House Special Committee on Red Hill

Good morning everyone. Thank you very much for joining us. This is the House Special Committee on Red Hill. We are having an informational briefing here at the State capitol in room 325. And first I'd like to ask our Committee Members to introduce themselves.

Sure. Thank you. Aloha everyone. I'm co-chair of the Committee and appreciate you all being here today and especially a chance for some of our new Members to get a full briefing. So thanks.

Hello everyone. I'm Representative Garner Shimizu, District 32. Thank you for being here.

Good morning. Della Belatti, State Representative for Makiki Townlis, Punchbowl, Papukolea. And I'm the chair of the Committee on Public Safety.

I'm Mark Hashem, I'm from East Honolulu and I Chair the Waterland Committee.

And I'm Lindy Chiyama, co-chair of the Special Committee with co-chair Lowen. And I represent Salt Lake Moanalu in the State House. So before we jump in, I have a couple of housekeeping notes. Just wanted to let folks know we are switching up a little bit the order of the agenda.

So item number three, NAVFAC, Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command. Ms. Jocelyn Tomashiro will be presenting first and then followed by the Navy Closure Task Force.

I also wanted to note for folks who are watching this presentation online, we have links on our Committee website to Tank Closure Supplement number four, as well as the Navy's environmental remediation website.

So if you go to capital.hawaii.gov, click on the Legislature tab, click on House, click on the House Special Committee website and they'll take you right to those links so you can follow along on any of our discussion points.

And then last but not least, I wanted to extend a special mahalo to Admiral Barnett for being here with us this morning. Thank you for rearranging your schedule. We really appreciate your time and we also would like to thank you so much for all of your service while you've been here.

Understand that you'll be transitioning soon, so we just wanted to extend our mahalo. And I also understand you have to leave shortly after your remarks. So just wanted to say thank you very much for being here today.

Thank you. Ma', am.

Is there anything you wanted to add? No, I just echo that. Thank you for being here and look forward to hearing what you guys have to tell us. Okay, so go ahead.

Okay. Thank you. Aloha and good morning chairs Ichiyama Lohan and other Committee Members. Thank you for this opportunity. We truly appreciate the invitation to provide an update to this group about the progress of our efforts to close the Red Hill bulk fuel storage facility and the associated related environmental remediation efforts.

With me today are Rear Admiral Mark Williams and he's my deputy commander for Navy Closure Task Force Red Hill Commander Ben Dunn, he's head of our environment and remediation team and Jocelyn Tomoshiro, the Environmental Restoration Program Manager for the Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command or as we say, NAVFAC Hawaii. So we're going to have two separate presentations.

One is going to be the Navy Closure Task Force Red Hill efforts and then the other one is going to be the PFAS remedial investigation. And like you mentioned, ma', am, we're going to flip them there. This is part of an overall Navy effort.

So the PFAS remediation is not part of Navy Closure Task Force's mission, but it's important we wanted to bring the expert here. Navy Closure Task Force has made tremendous progress with tank cleaning and preparation for pipeline removal. Another significant effort in this expansion of our is the expansion of the actual groundwater monitoring well network.

Supplement four of the tank closure plan was submitted to the regulators in May of this year and is now available to the public on our task force website. Supplement 4 provides several important updates including the overall closure strategy. And what's important also is the post closure tank monitoring. We're going to talk about that too.

We remain committed to the long term remediation of the environment. This is not measured in days or months. This is going to be measured in years, decades. We will be here for that process. I'd like to thank the Committee Members for doing my tenure here and also for my reliefs.

For the productive relationship, the difficult conversations and the constructive dialogue that help us get to where we are right now. My relief. His name is going to be Rear Admiral Collins. He has replaced me in three different areas, so I know him well. He's. He's replaced me in three jobs, so. So I know him well.

We've been communicating the whole time and he knows how important this mission is. This is a team effort. We will work hard to see the mission through with each of your support.

Meetings like this and your feedback help us move forward to close the facility and reach our shared goal to protect the environment now and for future generations.

One of the things that I wanted to stress too is that I want to let the community know and I'm going to make sure that we continue this is that we are not walking away.

We understand that this, like I said, this is this is going to take some time and we appreciate all the input that we receive along the way. It's been humbling to be here and to work together to get where we are right now.

But make no mistake, we still have a long ways to go and the team that sits here and folks have heard me say, you know, behind the measurable scene lies the immeasurable unseen. So there are lots of folks that are behind the scenes that are working tirelessly and not only on our team, but also on your team.

And I appreciate that. So thank you for the opportunity and thank you for the time.

Good morning, Chairs and Committee Members. I want to highlight that the Department of Navy and the Department of Defense have been addressing PFAS as an emerging chemical since around 2015.

Thank you.

Both departments are committed to finding a resolution and the presence of PFAS in the environment is a complex national issue due to its main widespread use in various commercial as well as industrial products throughout our history or recent history.

I want to make it clear the two presentations you're going to hear today are two separate and distinct issues or efforts that are underway. NAVFAC Hawaii is on point in handling the PFAS remedial investigation at Red Hill.

And whereas PFAS is not part of my mission with the Navy Closure Task Force, you'll see in Jocelyn's presentation various resources and other venues where you can learn more about NAPAC's efforts regarding PFAS. And with that, I'll hand it over to Jocelyn who will talk about the remedial investigation for PFAS at Red Hill.

Thank you Admiral, good morning. My name is Jocelyn Tomoshiro and I'm here today at the request of Honorable Coach Sherry Chiyama to provide an overview of the cleanup actions at Red Hill that we are taking under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability act as well as the Department of Defense Environmental Restoration Program.

These actions are distinct from those actions related to the 2021 Red Hill fuel release that you may be familiar with. Next slide, please.

Today I will go over the cleanup process, do a brief review about PER and polyfluoro alkyl substances, or PFAS, describe the current remedial investigation activities at Red Hill, and provide additional resources and ways that you and the public can get involved. Next slide, please.

This slide describes the CERCLA process that the Department of Defense and the Navy follow. It addresses past practices of waste disposal and hazardous substance spills before there were laws and controls. The timeline on the right shows the CERCLA process from investigation to cleanup.

The goal of the Navy cleanup program is to provide to protect human health and the environment in a risk based, based, fiscally sound manner. Next slide please. This slide provides an overview of a fairly recent contaminant that is being addressed by the Navy called PFAS.

PFAS are a family of thousands of different chemicals that have been used since the 1950s in many household and industrial products. Because of their stain and water repellent properties, PFAS are now present virtually everywhere in the world because of the large amounts that have been manufactured and used.

Once these compounds are released, many of them tend to stay in the environment for a very long time. The primary source of PFAS in the environment from Navy past operations is Aqueous Film Forming Foam or afff. The Environmental Protection Agency has been issuing guidance for PFAS and more recently finalizing some regulations under various environmental protection laws.

For example, the EPA recently finalized maximum contaminant levels for certain PFAS under the Safe Drinking Water Act. These levels are enforceable for public water systems. So starting in 2029, the Navy and Department of Defense have developed policies to address past releases of PFAS at installations nationwide.

This slide shows that the Navy initiated investigation into past PFAS releases under the CERCLA program. The initial reviews are complete for the majority of the Navy installations. In addition, the National Defense Authorization act requires the Department of Defense to remove AFFF from all shore facilities. Next slide please.

In October of 2014, the Department of Defense directed military services to start investigating for PFAS and in January of 2015, the Navy provided guidance to my program on how to conduct CERCLA investigations.

A preliminary assessment was first conducted to identify facilities where AFFF may have been stored, used, or released to the environment, after which a site inspection was performed to sample soil and groundwater for the presence or absence of PFAs. You are likely familiar with the accidental release of AFFF at Red Hill in November of 2022.

Upon notification of the release, the Navy took immediate action to stop the release, contain the material and begin cleaning up, including excavating contaminated soil. Initial baseline groundwater sampling was completed in September of 2023.

Current CERCLA cleanup activities at Red Hill are being conducted as a follow up to that initial spill response for longer term actions under the CERCLA process. As this release happened when we were completing our site inspection, CERCLA efforts proceeded directly into a remedial investigation.

During the remedial investigation phase, we investigate the nature and extent of contamination and determine the risk to human health and the environment. The CERCLA process allows for removal actions to be taken at any point in the process in order to protect human health and the environment.

I would like to take some time to discuss the details of our current effort at Red Hill.

The field investigation activities for the project include to complete one year of quarterly groundwater sampling at 42 monitoring well locations on the installation, installing and sampling new shallow and deep groundwater monitoring wells, completing one year of semi annual groundwater sampling after all new wells have been installed and conducting subsurface soil sampling where groundwater exceedances were observed.

All samples will be analyzed for at least 40 PFAS compounds using EPA Method 1633. Once a certified laboratory has completed the testing, the results are sent to an independent data validator who checks to ensure that the data is accurate, complete, and consistent, and is reliable for decision making.

As you see, the sample collection just discussed was done and we are developing our investigation work plan. This work was done in step with our regulators as an accelerated effort to support the investigation. Other remedial investigation activities will include fate and transport modeling and human health risk assessments.

All of the data will be included in our remedial investigation report. So looking at the timeline at the bottom, the near term next actions will include deciding the locations of additional monitoring wells.

So after evaluating the four quarters of data, the regulators in the Navy will determine where to place additional wells, conduct soil samples to help answer questions about the source of PFAS and finalize the work plan. Our second near term action is to obtain regulatory concurrence with work plans.

Work plans were submitted in 2023 for approval, but the regulators ask that the Navy perform quarterly groundwater monitoring to help inform the work plan. We conducted monitoring in October of 2024, February and May of 2025 and the last quarter will be completed by August of 2025. Data is publicly available on the www.redhillearn.com website.

Next slide please. The public can get more information about the environmental restoration activities at Red Hill and and even download available sample results by going to the www.redhillearn.com website, which also features the former Oily Waste Disposal Facility which is a non PFAS site, as well as the PFAS remedial investigation.

And just to reiterate, the environmental restoration program which follows CERCLA is separate from the tank cleaning, closure, and site assessment work that will be discussed next.

If the public would like to participate in the CERCLIC cleanup process, they can also attend our Restoration Advisory Board meeting and provide feedback on work plans and reports that are presented the next meeting will be on August 27th. Lastly, they can call or email the NAVFAC Hawaii Public Affairs Officer, and those inquiries will be sent to me.

Thank you for allowing me to share all of the work that we've been conducting to date.

Okay. And while they're pulling up our slides, so you'll, you know, Jocelyn said while it is separate distinct efforts between NFAC Hawaii's efforts under her program and our efforts as part of the Navy Closure Task Force, we do coordinate efforts and we do share information across our respective areas.

With that, I'll go through an update on our operations at as part of Navy Closure Task Force, which will include an operational update as well as updates that better then will provide on water resiliency as well as our environmental efforts therein.

So, for those unfamiliar with the Navy Closure Task Force, our mission is to safely and expeditiously execute the permanent decommissioning of the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility and continue long term remediation in coordination with state and federal agencies stakeholders in order to protect health and the environment.

The Joint Task Force Red Hill was stood up in the fall of 2022 to defuel the facility, and then we officially took over from the Joint Task Force at the end of March of 2024. And our mission timeline, as you can see, I should go to the next slide, please.

On the screen takes us through 2028 and really, well beyond. Our command is comprised of a mix of military service embers as well as civilians. And many of the services—civilians—are local. Each person on this team is committed to doing the right thing and to the mission.

On the screen here, you'll see an overview of our lines of effort. Our top three decommissioning activities are shown across the timeline, and below the timeline are the ongoing or continuous efforts that will be sustained and exist as part of the committed mission. Our operations revolve around three pillars of effort.

Decommissioning, which is the overall safe and permanent decommissioning of the facility to prepare it for closure. We've already completed the AFFF removal. We're well into tank cleaning and we're preparing to start the pipeline removal later this year.

The environmental remediation describes the long term environmental cleanup and protective actions the Navy has been taking at Red Hill for many years and will continue in the future. You'll notice here that there's really no end date. Right?

The environmental effort here, as well as the communication effort here on this screen, will be measured in not in years, but in decades. Next slide, please. So, a little bit of a collage here to walk you through to give you an operational update.

Recognize that the tank cleaning is a very timely and deliberate—time consuming and deliberate process—that involves ventilating the tanks to ensure that they are safe for our workers to enter. Inspections and repairs to the infrastructure, sludge removal, pressure washing, and then validation of the tank cleaning.

If you start with photo number one there in the top left, this is a ventilation system used during the ventilation operations to degas a tank. And so far, we've completed tanks 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. And we began ventilating tank 2 on Friday.

Prior to starting ventilation operations, we installed nine air quality monitoring stations throughout the facility and one down on the nearby Halawa Correctional Facility. And as what we've seen is there have not been any elevated volatile organic readings measured during any of our operations.

During the ventilation operations, we post our hourly air quality monitoring updates on our app and then daily on the website and those can be found and viewed by the public throughout. Photo number two on the screen, the little Home Depot bucket up there, that is an example of the sludge that we have removed from the facility.

To date, we've removed 283 gallons of sludge from the first six tanks. And what we have found is that there is significantly less sludge than originally thought and estimated, so recognizing that the joint task force did a very rudimentary estimate of 2,000 gallons per tank.

And what we found is actually gaining intel that as we've gotten into the tanks, in conducting our cleaning operations, in doing visual inspections and throwing cameras down there, that is significantly less sludge left than thought than from after the gravity based defueling operations that the JTF conducted. The removal process includes crews.

Again, it's a kind of a bucket brigade. They shovel the sludge from the bottom of the tank into these Home Depot buckets. Those are brought up, put into 55 gallon drums, and then they're sealed, loaded onto a ship and transported to an EPA-certified facility on the continental United States.

All the samples of the sludge from each tank are sent to a lab and analyzed to determine the proper disposal as either hazardous or non-hazardous, and to date, all sludge samples have been determined to be non-hazardous. Moving on to photo number three, if anybody's interested in that job, they are hiring.

That person is about 200ft in the air from the bottom of the tank. But you can see the pressure washing operation's inside the tank. And so far, we completed 7 and 8, tank 7 and 8, and getting ready to start tank 5 later this month with tank 6 starting next month.

We're using water flooding that is has been flushed from the Redhill shaft, treated through the GAC systems of the granulator activated carbon systems, reclaimed as the wash water to clean the tanks.

And per a Hawaii Department of Health permit, the water used, that is washed into the tanks, is then tested for full spectrum of analytes beyond the normal hazardous waste characterization required by U.S. EPA, and the wash water really consists of about 1% of fuel byproducts and 99% wash water.

Once the water is tested, it is then transported to a DoH approved disposal facility here on island where it is managed in accordance with their permits. Photo number four, you can see that's one of the rigs we talked about all the—Jocelyn talked about the groundwater monitoring wells.

To date, we have installed 46 monitoring wells with many of those being actually off premise or off our facility. The groundwater monitoring wells allow the Navy to monitor for presence of the constituents of potential concern in the groundwater around Red Hill and the surrounding areas.

All the wells are coordinated closely through a SME quarterly meeting that is comprised of EPA, DoH, United States Geological Service, the University of Hawaii, the Commission of Water Resource Management, and the Honolulu Board of Water Supply. All of our groundwater monitoring wells, all that data is actually available publicly on the Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam Safewater website.

And we will be in R looking to continue to expand our monitor well network as it provides valuable geological information and groundwater flow data guiding future monitoring and modeling efforts. For photo number five, you can see the contractors there preparing a center tower for tank cleaning.

So, it's a pretty extensive operation to go in, certify with a structural engineer all the necessary infrastructure as the booms are installed off of that center catwalk—there's the catwalk out to the center tower—and to ensure the workers can conduct their operations shown in photo three safely.

So, there's about four months of prep time in order to get to the point where we can actually put water on the walls and clean the tanks.

Moving on to photo number six, you'll see that is, you know, we've got train operations inside and we conduct exercise to ensure that safety is paramount for every one of our evolutions. The photo there is taken in May of a contractor demonstrating how a train will be used to move sections of pipes during upcoming operations, as we start to cut the pipes out and transport those out of the tunnels for for disposal.

We awarded a contract to drain the residual fuel, remove approximately 10 miles of pipeline from the facility, and the EPA and the DoH are reviewing our work plans that will again begin later this year.

We've established personal environmental safety measures and fuel containment procedures are in place as the team prepares to remove the residual fuel that is trapped, there's some residual fuel trapped in the pipeline, remaining pipeline, and then clean them prior to removal from the facility.

Some of the measures that we have in place, spill prevention and response plans for handling any of the recovered fuel, strict oversight of the rigging and lift plans to ensure handling, appropriate handling of pipe sections, and a controlled and calculated process to safely transport loads within the tunnel, which is what we're demonstrating there on photo 6.

Following removal of the pipeline from the tunnel and from the facility, they'll be shipped back to the continental US for recycling. For photo number seven, that's actually not a buoy. That's what's referred to as a pig.

It is essentially what is used to clean the pipes during pigging operations that pre-sized—that pipe-sized—foam cylinder is pushed and pulled through the pipes to collect any liquid or debris. The residual then will be tested and disposed of off island, as per the permitting process. We expect to begin the pigging operations later this month.

Within the pigging operations, this is where we will capture the largest portion of the remaining estimated 4,000 gallons of residual fuel that is trapped in the pipelines. Throughout the process, secondary containment and other mitigating measures are put in place to prevent any spills or leaks.

And we provide extensive oversight of our contractors to mitigate the environmental risks and safety risks. Once that pigging operation is complete, a marine chemist inspects the clean pipe to certify that it is gas free and ready for cutting and removal.

And then like I said earlier, it eventually is taken out in sections and then shipped back to the continental US for recycling. Okay, next slide please. So, Admiral Barnett mentioned our tank—our tank closure plant supplement for submittal. So, just kind of quickly walk you through the wave tops on what was in that supplement 4.

So, with regards to the orange section there, the task force is not waiting for beneficial reuse decisions to be established, and instead we're proceeding closely with closing the facility in accordance with our regulatory requirements.

Beneficial reuse is a DoD decision that will follow the appropriate environmental process and it is not part of the Navy enclosure task force mission. On the green highlight there, you'll see the tank shells, the center towers, and all the catwalks in the Red Hill tanks will be cleaned and go through a quality validation approach in accordance with the regulatory approved tank cleaning plan.

Examples of equipment to remove—that will be eventually removed—from inside the tanks include instrument wells, sample pipes, and some nozzle diffusers. Some of the small piping diameter telltale pipes, sample lines, other things will be confirmed empty.

And then, with regards to tanks one and 19, some of the details on how those will be closed are still being negotiated with the regulators. Both have been out of service for decades and have been previously cleaned.

So again, in discussions with the regulators on the way forward with regards to those two tanks. On the blue section, the Red Hill tanks, as well as the surge tanks, will be closed in place.

So, a technical memo was prepared for the Navy by the Simpson, Gummertz, and Hegar in November of 2024 and that concluded that filling the surge tanks is not necessary to retain the structural integrity and actually could pose additional risk to the foundation as the load capacity would potentially well exceed, in addition to the environmental air quality concerns of bringing in all that fill material.

Both on the violet section there, both the upper tunnel manway and the lower tunnel nozzle access will be secured for security safety purposes.

But we are installing features to allow for air to pass through them to prevent any sort of condensation from occurring inside the tanks. And then, the last note here on supplement four, the drainage from each Red Hill tank will be open to the main pump. So, the 4 line in tank 311 will remain be maintained.

We'll go through annual tightness testing and those two features of the facility will remain operational for the foreseeable future. So, with that, I'm going to hand over to Commander Dunn, who's going to talk through water resiliency and environmental.

All right. Aloha. Good morning everyone. So, the Navy is constantly working on resiliency, redundancy, and security of our Navy drinking water system. We've taken continual actions to improve and sustain and manage our drinking water system and that infrastructure. And that includes pump repairs and upgrades, maintenance flushing, and valve exercising, water line replacement, and valve replacement.

We also have a water storage tank. We have a few water storage tanks on the, on the system. So, inspection, repairs, and replacement of those tanks are also part of that ongoing effort. We have cybersecurity improvements to manage, to keep up with current technology. There's also some watershed preservation efforts that are done in conjunction with the state.

And we've also installed drinking water—we're in the process of installing drinking water compliant treatment systems for both of the inactive drinking water production wells at Navy Aiea Halawa Shaft and Red Hill Shaft, well in advance of the 2029 compliance standards set forth by the EPA, with its national Primary Drinking Water Standards updates, which include reduced thresholds for PFAs.

Both of these systems will support the recovery of the two inactive wells, which I will proceed to detail and overview in detail here. So, for the Navy Area Halawa Shaft and I'll also speak to the Redhill Shaft reactivation. But the Navy's Joint Base Drinking Water System is supported by three production wells, depicted on the map there.

These are Navy wells. These are not city wells. Again, drinking water production wells. Both the Redhill Shaft and the Navy Aiea Halawa Shaft have been isolated since late 2021. And our primary shaft, the Waiaawa Shaft, has served as our sole source of drinking water since that time.

Collectively, the three wells were installed, designed and installed, to provide that redundancy and resiliency to the drinking water system and a system that supports nearly 100,000 daily consumers.

All the industrial activities on Board Joint Base, at the waterfront and the shipyard, thousands of facilities and community centers, galleys, housing, and also fire and emergency services for defense operations on the installation.

So, specifically for Navy Aiea Halawa Shaft, the Navy's been planning planning to reactivate the well since 2022 and has been in close coordination for that effort with the Hawaii Department of Health. Since that time, we've conducted extensive monitoring of the well and have completed the installation of a granular activated carbon treatment system.

This is an interim treatment system. It's not a permanent facility. And that's to address concerns of low level PFAS detections in the source water. Again, this is well in advance of the EPA's updated national primary drinking water standards that was released last year, which significantly reduced the thresholds for safe drinking water, with respect to PFAs.

Glad to report that we are on plan to reactivate the well this year. Recent milestones of this effort. Last fall, we submitted our detailed reactivation plan to the Department of Health, which outlaid all the steps and actions we were pursuing to support reactivation.

In February of this year, the Department of Health gave us conditional approval to proceed with those actions to support reactivation. This spring, we completed one of those primary steps of that effort and that's a pre-reactivation monitoring pilot.

So, we wanted to basically test and evaluate the effectiveness of the treatment system before we proceed with reactivation and document that. We're in the process of finalizing a report to submit to DoH to support that effort, and the design of the treatment system is also set forth to address hydrocarbons as well as PFAs.

Again, PFAs being the primary concern with this well. But the design of the system is effective to treat total petroleum hydrocarbons or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that you may have heard about other constituents of concern.

So, upon completion of final actions, tying in that treatment system into the water, physical tie in of that treatment system into the distribution system and inspection of the Department of Health, the Navy will then submit a formal request to reactivate, which we would expect to have DoH's endorsement here a couple weeks after that happens.

So, we're projecting here this summer to hopefully reactivate the well for Navy IA Halawa Shaft. Information relating to the reactivation activities for Navy IAIA Halawa Shaft and in the future Red Hill Shaft is available on our Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam Safe Waters website.

We added a new webpage this year to basically gather and present all the information, documents, requests, reports affiliated, as well as the specific data, the monitoring results from all the samples we've taken of both the inactive wells and all that information is on that new webpage, and as we have more reports and more were more to share, those will be uploaded to that site as well.

And of course through the reactivation process, we have communicated quite a bit through various mediums our intent to restore the service of Navy IA Halawa Shaft. That's through our open houses, through a public webinar we held this spring specifically about Navy IA Halawa Shaft reactivation with various stakeholder engagements.

We briefed Commission of Water Resource Management earlier this spring, the Governor's Water Committee this summer here today, the House Special Committee, other forums with key stakeholders. We have been providing publicly available messages on a recurring basis, as well as podcasts and updates that provide updates as we go through this process.

We will provide a deliberate notice and continue to coordinate meeting with DOH as we work through the final steps of reactivation. And of course, additional information and updates will follow to include public notification prior to the well being reactivated.

For Red Hill Shaft, similarly to Navy Aiea Halawa Shaft, but perhaps more importantly, Red Hill Shaft is a much more capable well than the Navy Aiea Halawa Shaft. Navy Aiea Halawa Shaft is a small well, so it doesn't provide as much redundancy as the Navy requires for its drinking water system, which only emphasizes the importance of bringing the Redhill Shaft back into service in the future.

So even though conditions at the well today do not currently warrant a treatment system, the water quality is quite good, the Navy is required to install a treatment system to reactivate the well and is also doing so now again to achieve compliance with EPA's updated drinking water standards with respect to PFAs.

Reduce levels of PFAS. Thanks to the Hawaii Congressional delegation, the construction project was authorized in last year's NDAA to support the P716 Milcon. That's a Red Hill water treatment facility. The Navy is in the process of working through NEPA.

It's drafted a environmental assessment for the project and looks to finalize that this summer and has also developed a design for that water treatment facility, which we have been in discussion with the Department of Health for and we'll be seeking endorsement of that design to proceed.

We're actively working through each milestone of the process with both regulatory partners for the reactivation of Red Hill Shaft, as well as the community.

Additionally, the Navy is proactively in the near term installing an interim drinking water compliant GAC treatment system at Red Hill Shaft, in advance of the permanent one, to provide that capability of redundancy in the future. We're not close to completing that. We're in the process of installing it on site. We anticipate operations of that system in 2027.

So, we're a ways out. But we will provide an interim solution for the Red Hill shaft until that permanent facility is commissioned and in place. All right, next slide. So, for drinking water monitoring.

So, this slide depicts the comprehensive methodical approach the Navy has taken to recover the Joint Base drinking water system since the November 21st release and the impact to the drinking water.

So, in total, the Navy's collected over 16,000 drinking water samples across the drinking water system over the course of multiple enhanced monitoring programs over the past few years.

So, immediately following the November 21st release, the Navy and Army joined the Department of Health and EPA to establish the Inter Agency Drinking Water Systems Team, IDWST, in December of '21 and basically develop a recovery plan to bring the Joint Base System back into service.

The plan involved a zone by zone flushing and confirmation sampling, post flushing, as well as follow on monitoring. So, by March of 2022, the Navy completed the zonal flushing of the system and DoH amended its health advisory rendering the system as safe.

And then the Navy commenced a 24 month long term monitoring program, which I briefed I believe the last time we had provided an update. It's a 24 month long term monitoring program to demonstrate that the Joint Base system had indeed recovered.

And towards the end of that, last year, the Navy committed to extend enhanced drinking water monitoring efforts and so developed the extended drinking water monitoring program and voluntarily commenced that for a 12 month period, and that program was later ultimately approved by the EPA.

This past April we concluded sampling of homes and the distribution system under that program and which by the end of that program we've sampled close to 95% of the nearly 9,500 homes on the Joint Base system. So, pretty, pretty awesome achievement.

And throughout LTM and EDWM, the 36 months of sampling, we have never detected JP5 or fuel in the system. Development of the long term monitoring plan and EDWM plan also included input from third party experts and was done in conjunction with both the DoH and EPA.

During the period, independent sampling and investigation evaluations by DOH and EPA have determined that the water is safe, no fuel contamination has been found. The EDWM final report has been submitted to the regulators for endorsement, after which the Navy will close out the enhanced Monitoring Program and resume compliance monitoring, like all other utility systems.

We have been doing the compliance monitoring all along, but the point now is the transition back to normal compliance and monitoring. Next slide. For the environmental monitoring, there's been many activities that have been ongoing for quite some time and we continue today and will be continuing into the future.

Over the past year, we've planned, coordinated, and executed multiple environmental monitoring efforts that were all extensively coordinated with DoH and EPA. Those include air quality monitoring to support the tank ventilation operations and tank cleaning. We have maintained the capture zone by continuous pumping of the Red Hill shaft and reduced that rate last spring.

We have initiated the site assessment process with detailed planning and preliminary field sampling to inform our sampling approach, as we get into the field investigation phase for the site assessment, which is really the foundational effort for the fuel contamination cleanup. We have began a remediation pilot to evaluate the feasibility of a technology known as soil vapor extraction at the Red Hill site.

We've completed the installation of multiple additional groundwater monitoring wells, both on and and off site of the Red Hill facility. We've completed and submitted a comprehensive update to the Navy's groundwater flow model last fall. We've continued soil vapor monitoring at the fuel facility below the fuel tanks and have conducted ecological monitoring of the Halawa Stream.

All of these efforts will continue as we, they are ongoing today, and will be continuing for the next several years. Next slide.

The last topic is really focusing on the remediation for Red Hill. I'll overview the site assessment, which again is really the foundational effort which informs the remediation of fuel releases at Red Hill. It follows the RCRA Recovery Conservation or Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the RCRA cleanup process, which differs from CERCLA.

And through that process we first do some research, look for areas that we have known releases, and then we go into the field and confirm presence or absence of field contamination at the site. Then we go back through and we characterize what that contamination on site looks like.

So it effectively scopes the cleanup effort that needs to be done. It's deliberate and iterative. It's a data driven process, closely coordinated and overseen by regulators through every single step. In its simplest terms, it follows a discovery, assess, and investigate approach.

It has multiple stages, as depicted here on the diagram, which span years and possibly decades and may involve continuous monitoring and assessment of the site. So we are currently in that first phase known as the site assessment phase, which is actually kicking off this month with its field investigation with extensive sampling on site.

We don't want to go too fast and not do it right. We have no intention of sacrificing thoroughness for the sake of expediency in this effort. We will follow the process, but we are not waiting to pursue remediation technologies.

So we are pursuing several concurrent pilot studies which include the soil vapor extraction, passive soil vapor monitoring, natural source zone depletion, which is biodegradation.

In the interim, as we kick off the process, the Navy is committed to addressing contamination at Red Hill and is committed to the preservation of our community's natural resources, the Oahu's aquifer for now and tomorrow.

Next slide, sir? Yeah, just a couple, I think public service announcements. So we have an upcoming open house. We invite you all to. It is as you see on the screen, Wednesday, August 20th at the Oahu Veterans center from 5 to 7.

So great opportunity for the public to interact with our subject matter experts who are executing our mission each and every day. And again it's open to the public, there's no registration required and we hope to see you all there. And then next slide.

And then this is where the public can find additional information on all things associated with our closure task force efforts. So you know, we have a number of online tools as well as an app.

So there's the QR codes there folks want to download, but this includes, you know, these sites include links to our document library, various photographers or photographs, as well as informative videos, all the upcoming public events and webinars that we have available to help educate the public on our mission as well as our weekly newsletter called the Red Hill Highlights.

There's also you can find the schedule of our drinking water information booths which our team hosts in various locations throughout our system to engage with the community and have them ask questions about their water. Additionally, there's our let's Talk Red Hill podcast.

Among the recent topics that we've recently published is an overview of supplement 4 and a walkthrough of our recent Open House. Episodes are fairly short. They range from two to three minutes, upwards of seven minutes and the goal again is a quick snippet of what's going on and hopefully folks find those informative.

All of this effort around various communication methods is really a collection of communication products that's guided by feedback that we receive in various forums that we engage the public with as well as stakeholder engagements like this one. And we continue to iterate here on ways that we can engage with the public.

Before we finish and receive questions from the Committee, I want to thank you all for the opportunity to provide you with an update with our progress regarding tank cleaning and closure and the long term environmental remediation and make it again two separate presentations being governed or two separate efforts that are though coordinated and information is shared across both.

You know there's still a lot to work to do. Like I've said, our mission is not going to end up being measured in years or months but but instead in decades and we are committed to seeing it through and getting it done. There's lots of entire team.

As Admiral Barnett said, right for the scene there's the immeasurable unseen and we've got a dedicated team of hard working sailors and civilians to ensure that we are getting after the task at hand and taking the necessary steps to carry out our mission. Thank you and we'll stand by for your questions.

Thank you very much Admiral Williams, Commander Dunn and Ms. Tamashiro. So also appreciate you folks being respectful of the times that we had set aside for the presentations. Thank you very much. We'll turn on to Members questions and before we do that I just wanted to ask Rep. Takayama to introduce himself. Use the microphone.

Good morning, I'm Greg Takayama, I represent Pro City and also happen to be Chair of the House Health Committee. So thank you very much.

Okay, so I'm thinking just to help keep things organized and as Admiral Williams, you mentioned two separate areas, right? So you have Navy Closure Task Force and Then you have the PFAS environmental remediation. So Members, why don't we do that in the order of the presenters.

So if we have PFAS questions, we'll take those up first and then we'll move on to the Navy Closure Task force. Okay. Questions on for Ms. Tomashiro Repelati.

Hi. Simple question. It sounds like a lot of the work being done with the regulators is with EPA and DOH.

Has any of the federal staffing cuts affected communications with EPA so that more burden is placed on DOH or has that relationship been able to be maintained throughout all the kind of, I don't know what you would call it, federal disruption that is occurring with the federal workforce?

Thank you. We have not seen any decrease in communication with our regulators. We were very upfront with them when the changes started happening with my staff and we were clear about how we were going to manage those changes.

But, but with regard to PFAS at Red Hill, we've not seen any disruption in our communication with EPA or Department of Health. Thank you, Chair.

Representative Shimizu.

Thank you, Chair. Is the AFFF the only military source of PFAS and where is the critical danger points of exposure to the aquifer and just ground.

Thank you for that question. We primarily are focusing on fire suppression, firefighting foam, which would be the aqueous film forming foam. You know, Congress mandates that we look, we spend the monies for my program to look at certain areas.

And because PFAS is in so many different products, it's unrealistic, I think, to focus the funding that we have on everything that could potentially contain PFAS.

So we are, our program is focused primarily on aqueous film forming foam as distributed through fire suppression systems, any sort of chrome plating operations, you know, where they may have used the foam to put out fires and things like that. And I'm sorry, could you repeat your second question?

Yeah, I'm just trying to identify the source of the PFAS and the critical nexus of danger points of exposure to the aquifer and our ground that's not, you know, spill contained.

So it's, we're very early in our remedial investigation. We have not yet identified all of the potential sources for where the PFAS might be entering the aquifer.

We, you know, that's the goal of what we're doing is to look at where the source is of the release and continue to step out from that source to identify, you know, the boundary of how far the release has gone. Has it traveled so we're still looking into that.

And I don't have an answer at this time on where the sources could be entering the aquifer.

I will just clarify. So we have tested the Redhill shaft. We tested it in December 2021. It was a non detective. It has been tested since. And we have found anywhere from non detect to trace levels of PFAS that are well below the 2029 EPA mandated standards.

Follow up question. Thank you, Chair. So I guess the follow up question would be, which is kind of hard because what I just heard you say is you're still investigating the source of this.

The follow up question would be what are the safeguards in place to prevent future exposure to the aquifer and the ground to protect the public, in the case of a future accident, which is part of our human nature, accidents will happen. So what are the additional preventative measures that will protect the public?

I think that's an operational question.

Yeah, I'll say. So that's one of the things. The first thing we did when we took the wall from the joint task force is we focused on removing all AFFF from the facility. So we accomplished that last spring. And like I said, so we continue the sampling efforts that Jocelyn talked about in the groundwater.

And then again the sampling that occurs at Red Hill shaft is to identify. Right. Any, any presence therein. And we have not seen while we had right within, within the Redhill Shaft. Right. Which is coming straight out of the aquifer. We've had anywhere from non detect.

So no PFAS detected to levels well below the 2029 standards at this time. And we will continue to sample because again, that is, that is the first line of defense.

Is that groundwater, the monitor well network to identify if there is a presence of, of a substance and then is it moving and does it present a threat to the aquifer.

So sorry, I'm a little confused because I asked for the, the AFFF source. You're still trying to investigate the source of it. Then I heard you say it got removed. So is there AFFF there now or is it all removed as far as working a working element?

There's no AFFF left from a working element standpoint. And there's a duty mandate actually to remove AFFF from all the shore facilities.

And I don't have the exact date off the top of my head, but that is a focus effort for the Navy and the Department of Defense right at large is to remove AFFF from all shore based facilities in an expeditious manner.

Well, that's good to hear. So is there any other substance besides AFFF that contains PFAS that might be a danger to the public in any future accident?

That's a hard question to answer because PFAS is everywhere, right? And it's in microelectronics. I mean, it's the widespread use. I mean really, PFAS from a Department of Defense standpoint, right. Our main concern is the AFFF foam. But reality is this is a national problem, right? I mean, PFAS is everywhere. It's in the rain.

It is a set of chemical compounds that has been widespread use since 2000.

That's understood. That's understood. I mean it's probably. It is in our households. But I'm thinking on a large scale military operation such as AFFF or chrome plating, as you mentioned, or whatever else quantity liquids that are being used that present the greatest danger to the public in case of an accident.

That's the nature of the question, may I add.

So for Red Hill, the AFFF was the source of PFAS. It's a firefighting material, industrial grade, at the facility. That firefighting material has been removed from the site in an operational sense as closure task forces closing the facility, bringing down the systems, deactivating and removing the fuel system infrastructure. That AFFFF firefighting system is part of that effort.

The PFAS remedial investigation work that Jocelyn's team is doing is in result to the 2022 release that occurred. And so the project was developed and we've worked very, very closely with EPA and DOH to actually expedite the schedule of the project to get it started in the past year.

We still do not have a complete work plan for the full scope of the project, but understand the sensitivity of PFAS.

And so the team collaborated with both regulators and were able to get into the field to start the project work so that we can start investigating the site and get a better idea if there was anything else attribution of something that we may find in the field that will be. That's part of the process, but very.

That'll come later on.

Right. So the answer to the question, the AFFF has been removed. And the question was is there any other major source of PFAS? And from your answer, is it no?

Yeah, there's no other major source. Thank you. On site. Sorry, probably got there a roundabout way, but I understand.

So just a clarifying question. When Rep. Shimizu asked about the the water being tested, you mentioned it was tested and found not to exceed the 2009 levels.

Sorry, 29.

2029.

Okay.

The new standards, the new standards of.

Four parts per trillion that takes effect in 2029. Correct. Okay. All right, I misheard. 2000.

Sorry, I might have misspoke.

Rep Belatti.

Just one follow up question and this is for Ms. Tomoshiro and it's connected back to my earlier question. You know, I appreciate that there hasn't. We haven't been negatively affected kind of by the turmoil at the federal level. But because this is going to be an ongoing process, could you just keep our committees informed?

Because we do have a really good communication line with our congressional delegation that should there be ever any kinds of concerns if you see declining responsiveness of the EPA or if one of the concerns that came up I heard initially was that we rely on a lot of private contractors.

So if those kinds of private contracts are at in jeopardy, it would be really important to communicate that to us so that we can communicate our concerns to our congressional delegation and make sure you have the resources that you need to be able to deliver on this plan.

Absolutely, yes, I will do that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Chair, a quick follow up on that actually from Rep Belatti's line of questioning. Has NAVFAC been affected by any of the federal cuts?

Yes ma', am, we have. We have taken a significant cut in terms of people. We're very short handed.

And is that employees or contractors?

Its employees?

Yes ma'. Am. And do you think that will affect your ability to meet the timelines and deadlines for circle process?

We are prioritizing our work so that the sites that could potentially pose the highest risk to a population, say over a drinking water aquifer or or within close proximity to a drinking water well, that those sites get the most attention from my staff.

Unfortunately, with prioritizing our work we've had to maybe put a little bit of the sites that are not over drinking water aquifer and not close to any drinking water resources a little bit towards the bottom of the list. So that's how we're dealing with the reduced staffing at NAVFAC, at least for my program.

Can you elaborate on how much of your staff that you've lost?

So I had nine staff prior to the new Administration. Two took the deferred resignation. So that left me with seven. I'm supposed to have 15 total in my staff. So I currently have a, you know, I'm pretty close to 50% with vacancy.

Thank you for elaborating. Appreciate it. Members, any other questions. I did have one other follow up question about the PFAS remediation at Red Hill.

So my understanding was when the 2022 release occurred, the AFFF spilled out of the tunnel and onto the ground next to the ADIT or the exit of the tunnel and basically it soaked into the ground.

And then as a part of the cleanup efforts, there was an immediate effort to dig up all that dirt, put it into barrels and make sure it got taken to a hazardous facility. My question is and so right.

So you dig at all that dirt, you put in new dirt and then it was covered over with asphalt. So I guess my question is, as you're doing your investigation, are you going to take off that asphalt and recheck the dirt underneath the new dirt to make sure you got everything?

Thank you. We are using drill rigs as our form of sampling. So we will not be taking off the new asphalt, the new soil that was placed and then the asphalt on top of it. But we use drill rigs to.

Well, once we get approval from our regulators with this plan, we will be canvassing the area where the spill happened with a number of soil samples that go down to, you know, whatever depth is determined to be. Based on the results that we're seeing, we will find that depth for where the PFAS has traveled down to.

So we are just going to do intrusive activities using a drill rig. Got it. Thank you.

Thank you. Chair, I just wanted to clarify. As far as your staffing, you said you had nine prior to this Administration. Two took the deferred resignation and you were already six short to begin with because 15 is fully staffed. Okay, I just wanted to clarify that point. Thank you.

Yes, that's correct.

Members, any other questions about PFAs?

Just really quickly, sorry. The, the drilling that you're going to do, the site where there's spill was and the soil was removed, so it hasn't been tested since at this point. Currently it hasn't yet been tested to see if there hasn't been additional.

No, we at the time it was assumed the soil was removed up to the point that it had seeped.

So we have installed two wells in that location where the spill happened. We've collected soil samples as we went down to reach our total depth. So our total depth in the locations went down to 200 plus feet below ground surface.

So we did collect soil samples from within those two well locations and we have detected PFAS in the soil.

There are no further questions on PFAs. Then we'll turn to Navy Closure Task Force. Thank you. Ms. Tomoshiro, please stay here just in case anything comes up. But Members, any questions for Admiral Williams or Commander Dunn?

I have some. Yep. I think they're fast Questions on Slide 4. I appreciate that you say that the beneficial reuse is a DOD responsibility and not the responsibility of this closure Task Force. Who in DOD is making the decisions?

If you can share that name with us or what entity and then if they can provide us with what the timeline is for them considering their process for determining beneficial reuse. And if you can answer the question, just providing it to our Committee.

Yeah, I can tell you. Right. I mean it has been studied. So there was a congressionally mandated RAND study that was done that looked at hydropower and the outcome of that study was it needed to be studied more, as are oftentimes with these studies. And I think so.

I think they'll probably relook at it in the 27:28 time period potentially when we get more closure and decommissioning activities completed. You know, with regards to the specific name, I don't have a specific name. We can try to find that. You know, I don't know if there is a single entity that's a decision maker.

It's probably the Department, it's probably the SEC dev. That's probably the actual decision maker based on recommendations. But who within. Whether it's Opnev, M4 or the Eine folks, whatever. The key thing I want to stress here is any beneficial reuse decisions that the DOD would make would have to go through the appropriate environmental review before.

Moving forward with another quick follow up. On slide six. You said the pre reactivation monitoring pilot report is going to be to due to the DOH this summer. Yes. Do you have a more specific date? Because we are in July and we are actually now heading into the fall.

Yeah, we're in the process of submitting that this week.

This week. And then DOH's timeline. Do you have any sense of when they are going to.

So that's a report of findings on the. On the pilot study. I don't think they will have significant comments on it, but we are still working the actual physical work to tie it together. So that's why I'm projecting August is likely when we would be requesting and seeking approval to reactivate.

Okay. And then I appreciate all the kind of stakeholder public engagement that you have, but is there going to be a specific notification of residents on the water lines and how will that, how will that notification be done?

Very similar. To the consumer confidence report. So it'll be a letter from the Joint Base co, much like the consumer confidence report that just went out, I think last week. So all those who live on the water system would receive.

So every individual is on our water system. Okay. And residents can expect like a letter.

Correct. And it will detail all the steps and where to find more information if they want to see the actual results and so forth.

I think there are residents who are very eager, especially if there's going to be reactivation. Thank you, Chair.

Representative Takayama.

Yeah. I have a quick question. On your slide 7, compliance monitoring. On the far right side where you're. Talking about drinking water monitoring, you have. A reference to a new zone in Manana. Can you elaborate? That's my neighborhood.

Oh, what are you doing there? So Monana Housing, it's managed by Marine Corps base because it's Marine Corps housing. And 2021, that was. So it's generally served by the Navy's drinking water system.

But at the time of the November release, it was not on the Navy's drinking water system and therefore it was not included in the long term monitoring plan that we first set out with. And so I think it was in 2023, it was added back to Navy service, was restored to that neighborhood.

And so we felt it appropriate to include that in the enhanced monitoring of the past year under the EDWM program. And so you can find results for Manana Housing on our safe waters like all the other residences for EDWM.

Okay, got it. Thank you.

Just want to also recognize we are joined by Senator Keo Hokole who's been helping to lead the Red Hill efforts on the Senate side. Welcome. Morning. Representative Shimizu had a question.

Yes. Thank you, Chair. On slide seven, the second column says interagency drinking water system team and notably border water supply is not on that team. And I'm wondering why they're not included, because from my personal opinion, they are the public's main steward and watchdog. So.

I believe this should be included in this team so that they're fully engaged and coordinated.

Yeah, I mean, so that team was stood up and existed for about four months back in 2021, 12022 to establish the way which we would bring the process back on. I don't know who was not included and for reasons therein, whether they were invited and chose not to or the interagency team didn't include them.

I will tell you, BWS participates in SME quarterlies. They're part of the Red Hill Remediation roundtable. And so but I can't speak to why they were or did or did not participate in the IDSWT.

Maybe, you know, I was present at the beginning and the Board of Water Supply was present at all of those meetings and their contractor, so they did participate in that process.

Being in presence and being participating in a meeting, like how these observers are in the meeting is. Might be different from having a seat at the table and being, you know, specifically named as part of this team, which their name is not here. So how do we add them? They're a fellow. Can I finish my question, please?

So if Board of Water Supply, for whatever reason at the beginning, they were excluded or misunderstanding or whatever the case may be at this point in time, if Board of Water Supply chooses to be part of that, and the public would want that, how do we add them to this, this team right here?

So Board of Water Supply is a fellow water purveyor. They are not a regulatory authority. Right. So most of these teams and most of these interactions that we have are with those with the regulatory authority, EPA, Department of Health, DLNR, etc. With regards to adding them in the future.

That is further complicated by the lawsuit that they filed on July 1st. I would refer you to the Department of Justice with regards to that, how that litigation will affect our ability to interact with them.

Any other questions?

I have a couple questions or.

Okay, thank you.

I had questions about the tank closure plan, supplement number four. So in reviewing it, and again, this is available on the Capital website, on the Red Hills Special Committee website, on the update on the tank cleaning cleaning verification plan. And so on page 13 of the report, it talked about a cloth rub test to demonstrate the cleanliness of the tank interior surfaces. It's going to be performed over a minimum of 1% of the tank shell.

And then it notes that after cleaning tank 7 and 8, the white cloths used to perform the cloth rub test had visible residue and that it was not residual fuel. And my question is, were you able to determine what that substance was?

So it's going through the waste characterization process now to determine if it's hazardous or non hazardous. And then we're working with the regulatory authorities on as we go through whether it's sludge removal or residual fuel, et cetera, how we go through that waste characterization and then based upon the outcome of those waste characterization, what the next steps are. But if you.

The challenging thing is if you take a white cloth and rub it against a rusty metal wall, it's not going to come out white. Right. And so then the question is, what do we test for and how do we go about characterizing that waste as we put things in the waste stream and then developing an auditable process that we definitively know that the residual that is left is non hazardous.

So it sounds like you're doing further testing.

Correct.

And you're not sure yet what that residue was.

It has been sent to the laboratory for the T clip, which is the toxicity characteristic leaching procedure, which is what you do for waste characterization. And then based upon the outcome of that, we'll work with the regulators on if next steps are required.

Okay, got it. I was concerned about that because at the end of the report, you talk about the tank coatings and some concerns around the chromium that was used as a part of the coating primers. And so I guess maybe the answer is you don't know yet whether or not that might be part of that residue.

Correct. And again, the key thing here is regardless of, or whatever the outcome is of the various waste characterization, is then to identify, okay, if this, then what do you do about it? We'll continue to keep the floor line in place. We'll continue to be monitoring the tanks as we go forward. We will continue to, if there is any condensation that accumulates, that will continue to be drained out through the floor line. And 311 and properly disposed of and so forth.

But again, the critical thing here is as we go through again, whether it's removing of the sludge, the rinseate or rags or anything else is appropriately characterizing the waste, making the determination if it's hazardous or non hazardous, if it comes back hazardous, then doing additional laboratory analysis to determine what is hazardous about it and then what do we do about it?

Whether it's add it to that constituent to the groundwater monitoring plan or do you need to go back in and do more to remove it, Whatever, again, whatever is deemed the appropriate way forward to minimize the risk.

Okay, very good. I also had a question about the surge tanks on page 25. You talked about this a little bit then initially that you were thinking of filling them with inert material.

Yeah, basically sand.

But then it would be too heavy and then so. But I think you also are exploring the option of a hard set foam.

Yeah, we looked at, we looked into how trolling pipelines and the legacy infrastructure is closed in Europe for instance, and we found a product that's used exclusively. Not exclusively, but throughout the Netherlands, which again, most of their infrastructure is under the water table. So is there other ways that that other entities have closed petroleum, legacy petroleum infrastructure?

And this hard set foam is something we have discovered. We have done a on site demonstration with EPA and DOH and they're exploring that as a potential option. It is essentially again in layman's terms, if you think of the foam that you would spray around your windows when you're installing a window and it expands, similar kind of concept.

So it expands, it's hard set, it's fairly light and it would, if the desire is to, is to fill those surge tanks with something that may be a more agreeable way forward because it would not pose the structural risks and from an emergency standpoint would be much, much better than trucking in and putting all that, all that sand in there.

Have you folks, or are you in the process of looking at what this foam consists of of and whether or not it would pose any environmental risks?

We have so, and we're working with regulators on that. It is, it's a hydrophobic foam, so it repels water. And that again, the demonstration and the technical memos, we're working with them, the EPA and DOH, they have a full understanding should this be a desirable way forward so that everyone's comfortable with what that product is.

So would that be part of a future supplement?

It would. If we make, if we make, deviate and go forward with that. Then we have essentially, here's the technical memo. Here's what essentially is going in there to replace whether it's close in place versus filling it with sand. Here's the inert material that is actually going into those surge tanks.

Okay. I had one other question on the Plan Supplement 4, page 29. DOH and EPA have expressed concern around the potential for topside groundwater intrusion to accelerate backside, for example, the backside of the steel liner corrosion. And so I guess what they're worried about is if you have rain coming down through the mountain, right, seeping into that potential space in between the steel liner and the concrete liner, that you could have potential release of chemicals or something in there. So can you help me understand that?

Yes, it'd be the concept. That's why one of the reasons why we're putting the sort of the passive airflow to maintain the condensation and try to keep it as dry as possible. So if you have groundwater intrusion from above and it gets behind, the fear is that it would accelerate the rusting of the liners and then further deteriorate the structural integrity of the tanks. We do not believe that is a significant risk.

And again, by continuing to push airflow through those tanks, ensures that you don't have that condensation and you don't have that accumulation of that groundwater in those tanks.

In your report it talks about that the lack of an external migration pathway means that any corrosion generated material would not reach surrounding environment. And should the corrosion progress to the point where the steel liner was degraded, any release material would drain into the tanks and interior where it'd be captured by the four line bottom drain.

Can you just explain to me how that would work?

Yeah. So if you think of, think of a vessel, so the walls are dead vertical, right? So anything that's going to fall off of the sides are going to accumulate at the bottom, right? In the bottom. It's a think of an aspirin pill or think of a Tylenol capsule, right. So you've got a round bottom, round top, right. With vertical walls. So it's going to accumulate at the bottom and then that four line sits at the the bottom of the tank. It's going to be maintained throughout the foreseeable future.

And anything would be captured would be rinsed down through, sucked out through the foreline and in tank 311 in a similar manner that we're doing tank cleaning today. So all of that rinse aid, all that material accumulates at the bottom is removed via the four line that runs out through ... three into the tank 311 and then it is vac trucked out and taken to the, to the DOH permitted facility for disposal.

I guess where I'm confused is that from where I'm reading In your report, DOH and EPA are worried about backside corrosion of the liner. So this is the part of the liner that's up against the concrete, not the part of the liner that's facing the inside of the tank. Right. So if you have corrosion on the backside, I guess I'm not sure how you're saying it.

Backside corrosion would eventually result in it from detaching from the concrete and fall inwards.

Oh, I see.

Because you have behind, depending upon where you are on the wall of the tank, it's anywhere from 6ft of concrete, then gunite behind those tanks to 3ft of concrete and gunite behind those walls. So you would have - right - if you get, if you get an intrusion of - and it would affect essentially how it's attached - right - you would. It would basically, again, our belief is, and again, and we've had outside consultants look at this is it would fall in and be self contained in the vessel itself.

Okay. I guess my concern is that, you know, over the years, as my very, very basic understanding is that it's possible that there may have been failures in the liner such that fuel may have been trapped between the liner and the concrete liner. Right.

And so I guess when I read that EPA and DOH are concerned about groundwater intrusion into that space or I don't know, between the two liners. Right. If you have accelerated corrosion of the backside of the liner, that could cause those materials to travel through the concrete liner before you have failure of the inner liner such that it would fall into the tank. Does that make sense?

It does, I would say. I mean that's part of the reason why you have. As we expanded our groundwater monitoring network, Right. We focused on on premise wells first. Then we've continued to push out any. If that was to occur, we would start to see detections within the groundwater and monitoring network that then would guide us on. Right. That data would then guide us on. Hey, something's going on here. We need to investigate it further.

Okay, so you would like treat any fuel trapped between the liner and the concrete similarly to fuel that might be trapped.

Correct. And the thing is too, anything that's captured. So let's say again, the most likely course, which is it would be accumulated in the vessel itself. All of that material that then is sucked out through 311 goes through the waste characterization and we have an understanding of what is in it. And if we were to see.

Yeah and I think we're thinking what will continue to, what will not fall inward.

If it goes and that's again we've got an extensive groundwater monitoring network then to detect any presence of fuel products.

Is that a separate opportunity to test that or detect that at that like kind of proximity to the actual tank versus it's already somewhere in the layers of soil.

I don't think so. I mean I'm trying to think of a way you would proactively go in besides. Besides actually a destructive means of going in and starting to drill holes through the liner which then would accelerate. Would accelerate the concern. That's the trade off.

Sorry, I know I've had a lot of questions. Co-Chair Lowen, did you have anything or.

Just curious I guess if you - the note about the deciding to regardless of proposed ideas for beneficial reuse moving forward to just closing the tanks. I guess. Can you just tell us a little more detail about that?

So there were a couple congressionally mandated or congressionally mandated study that the RAND Corporation did looking at hydropower. And then we did as DOH had asked us to do a community study to seek input of hey what some ideas are and there's some really creative ones like a brewery which would be a lot of beer.

It's a lot of beer. Underground scuba, an amusement park. There's lots of creative ideas. Our mission is very cleanly defined as decommission the facility and has been intentionally segregated of hey, you know yours is not to worry about beneficial reuse decisions. Those will be studied and looked at in the future.

Determine if there is if there is a beneficial reuse of the facility or not. So you know there are lots of creative ideas out there. I think the important thing is whatever decision is made needs to go through the appropriate environmental analysis to determine what that impact would be. Should there be a decision to try to find a beneficial reuse.

Okay. And hydropower was deemed not.

It was economical. Yeah. The economic. The economics aren't there.

But also putting additional liquid in the tank seems counteractive to preventing further contamination. Yeah.

Well you. I mean you would have to do things. I mean there's things that you'd have to do right to be prepare those tanks to then hold whether it would use seawater or you use actual fresh water from hydropower plant standpoint.

Rep. Belatti and then Rep. Shimizu.

Two more timeline questions. If the Navy Aiea Halawa shaft is going to be reactivated sometime in the near future. And the extended drinking water monitoring program, you guys are looking to close out those reports. Is the thinking that the extended drinking water monitoring is going to continue past the reactivation?

So the extended drinking water has closed out.

It is already closed.

It is already closed out as part of the reactivation plan. And Ben can comment further on this. There will be some enhanced monitoring that is in conjunction with the DOH approved plan.

We did complete all the sampling for the EDWM plan which included the. Much like the previous plan, there's distribution sampling hydrants, there's house sampling, residential and then the source sampling. While we have closed out the program and we are waiting for EPA to provide endorsement, we are continuing to sample the wild source every month.

And then we are also continuing to sample the Navy Aiea and Red Hill Shaft which are offline quarterly until that happens. And DOH may outlay additional monitoring post reactivation.

Once reactivation occurs.

Once. Yes, that occurs.

Okay. And we'll see that in potentially their response to the.

We would. I would anticipate that to be included in any endorsement.

So something for us to look at. One last question. You mentioned that the Red Hill Shaft reopening or reactivation is a ways away and that's going to require. There will be a water treatment facility.

There is. We're putting an interim. Much like Navy Aiea, we're putting an interim system in place today. It won't be up for another 18 months or so. Operation is expected in 2027, meaning the capability to operate it. And then we have that MILCON project.

A more permanent project.

Is the permanent solution.

Okay. And that's costing the Federal Government how much much money?

That's.

It's estimated about a half a billion.

Half a billion.

Approximately.

Thank you, Chair. In your presentation you mentioned that you are using recycled reclaimed water for the pressure washing of the interior tanks. Yeah. And I heard you also say that the water that's used goes to a DOH facility for their disposal.

Not a. DOH permitted facility for treatment and disposal. And that's the Rinse 8. That's the mixture of the cleaning surfactant, the rinse water and then the residual product that's washed off the walls.

So it's a DOH approved facility, but military still responsible for disposing of that water or treating that water.

Military. It is a contracted site here on island that disposes that. But it's a DOH permitted facility that treats and disposes of that water.

Do you know how that water is disposed of or what happens to that water?

So I know, I mean the basics of an oil, you know, oil water separator, and then, you know, it goes down their waste streams therein. We can get you details on how those kind of types of facilities operate, but the one in, the specific one that's being used, I don't have exact knowledge of what their processes are.

So we could assume that it's treated and you'll get us the details. And I would assume it's tested to make sure that it's at an acceptable level before the water is. I don't know what happens to the water because that must be a lot of water, I would guess, huh?

It is. We're using about 2,000 gallons per tank.

Okay, so we can get details of that.

But as far as - DOH has oversight over how those types of facilities here on island operate.

Right, but would we be able to get information on that? What happens to it at?

I'll probably reach out to DOH and ask is there oversight activities for those permitted facilities? They can provide details of the oversight and what the testing regimen is that they require.

Okay, I would appreciate that. Thank you. I do have another question. On your timeline, you stated there's no end date, which, which is good to see that, you know, you're committed to whatever it takes. So besides the removal, physical removal, decommissioning, are there any other goals that have metrics regarding fuel removal from the aquifer?

So with regards to one, just to clarify, we are not detecting fuel in the aquifer. So with regards to, as Ben talked about sampling of Red Hill Shaft, even the EPA's inspection last June of our water system identified no TPH in the Red Hill Shaft. So, you know, we continue to, you know, separate distinct efforts here as far as, from a decommissioning standpoint, the scope is very, very well known and clean. So easy to apply metrics of are we on plan or off plan?

With regards to things like the environmental, the site assessment efforts, really that's guided by the data that's collected that then drives that iterative process of what the next steps are. So it's really hard to aside of saying, hey, here is the, you know, here's the work plan and here is the time period that we're wanting to get after it and are we on schedule or off schedule against that work plan?

There's really no clean metrics of, you know, you know, how many you know, how many feet of pipeline have been removed to date? That's much more of an iterative process, and it's intentionally so to make sure, again, you're more concerned about thoroughness there than you are or about maintaining a specific schedule.

Okay. Because I'm just thinking that at a certain fixed point, those physical goals will be met and then what happens beyond that? And my question was, in that beyond period, would specifically targeting whatever fuel has entered the aquifer, are there goals to address that and remove it?

So again, fuel is not being detected in the aquifer. Now, that doesn't mean - there is contamination in the facility that's in the groundwater, that's in the ground. Whether or not that enters the aquifer in the future, it may or may not happen. But the groundwater network and the continued sampling, then, as you use that to guide your decision making, should that risk, that threat come to a point where it is a potential risk.

Okay, Can I ask more questions? Chair?

Do you have a lot more?

Maybe a couple more.

Two.

Okay, two. I'll combine the questions.

Then we can do another round and come back to you.

Okay, sure. You want to do another round? Go ahead.

No, no, no.

Okay. In. In looking at your supplements, information, which is very detailed, has a lot of information there. I. I read that there are going to be things abandoned in the tank. Could we get an itemized list of what those items are for each tank?

So it's part of. So there's a ongoing effort. It's called the closure design. That will detail the remaining appurtenances that will remain that have been verified clean, but will remain because it's really, it's infeasible to try to get them out of the tank. So that's, that'll be part of that.

What we call, we call it the closure design. That is an ongoing working group that's working through that. I can get you a date of when we expect to complete that closure design. And there obviously will be a review process with EPA and DOH before it goes final.

Okay, thank you. And then related to that is I also read that there are going to be abandoned pipes in place. Can we get like a quantity or.

I don't know if you're able to answer this right now, but what is the quantity of that pipe that's abandoned in place as far as a quantitative number and a percentage of the. The total length of pipe? And can we get like a map of where those pipes are that's abandoned in place?

Absolutely. And again, that will be part of the closure design document. And in addition, we are. We are doing a LIDAR study and lidar, so that one, it helps us from a state historic preservation standpoint of what the facility looked like before decommissioning.

And then as we go forward and things begin to get removed, it will show status of what came out and what stayed in. But both of those. Both of those have been thought through.

But again, the closure design effort is that's where that detail will be, you know, and then that will definitively give you a number of, hey, here's how much linear feed or percentage of the total 10 miles that ended up being abandoned in place and why it was abandoned in place. Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Follow up on that. I have similar concerns. And to follow up also to Chair Ichiyama's comment, you know, the historical nature of different coatings being used. And we only over time have learned how products are. Are dangerous to not just the environment, but actually to human health.

So just a request that if in the design plan, if we can know that, you know, the qualities or ingredients or the toxicity of the various coatings, particularly the ones that are going to be remaining in the tanks, I think when I see chromium in a report, that does not make me feel good.

So understanding what is the quality of the toxicity of any of the remaining abandoned materials would be very, I think, important for the people of Hawaii.

Yep.

Senator Keohokalole.

Sure. Senator.

Thank you. Good morning and thank you, Chair, for allowing me to join in your briefing. I appreciate your work and thank you very much for clarifying the answer to Representative Shimizu's question about TPH detections. Because it does seem clear that the monitoring that the Navy has been diligently conducting has shown no detection of fuel.

But what I believe I heard from you, and I just like to make sure that this is clear and out in the open, because you guys do deserve credit for the transparency in which you've been helping.

Having this discussion about monitoring is that we don't have the evidence available to definitively say that the fuel, the residual fuel that we think might be in the ground is not going to pose a threat in the future or evidence to determine how much of it there actually is. It's just a highly complicated situation.

And so I appreciate you for acknowledging that because I think it is the source of some of the contention with the Board of Water Supply and the well opening and filtration on the other side of Halawa Valley and I think the reason I say that I'll get to a question is I know the Navy has been trying very hard to be open with the community about the action that it's taking in order in part to build trust in these communities and put us all in a better position to move forward.

I guess when we've been talking about the Navy's sort of open ended commitment to the Red Hill efforts, it includes decommissioning and it includes this ongoing monitoring is there, you know, you've mentioned a couple times you're following the data and then you're given objectives and then you fulfill those objectives through your different tasks based off of where the data is taking you.

I'm just wondering if there is some way that we can provide or work with the Navy to provide some sort of more definitive commitment that the Navy's going to be here if in the future, and this future might never come, but if in the future there is some sort of shift under the ground and the fuel becomes a concern to the aquifer.

Your system serves 90,000 people. The Board of Water Supplies System serves hundreds of thousands of people from Aiea all the way down to Hawaii.

And an open ended commitment is great, but some sort of definitive, you know, we're going to be here to take care of that should it become a problem or should the technology become available to solve the problem, I think would be really great. Thank you. Thank you, Chuck.

So, well, that was a question, I would say. I mean, so I look at your point, right? What there is, it's undeniable, there's contamination under the tanks, right. You know, and so the question is, does it pose a risk?

And again, my simple engineer mind, right, you know, is we establish and we put a State of the art treatment facility there as part of that half $1.0 billion project which includes both PFAS as well as well as TPH.

The safety net, in my opinion is if that is to find its way through the geology and into the aquifer. If we're pumping 5 million gallons to 10 million gallons a day at a Red Hill, it's going to be immediately captured and sucked up into that treatment facility and then treated accordingly.

Now that doesn't solve the, if it migrates off facility. Now, we're not seeing that in the data yet. That doesn't mean it couldn't happen.

But again, to your point, it's the complications here with the sciences is, you know, one side will say, well, we're not seeing the presence of, and want somebody else to say, but you're not, you're not, you can't definitively tell me it's not right. It's this ongoing challenge of, you know, here's what the data is telling us.

But that doesn't mean that risk doesn't exist. So that's one of the reasons why even though the water coming out of the Red Hill Shaft today does not require a treatment, half $1.0 billion treatment facility.

But even like DOH has said, all right, out of an abundance of caution, we're putting that there for the resiliency and redundancy of our system. But also I look at it as again, simple engineering mind here of again, if fuel product is to find its way into the aquifer, we're pumping 5 to 10 million gallons a day.

It's going to be captured because that's the nearest pump in the vicinity. It's going to be drawn towards it. It'll be sucked up and treated accordingly. Thank you for that clarification.

Thank you, Admiral Williams.

Well, you kind of answered this question before. We used to have a plume, right? They, I don't know if it was you or the Department of Health that's provided that and where the movement of fuel is, but I think you just answered that question. Do you guys detect any movement? Like you.

I know, she said, yeah, the heat maps, or we'll call them. No, what we've seen is, you know, there were the heat maps you probably saw immediately following the November 21st release. What we have seen and we can get you the updated ones.

I think we have ones that we presented at C worm, the last C worm, it shows that it's shrinking. And the key thing here, right is JP5 is a non persistent chemical, which means it doesn't last in the environment for a while. Now that doesn't mean Red Hill has a historical of using other types of fuels.

But JP5 specifically is a non persistent chemical and it doesn't last in the environment long. And what the heat maps that we've seen is the plume is shrinking and it is not moving off premise, which is again, that's a good news story. But it doesn't. Right?

Doesn't mean we sit on our laurels and say, zero, you know, claim victory. We have to continue to monitor and we have to continue to have that disciplined execution to make sure we monitor it and make sure it doesn't move. And again, same thing as part of the field investigation.

We identify the absence or presence of any, any other historical fuels that have been used there, if they were ever released and so forth. But those heat maps you're referring to actually show it's shrinking, if I may add.

Also, that's also why we feel it's very important that we continue working on some of the activities that we have today. We have close to 50 wells, but there are areas where we don't have wells and that's why we want to continue to install them to the south of the facility and to the west northwest area.

That's why we're continuing to overhaul our groundwater flow model to get better understanding, refine it. We look forward to UH's findings so we are all better informed as we continue. But the monitoring through the groundwater groundwater monitoring program is going to persist for quite a while.

And through the site assessment or the remediation process, that's going to be a long process. But that, you know, the goal would be 100% cleanup. Is that viable or feasible? But ultimately there will be long term monitoring affiliated with the site, like other environmental remediation sites involved.

Okay, I have a couple questions. Thank you. Just on that note, Commander Dunn, can you please give us an update on the groundwater model? Where are you folks at? Where is uh, at and is there a timeline?

Certainly. Um, so we provided an updated, a comprehensive update to the model. The Navy's model has several component models to it. Um, contaminant, fate, traffic, transport, there's groundwater flow. So we updated all of those sub models and the comprehensive product last summer, submitted it to EPA and DOH last fall have gotten some feedback.

We sat down with the regulators in the spring to see where else can we target for improvement and refinement. And so we are updating the vados zone. The vados zone model is basically the portion of the ground that's above the aquifer but below the surface. So we're updating that with a 3D version this year.

And then by the end of next year we intend to produce a comprehensive update again to the entire model, which we will include all the data that we've gotten from all the groundwater monitoring wells that we've installed through early next year. That's important data.

All the groundwater monitoring results that we've got, but most specifically uh's findings, um, which they are, as I understand, on plan to finish their field efforts and their model this fall.

We are hoping they publish that or finalize it for, you know, and provide that to the community, you know, by the early, by January or something early next year so that we can then include it in our model update.

It was my understanding, uh, was looking for additional time to work on their model. So maybe if you can just double.

Check with them, we have a quarterly update we're receiving from them tomorrow. And again, the key thing here, right, on the uh, model, right. It's a, it is a true third party. Right. There's a. There's essentially a firewall, right. That's the Office of Naval Research grant.

So we receive updates on where they are against their schedule and the progress they're making, but we have no influence over. Over their efforts. Right. Separate and distinct. So we do have a quarterly update tomorrow where we are. We'll get an idea of where they are with their schedule and when they think they'll get to completion.

We can get that back to you.

Okay, great question.

Based upon that, since you mentioned it was a grant, there's no. Is there any threat to their grant being pulled like everybody else's?

I don't. I mean I, I have heard right through rumor mills that there is, you know, that there, there is. You know, we have raised that concern up through our chain of. Hey, again, it's. There's a clear firewall there of where we can and can influence.

I've raised that as a concern saying hey, if, as these grants get questioned going forward. Right. That is a concern of ours. That U of H would not be able to complete their study or not. I don't know where they are with it.

Maybe if you could check with them at your quarterly meeting tomorrow and then.

You see if they have yet just.

Give us any updates, that would be much appreciated. And then one other follow up was you mentioned the design plan when you were responding to Rep. Shimizu's questions for the tank closure. What is the timeline for that design?

I believe, if I remember right, we will complete that early. 27. There's a series of working groups and so forth. But let me get an exact date as far as what the building blocks are as we march towards that.

Okay. Because I think that will answer a lot of Rep. Shimuzu as well as Rep. Balati's question questions. Okay, thank you. Rep. Shimizu, back to you.

Thank you. You know, in some of my line of questioning, and I think Senator kind of capsulized it by his question and I wasn't sure if I heard the response back to his question regarding working with the Legislature at the State of partnering, maybe defined, defined action plans and metrics in a.

In an agreement going forward versus kind of an indefinite undefined scope, so to speak. And of course that that is going to require A good partnership and cooperation on the Navy side, which we appreciate what you have already committed to and done.

But I guess answering Senator's question regarding a detailed agreement going forward, how would we work on that?

I think, I mean, I look at, you know, we have whether it's through the Department of Health regulatory oversight over us or even Epsilon or even dlnr. Right. Those channels would be the appropriate way.

Whether it's, you know, as we have these various work plans, you know, submittals that are required under the EO or the ACO in whether those are expanded upon to include more specific metrics or goals, that's probably the most appropriate way to handle those.

Thank you. So what I'm hearing is we should work with DOH, Department of Health and EPA and of course, with you. But you will honor those directives.

Yeah, I mean, they're the regulatory oversight. Right. I mean, they're the enforcement agencies over us that we've got to comply with. And so that's why I think if you're looking for a enforceable, an agreement, an enforceable document, I think that's the appropriate, the most appropriate way.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Any additional questions?

I have one last question. Five more minutes. I'm sorry.

You know, I know I asked these crazy hard questions and, you know, I don't want to put you on the spot because as has been stated, we really appreciate all that you do incorporating, providing all this information being here, answering my, my crazy question is based on historical records, are you able to some quantify and sum the total amount of fuel that was spilled and have any kind of ideal analysis of where that went, how much went into the ground, how much went into the aquifer or whatever, is there any kind of math to that?

You talk about this? Certainly. Yeah.

So the site assessment field investigation, which is really the first field effort or sampling effort for the RCRA cleanup process for Red Hill for fuel that is going to help quantify or that that process is aimed to quantify that we have records of historical releases and that's what's going to guide that process as to where to look.

And then are we going to find it or is it gone, is it not there, you know, so forth. And then if it is there or any fuel contamination that we find, we then go in and characterize the extent of it and assess that volume or the nature.

And then we get after a plan of how to remove it so that, yes, we will, but we won't have that yet. As far as what's actually on the site today.

So that was kind of maybe at least a two part question. Do you have historical records of how much was spilled? So you probably have the answer to that. And then the other part of where did it go? How much of where did it go? That's ongoing, I guess analysis and conclusion then.

And that information is possibly forthcoming.

Yes. So the work plan for the field sorry I brought up the field investigation because of the work plan. That information is in that work plan for that we're finalizing that now, will be providing that to DOH. We'll provide a copy on the website here.

In the not too distant future, we want to make sure the regulators approve it before we, you know, put that up. But that that information will be available for the historical releases and then as we go through the process, longer process, we'll have updates. You know, hey, this is what we found.

We can provide an overview of, you know, site specific assessment and progress.

Thank you. Thank you Chair. I have no more questions.

Thank you. Rep. Sham Rep. Did you have a follow up? No. Okay. All right. Well, we've had a really robust discussion today. I really want to appreciate Admiral Williams, Commander Dunn and Ms. Tomas Shiro for being here today. Really appreciate you folks making yourself available. So we'll follow up on the information that was requested by the Members.

If you can provide that to the co chairs and then we'll send it to the Members of the Committee and kind of help disperse the information in an organized fashion. Did you have any closing remarks?

Again, appreciate the conversation and the tough questions and thank you for the opportunity today.

Thank you very much Members. We're adjourned.