Two separate lab-testing consultants hired by the Honolulu Board of Water Supply are challenging the Navy’s assertion that the elevated levels of petroleum it detected in drinking water samples last year around Pearl Harbor were merely false positives.

Further, those outside experts say a full two years’ worth of water quality testing conducted by the Navy is invalid because it had failed to follow a key step laid out by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Navy collected those 8,000 or so water samples after the 2021 jet fuel leaks from its massive, underground tanks at Red Hill. The spill contaminated the military’s nearby water system used by more than 90,000 people to drink, bathe and clean. 

The goal of that Navy testing, done in 2022 and 2023, was to ensure that the water had been fully flushed of the pollutants that caused debilitating health problems to many of those who used the military-run water system around Pearl Harbor. 

Throughout that testing period, Navy officials said their results proved the water system to be safe again even as residents there continued to report problems with their health and the condition of the water.

At Monday’s BWS meeting, board Chair Na’alehu Anthony asked Paul Winkler, a Colorado-based analytical laboratory consultant, whether the Navy’s 8,000 sample’s were valid.

“From a technically compliant position, I would say they are not,” Winkler said.

Two other consultants with Analytical Quality Associates, an environmental chemistry data firm, supported Winkler’s view when they presented their own, separate analysis at the meeting. 

For some Navy water users impacted by the contamination, the lab consultants’ testimony validated their ongoing concerns about the Navy water system and whether it’s safe to use – as well as their frustration over how the Navy has handled the aftermath of the Red Hill leak.

“It is very much validating,” said Jamie Simic, the wife of a senior chief petty officer in the Navy.  “We all know what we’re seeing, tasting, living” regarding the water system.

The Navy in April released a 434-page technical memorandum that concluded the elevated levels of total petroleum hydrocarbons, or TPHs, found in its samples from July to December to 2023 were actually caused by laboratory contamination.

“It didn’t make sense,” military spouse and veteran Lacey Quintero told the board Monday, because families relying on the water system continued to report skin burns, foul smells, migraine headaches and other ailments during that time. 

“The report the swarm team gave — it was dismissive at best,” Quintero said, referring to a team of military personnel formed earlier this year to investigate the residents’ continued reports of water and health problems. 

“It just explained what they wished to be true,” she said.

UPDATED: The Navy in a statement sent Wednesday through its Closure Task Force working to decommission the Red Hill storage facility said that it looks forward to reviewing the BWS’ third-party findings and conclusions.

“Unfortunately, BWS has not provided their report to us, so we are unable to comment at this time,” it added.

More Third-Party Testing Needed

BWS members, including Kapua Sproat, said that the problems with the Navy’s previous drinking water testing show how important it is that outside parties participate in that testing as well in order to ensure the results are accurate.

The Navy started a year-long extension of its drinking water testing around Pearl Harbor in April. Amy Miller, director of the EPA’s Region 9 Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Division, said Tuesday that the federal agency is taking several steps to help ensure the results of the extended testing period are reliable.

“This has been an ongoing issue and concern for EPA,” Miller said of the Navy water testing after Red Hill.

A key flaw in the Navy’s approach was that it failed to remove residual chlorine from its drinking water samples as part of the process, Winkler told BWS. Miller confirmed Tuesday that chlorine removal should have occurred.

The EPA conducted its own separate testing of the water supply in June and should release a report on those findings in about a month, Miller said. The EPA will also collect “split” samples from the Navy, test them separately, and then compare the results with what the Navy found, she said.

The EPA further plans to eventually conduct a sample audit of the Navy to check that whether it’s correctly testing the drinking water during this extended period, Miller added.

BWS, meanwhile, remains concerned that contaminants from the Red Hill fuel leaks could eventually reach the public system that supplies most of the island through Oahu’s porous underground aquifer.

That’s largely why the water agency hired consultants to analyze the Navy’s test results on that separate system, Anthony said Monday. BWS, he said, wants to be prepared for a similar scenario.

Residents impacted by the fuel leak said Monday that they were grateful for BWS’ continued scrutiny of the situation.

“Without you guys in our corner, we wouldn’t have the answers that we have moving forward,” Simic said.