HONOLULU (CN) — A federal judge sided with environmentalists over the U.S. Navy on Monday in case over a 2021 jet fuel leak in Honolulu, ruling the military must face Clean Water Act claims at trial.
Senior U.S. District Judge Leslie Kobayashi’s order keeps alive claims by environmental nonprofit Wai Ola Alliance and Native Hawaiian cultural practitioners, who say that the Navy’s operation of the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility has resulted in unauthorized discharges of petroleum pollutants into Pearl Harbor and Hālawa Stream on the Hawaiian island of Oahu.
The decision hinged on conflicting evidence about whether the massive fuel storage complex continues to discharge pollutants and whether past intermittent spills are likely to recur. Kobayashi found that these disputes over material facts cannot be resolved without a full trial…