AMERICAN LEGION POST #14 - BOZEMAN, MONTANA

Honorable Jon Tester

311 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510-2604

SUBJ: HAWAII NAVY WATER SYTEM CONTAMINATION

Dear Senator Tester,

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT:
For years, The Honolulu Board of Water Supply, environmental groups, and state officials have raised concerns that fuel releases from the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility will contaminate not just a source of drinking water for the Navy, but a major source of drinking water for Southern Oahu. The contamination of at least the well at Red Hill is augmenting those fears. Let us: “Fix this World War II era facility critical to our national security instead of shutting it down. Then provide a health parachute for everyone that has been exposed. Our men and women in the service signed up for some risk. Their Spouses, Sons and Daughters did not.”

I learned a long time ago that one should never complain without offering an answer: Now, let me help you with background and possibly better solutions than closing a national asset and Civil Engineering Landmark (The 250-million-gallon Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility) that makes certain the Fuels Department can distribute clean, clear bright fuel that is within Navy standards supporting U.S. Military operations in the Pacific.

We are learning that the Navy knew of Red Hill petroleum contamination of Hawaiian drinking water to an estimated 93,000 people, including some of your constituents and their families serving our country that call Montana home at least as early as July 2021.

One aspect of US Congressional action manifesting itself is a direction to the Navy suspending the use of the 250-million-gallon fuel storage facility at Red Hill that is essential to National Security. This is an ill-advised, but has great optics.

More importantly are PEOPLE and the environment. My family of Montanans have been reporting home that their home has smelled like a gas station for months. While it may be more than a bit uncomfortable while serving your country that your house (Really!! Their home in military housing managed by the Army) sits atop a prime enemy target (Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility), while you breath and drink hydrocarbons should not be a part of that discomfort.

Tragically one of your constituents drinking the contaminated water and breathing petroleum at Red Hill Housing Area on Oahu was in utero in 1981 while her mother was drinking water contaminated with chemicals known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including industrial solvents and components of fuels at Camp Lejeune, NC is again under attack from a National Mistake we are seemingly brushing under the rug without fixing. This should sound familiar. In 2012, President Obama signed into law the “Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012.”

I respectfully request that you go beyond good optics and immediately introduce a bipartisan bill along with Senator Daines and Representative Rosendale that has a title and purpose somewhat like: ““Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Hawaii’s Military Dependents Act of 2021.” It shouldn’t be hard to get traction as everyone has affected constituents.

Further, I respectfully request that the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) be directed to complete a “Morbidity Study of Service members/Former Service members, Employees, and Dependents Potentially Exposed to Contaminated Drinking Water at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii”. This MUST include a registry of exactly WHO were and are working, and living aboard the effected bases, going to elementary and high schools, and living in those housing areas so that these folks can be a part of a VOCs ingestion and cancer incidence study involving cancer registries nationwide to include federal cancer registries.

BOTTOM LINE AGAIN: In conclusion, for years, The Honolulu Board of Water Supply, environmental groups, and state officials have raised concerns that fuel releases from the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility will contaminate not just a source of drinking water for the Navy, but a major source of drinking water for Southern Oahu. The contamination of at least the well at Red Hill is augmenting those fears. Let us: “Fix this World War II era facility critical to our national security instead of shutting it down. Then provide a health parachute for everyone that has been exposed. Our men and women in the service signed up for some risk. Their Spouses, Sons and Daughters did not.”

If we closed Red Hill, on a quiet night at the Lincoln Memorial, we would be able to hear China cheering… and since in Montana, I’m closer to China, the cheering would sound louder.

Very Respectfully,
Your Constituent
Greg Harbac, USMC Retired

Bozeman, Montana