LOS ANGELES, March 7 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Department of Defense on Monday announced it will defuel and permanently close an enormous fuel storage facility in Hawaii over an ongoing water contamination crisis.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that he made the decision to permanently close the Red Hill underground fuel storage tanks "after close consultation with senior civilian and military leaders."
Located near the Pearl Harbor-Hickam Joint Base, the facility includes 20 massive 250-foot underground steel tanks encased in concrete, each holding more than 12 million gallons of jet and other fuel. It is situated just 30 meters above Hawaii's main aquifer that supplies fresh water to most of Honolulu and much of Oahu County.
Last November, a 14,000-gallon fuel leak at the World War II-era Navy storage facility contaminated the drinking water on the island of Oahu, reportedly sickening thousands of people.
The public outrage and dismay has rapidly spread from community activists in the native-Hawaiian community to the public at large, and all the way up to Hawaii's state and federal leadership.
Local authorities had called for immediate shutdown of the Red Hill tanks. Hawaii's health department issued an order in December to the Navy to suspend operations at the facility.
"No later than May 31, the Secretary of the Navy and Director of the Defense Logistics Agency will provide an action plan for safe and expeditious defueling of the facility, with a completion date target of 12 months. Then, as soon as we have made corrective actions to ensure that defueling will be safe, we will begin refuel," said Austin in Monday's statement.
"Then we will move to permanently close the Red Hill facility, including conducting any and all necessary environmental remediation around the facility," he added.
U.S. Department of Defense said it will complete environmental mitigation efforts for the Red Hill drinking water well and any other impacted areas.
It also vowed to restore safe drinking water to all affected residents and provide best-in-class sampling and testing to ensure continued safety of drinking water.
Members of Hawaii's congressional delegation said closing the Red Hill is the right thing to do, reported Hawaii News Now.
"Pressure on the Department of Defense is why we won this battle," U.S. Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii was quoted as saying by the major local news outlet.
Hawaii governor David Ige also noted "this is great news for the people of Hawaii."
"We look forward to working with the Navy to safely defuel and permanently close the storage facility," said the governor via Twitter. ■