The spill and the resulting damage to the environment and surrounding communities is part of what prompted the Department of Defense to announce in March that it would drain the fuel and close the facility permanently.
“The Navy takes responsibility for what happened,” Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, told reporters Thursday.
The command investigation made no recommendations for individual disciplinary or administrative action. Those decisions will be made by a separate consolidated disposition authority headed by Admiral Darryl Caudle, commander of the US Navy.
“The consolidated command authority will review the evidence and make an independent determination of responsibility in accordance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice,” Paparo said. He did not offer a timetable for decisions on disciplinary or administrative action.
On May 6, 2021, operators at the facility began an improper fuel transfer that caused a pressure surge in the system, the Navy Command’s investigation found. The rapid increase in pressure damaged two pipe joints and resulted in a fuel spill. But the facility and its commanders did not realize or report the extent of the spill, believing it to be only about 1,580 gallons.
In fact, approximately 20,000 gallons spilled, most of which flowed into a fuel suppression system passing through a tunnel system, the investigation found. The system’s holding lines held the fuel for six months and its weight caused the PVC pipes to sag.
On November 20, 2021, a small underground trolley on a service train hit a valve on the sagging PVC pipes, causing the fuel to leak into the pipelines. But emergency responders were initially told the liquid was a mixture of fuel and water, not just fuel, the Navy found.
For days, local naval officials believed there was no environmental threat, telling their commanders there was no risk to groundwater and no danger of environmental contamination, the navy found, insisting the fuel could not seep through through the concrete tunnel or 100 feet of rock separating the tunnel from the aquifer.
A week after the spill, the facility received its first complaint of a fuel odor in the water from a nearby resident. The next day, the facility received 37 more calls complaining of fuel in the water. The number of calls will quickly reach hundreds.
On Nov. 28, the Navy closed its Red Hill Reservoir after reports of people living on the base suffering from nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, headaches and skin problems. The tests revealed petroleum hydrocarbons and vapors in the water, the Navy said at the time.
In its command investigation, the Navy found that responses to the spill in May and November were inadequate and that proper training and drills after the initial spill could have identified the risk to the well.
“Ultimately, both spill responses were flawed because they concluded with a significant amount of fuel that unknowingly remained outside the reported containment limits,” the investigation concluded.
A complex web of responsibilities and accountabilities left it unclear who was responsible for what, the Navy found, making it increasingly difficult to identify the best solutions and how to implement them as the situation worsened.
“These deficiencies are due to deficiencies in accountability and a failure to learn from previous incidents, which is unacceptably less than the Navy’s standards of leadership, ownership and protection of our communities,” the Navy found.
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