if there were to be another catastrophic leak from Red Hill. Yeah, like more immediately versus long-term. Right, so I've been attending these neighborhood boards that would be directly affected. I've attended 10 so far this summer to urge them to pass a resolution to protect Oahu's ground water and drinking water from Red Hill. Okay, so tell us more about the resolution. Is it, what's in it? So the resolution basically provides a little bit of a background on Red Hill, a history of the leaks. It articulates that the current plan for mitigating Red Hill is the administrative order on consent, which is a 22-year long plan. It's the AOC. The AOC, which the CR club thinks is too long, is 22 years, and by the time the plan is finished, the tanks will be almost 100, very old. And also the AOC is deficient in that it can't guarantee that leaks will not occur again, and it will not guarantee that once there is another leak, which is very reasonable to assume that there will be, right? And the fact that we've had 30 documented leaks over the course of the 80 years. It just suggests there will be. Right, that we can't clean it up. And we've seen from the 2014 leak that they don't necessarily know where the fuel went. It's very hard to locate. So it's problematic. Right, so. One of the biggest concerns there is military doesn't want to remove them. They're strategic. They're important. So what are the options? What are the options? They have cleaned it up, be prepared for it, take 22 years to do it. What else are the options? What can we reasonably expect to be done? Well, right now their best option or the option that they've been telling us is the solution, is the 20 year plan, the AOC. So upcoming in the AOC in January of 2018, they're gonna release the report for the tank upgrade alternative. So they're evaluating six top upgrade alternatives on what they wanna do with the tanks, how to retrofit them, you know, as far as, I mean, some of them, some of the options are not adequate in my opinion. They're like, we're just gonna like look at the tank, basically not do much. But you know, that's like worst case scenario. We kind of just leave things as is. Even as is, expected. And then there goes to be the more stringent regulations of things like secondary containment, double walling, changing the material to different liners. So it's a very technical process that they're undergoing to evaluate the tanks. But unfortunately, we cannot guarantee that a tank is not gonna leak. Right, and for that matter, tank five leaked. Okay, great. If we're addressing that one, but we have no idea tomorrow, tank 10 might leak. Absolutely. And then what? And then the timeline of the 20 years, right? That we're waiting to see what's gonna happen. Exactly. So, you know, my feeling on it is that as long as we have the tanks above our water, it's not a good idea. 100 feet above our water. Right, not a good idea. The only way to completely eliminate the risk of having the fuel contaminating the water is to move fuel and not have it over our water. Yeah, and that's a whole other conversation. They're probably not willing to have it at the moment or not interested in having it. So they are looking, they had a recent open house presentation in June and one of the poster boards was alternative sites, right? So we're questioning them like, how seriously are you considering moving the tanks, relocating the fuel, and of course, it's all classified. So, you don't know. I guess it's their land, yeah, well, their land. Okay, so, back to the resolution. So you've been going, you've been to 10 neighborhood boards, came to mind, thank you. Yeah. What has been the feedback from the neighborhood board across your resolution? Very positive. So far, so we're still waiting, I have to return to a couple of neighborhood boards because for whatever reason I had to return for the next meeting, whether it's like they didn't make quorum or we ran out of time, there needs to be more discussion. No, that goes, especially in July because July's the first section of the year. Yeah, it's the election. Oh, well, like I have to return to yours next week, but happy to do that. The reception has been quite positive. The resolution itself isn't, it's not trying to point fingers or plates blame, it's just saying, we have a direct interest in the health of our water, we drink this water, and we'd like to see more urgent action than a 20-year plan. It doesn't specify what exactly the neighborhood would like the Navy and DOH to do, but it says we're concerned and you should be concerned too. Let's put some more urgency out. Right, and it's a resolution. We resolve to do this. We resolve to do this and the community is agreeing more and more. Do you have, some have signed off and others you're waiting to go back to? Several have signed off already, yep. I think that's all positive. I think that certainly lets everyone know. By the way, it's one of the important steps of our system, understanding how our system works so that we can engage as a community so that we can hopefully have an impact. Right. So therefore it's not just one voice. Right, and I mean that's really how grassroots community organizing works is you have to start from the bottom up and we're recognizing that Red Hill is going to be a big campaign issue for many years, right? It's been three years since the last week. We don't anticipate these tanks are gonna be gone tomorrow. We recognize that. So it's about building the momentum and the public pressure that's gonna be necessary to help push the Navy to make the right decision in regards to our water and the health of our environment. Sure, it's very important. So we are at the end of our show. So I will invite you to come back to let me know when you've got an update, when there's something new. If you would like to make sure some communication is out there, let me know and you're welcome back to the show. If there are other initiatives, legislative and otherwise that you'd like to come on and talk about and help get those ideas out, let me know as well. Yeah, and if people are interested in learning more about the campaign, they can go to our website and sign up for email updates specifically on Red Hill. It's crclubhawaii.org. And if you look to get updates or get involved, there'll be like a checkbox that you can say, stay updated with Red Hill and we'll push out some emails. We do some community meetings that we do in small groups as well as any upcoming events related to Red Hill. We'll make sure that the community knows about that. Excellent, excellent. Well, great work and thank you so much for caring about our environment and our drinking water. And thank you for coming on. I appreciate it. Thank you. And thank you for joining us. This is Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers, and Reformers Politics at Hawaii Series. We just learned a bit about Red Hill, the issues and what we're trying to do going forward. Thank you for joining us and we'll see you next week when we have the chair of the Democratic Party of Hawaii, Tim Vandevere, coming on to talk about the summer of resistance. See you then.