In the coming weeks, the Navy plans to reopen a well closed since an estimated 20,000 gallons of jet fuel from the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility spilled, seeped into the aquifer and contaminated drinking water for thousands of homes.
Following a March report by the Environmental Protection Agency that declared the drinking water in the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam water system “free of fuel contamination since 2022,” the state Department of Health notified the U.S. Navy earlier this month it would grant conditional approval to reopen the ʻAiea-Hālawa Shaft. According to the department, the Navy must continue to meet the state’s standard rules for drinking water quality and notify the department of any additional potential contamination.
The well is one of two federally owned wells that have been closed since the spill in December 2021 and could be reopened at any point. It has been outfitted with a multistep filtration and disinfection system…