The U.S. Environmental Safety Company introduced Tuesday that it has accredited the navy’s plan to defuel the Navy‘s underground Pink Hill Bulk Gas Storage Facility, set to start Oct. 16.
The U.S. Environmental Safety Company introduced Tuesday that it has accredited the navy’s plan to defuel the Navy’s underground Pink Hill Bulk Gas Storage Facility, set to start Oct. 16.
Joint Process Drive Pink Hill, the navy group fashioned in September 2022 to take away the gas from Pink Hill’s large underground tanks, crafted its Defueling Preparedness Report outlining the way it plans to proceed with protected defueling.
The stakes are excessive. The tanks at present retailer 104 million gallons of gas and sit simply 100 ft above a crucial aquifer most of Honolulu relies on for consuming water. Native well being officers have known as the World Conflict-II period Pink Hill facility a “time bomb ” that threatens Oahu’s water provide.
“EPA’s approval of the joint activity pressure report is a big milestone within the course of to securely defuel Pink Hill, ” EPA Pacific Southwest Regional Administrator Martha Guzman stated in a Tuesday media launch. “This choice displays our collaborative efforts with [the] Hawaii Division of Well being to work with the Division of Protection on guaranteeing the closure of the ability and safety of the world’s consuming water. This work is crucial to safeguarding public well being and the surroundings on Oahu.”
Navy officers for years insisted that Pink Hill was protected. However in November 2021 jet gas from the ability leaked into the Navy’s Oahu water system, which serves 93, 000 folks, together with navy households and civilians in former navy housing areas. After a number of months of resisting a Hawaii state emergency order to empty the tanks, in March 2022 Protection Secretary Lloyd Austin introduced the navy would defuel and completely shutter the ability.
The navy additionally acknowledged that regardless of earlier assertions the getting old World Conflict II-era facility was protected, it had truly fallen into deep disrepair and that a lot of its infrastructure–including the pipelines connecting the tanks to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam–would require intensive repairs earlier than the gas might be safely eliminated with out risking extra spills and additional threats to the aquifer.
In June the Navy, EPA and the DOH signed a federal consent order on Pink Hill, wherein the EPA required JTF-RH to submit the Defueling Preparedness Report previous to the beginning of defueling.
The report certifies that every one repairs, operational modifications and coaching have been accomplished as prescribed beneath the DOD’s defueling plan and that every one repairs have gone by correct third-party high quality assurance verification.
Within the EPA’s information launch, the company additionally stated that Navy Area Hawaii has “up to date its Spill Prevention, Management, and Countermeasure Plan to EPA’s satisfaction ” and that the EPA had accredited JTF-RH’s facility response plan. In keeping with the discharge, EPA personnel “will likely be onsite and on-call during the operation to offer technical help and monitor for any anomalies within the defueling course of.”
JTF-RH now awaits approval from the DOH to maneuver ahead. DOH officers stated in a press release final week that they’re reviewing JTF Pink Hill’s responses to its feedback on the defueling operational plans submitted the week earlier than and that “the DOH stays on observe to approve defueling by Oct. 11, 2023, as specified within the JTF’s Defueling Built-in Grasp Schedule (IMS ), which DOH conditionally accredited on June 23, 2023.”
JTF-RH’s mission will finish after it removes the 104 million gallons of gas within the tanks, however the Navy’s long-term remediation and shutdown of the ability is predicted to take years.
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