Residents in Hawaii have been warned against drinking or
using any of the tap water or drinking water near, Pearl Harbor.
Now this is as a result of testing that indicates that there's unsafe levels of
petroleum in the water.
And I'll tell you why, how the petroleum got in the water in just a minute.
But the Navy is apparently responsible for
monitoring this and also finding solutions for it.
And here's what we know so far.
Testing of a well overseen by the Navy had detected gasoline and
diesel range high hydrocarbons at levels up to 350 times what
the state considers safe for drinking water.
That well, known as the Red Hill shaft,
is one of three wells that are run by the Navy, which began receiving complaints
just last month from residents of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickman,
who said that their water tasted and smelled like gas.
So they also noticed that they were experiencing some health issues as
a result, and so an investigation went underway.
For instance, residents have complained of sick and pets and reported symptoms
including sore throats, stomach pain, headaches, diarrhea and vomiting.
Health officials said that people who were exposed to the contaminated water could
also experience difficulty breathing, coughing and red or peeling skin.
So what happened here?
Well, luckily, the Navy is taking some action, but there's actually a much
larger problem at play, and it is a problem involving infrastructure.
Now the Navy has shut down two of these wells.
They also relocated more than 3000 families to hotels across the island,
and they've distributed bottled water to families and officials.
The state said that about 93,000 people have been affected.
And so there was a pretty terrible jet fuel spill in the area that
contributed to this, and the Navy is kind of sticking to that story.
But as I mentioned, there are some infrastructure issues at play,
especially when it comes to a fuel storage facility that was built in the 1940s.
It was built in such a way that it's
essentially now leaking fuel into the drinking water.
I'll give you more details into that in just a second.
But Jane, do you wanna jump in?
>> Yeah, so two things here first, I want to thank Nadia Alvarez,
who's a wolf pack member who brought the story to our attention.
I love that wolfdashpac.com/go.
So there are lots of different ways of corporate rule affects us.
And this is but wolf pack members care about their community, and
in this case, it's the government.
That's the issue.
Now, the good news is, the Navy has pretty much owned up to this, and
they're trying to fix it.
But as I was reading this story Anna, I start to worry if Trump gets back into
office, is the culture of lying and denying any wrong doing going to
start to leak more and more into the military and every other part of it?
I mean, obviously, the Pentagon lines at a mass scale when we would do the bombings,
etcetera.
But here at home, oftentimes they are decent unaccountability.
But are they gonna start saying nope.
There is no benzene in the water.
No, I don't care.
And no, we're not gonna clean it up.
That's your problem, not my problem.
So the government is devolving, and so
that's one of the things that I worry about.
>> Yeah, I mean, look, the government has devolved.
I mean, I sure the Navy decided to shut down these wells and
they're talking about flushing out the water with clean,
fresh drinking water, right to kind of dilute the petroleum in the water.
One of our members wrote in and said, well,
what level of petroleum is considered safe, like,
how is any level of petroleum and drinking water considered safe?
And I agree with you.
I mean, the fact that we have a system in place that allows for
any type of contaminant like that in our drinking water is an issue.
And this is something that affects people across the country,
obviously in different ways, right.
But the fact that we have major parts of the country that don't have access
to clean and safe drinking water is insane,
especially when we're living in the wealthiest country, in the world.
Now, I wanted to talk about some of the potential causes I'm not even gonna call
potential causes the causes.
Okay, so I had mentioned that there was an issue involving jet fuel.
Navy officials said that they believed that the water in the Red Hill well was
contaminated after jet fuel spilled into an access tunnel at the site
on November 20th.
But there's actually a larger issue that's problematic enough.
And so let's talk about what's going on with the infrastructure.
So Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility is made up of 20 massive
pill-shaped fuel tanks and a system of pipelines that use the force
of gravity to to deliver fuel to Pearl Harbor, 2.5 miles away.
The whole facility, which generally holds about 180 million gallons of fuel,
sits just 100 feet above the groundwater aquifer that supplies 77%
of the island's total water, according to the Department of Health.
Now here's the issue.
As I mentioned earlier, this was built in the 1940s.
It turns out that it was hastily built,
didn't really think about the design flaws here.
And so each of the tanks that carry the fuel are made of
a thin steel liner about a quarter of an inch thick.
That's it.
A quarter of an inch thick that is now corroding in case by a concrete shell
that the Navy admits it cannot access and is therefore impossible to maintain.
The pipeline system attached to the tanks is just as old as the tanks themselves.
So you've got some fuel leaking out of these pill shaped
containers that are only a quarter of an inch thick.
They're corroding.
The Navy has admitted that they don't have the ability to maintain these containers.
And so the fuel is just leaking into the water.
>> Yeah, so, we give the military $780 billion a year.
Now, the first contract is on how soon had blown that
money on themselves and making tremendous profits.
>> Yep >> But
don't tell me you can't find the money here,
this affects drinking water of 77% of the citizens as Anna just explained to you.
So they better fix this and there, and yeah, it'll be super expensive, but
that's why we give you nearly a trillion dollars every year.
But of course, that's actually not the real reason.
The real reason is because defense contractors pay off politicians.
So, but when it comes to actually protecting us, not so much, and
whether it's a military or private companies like oil pipelines.
They always tell you it's not, it's not gonna leak.
It's never gonna leak.
It leaks every single time, right?
Because these things are hard to design.
And then even if you designed them, well, 60 years ago, 80 years ago,
they're not gonna withstand the test of time because that's how it works.
And eventually it's gonna leak into your water and I'll let and
my portion on this new feet dragging one of our members wrote, in and we do
the show with you guys, so tyt.com/join to become a member and be part of the show.
He wrote in petroleum and
you're drinking water means that you do not have drinking water.
This is serious.
That's right.
>> Exactly.
>> And so you can't have any petroleum in your drinking water.
And of course, people were getting sick left and right.
And so now they're bringing in bottled water for everyone.
But how long can you go on bottled water when you have to shower and
do all the other things?
Yes.
>> And by the way, they are advised not to shower in the water because it's gonna
cause damage to their skin.
I mean, it's just a complete nutter disaster.
>> Yeah, and Progressive Rocks wrote in very similar,
just as I was saying in the Navy has out of date infrastructure,
if only the defense budget could afford to replace the storage tanks.