Two men who worked at the Navy’s Red Hill storage facility pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges they concealed the scope of a fuel spill that kicked off a public health disaster in 2021. 

In May that year, John Floyd and Nelson Wu were civilian employees at Red Hill, the U.S. Navy’s World War II-era fuel depot on Oʻahu, when some 20,000 gallons of fuel spewed from an underground pipe.

After the spill, Floyd and Wu stand accused by federal prosecutors of lying to state regulators by reporting that only 1,618 gallons had leaked. At an arraignment in federal court on Friday morning, Floyd and Wu told a judge they understood the charges against them — conspiracy and making false statements — but said nothing else. Both remain free on bond.

Bill Harrison, Floyd’s attorney, suggested on Friday that the defendants are being blamed for the failures of others.

“I have a suspicion these two gentlemen may be scapegoats in this case,” he said outside the courthouse.

The discrepancy in the amount of fuel leaked in May 2021 became a critical factor in a water contamination crisis later that year that sickened thousands of people.

During the May incident, about 18,000 gallons of the fuel drained into a sump and flowed into another Red Hill pipeline, where it sat unreported and undisturbed for months, according to a military investigation. In November 2021, a worker hit that pipeline with a cart, causing the fuel to rain down for more than 30 hours near the Red Hill well. 

After the well became contaminated, tainted water was delivered to some 93,000 customers living and working around Pearl Harbor. Navy officials assured the public there was no cause for concern and only acknowledged there was a problem after the state health department issued an alert.

Entire families fell ill with symptoms ranging from gastrointestinal to neurological problems. Some are still coping with health problems today. 

The Red Hill fuel contamination caused a public uproar and eventually led the Department of Defense to decide to shut down the complex it had once called a vital national security asset. By December 2023, the Navy had removed most of the 100 million gallons of fuel stored there. It now is in the process of decommissioning the facility.

Questions About Who Is At Fault

Floyd was the deputy director of the fuels department, and Wu reported to Floyd as a supervisory engineer. However, the facility is owned and controlled by the U.S. military, and some community members have questioned whether the recent indictments let military leaders off the hook.

Investigations by multiple federal government entities have found fault with the military leadership that was running Red Hill at the time.

Civil Beat has been reporting on the leaking tanks, water contamination and political debate over Red Hill since 2014. Read our full coverage here.

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Two U.S. Pacific Fleet investigations released in 2022 identified extraordinary failures in maintenance, training and leadership at Red Hill. It concluded that the Navy’s flawed investigation into the May 2021 spill laid the foundation for the subsequent spill and drinking water contamination.

Last year, the Department of Defense Inspector General found military leaders lacked operations and maintenance programs, were unprepared to prevent or respond to fuel leaks, and were not trained to respond to emergencies.

Despite these findings, the military has not announced any substantive punishment of military leaders for their performance related to Red Hill. The most severe discipline known publicly is the censure of three retired Navy officials.

The Navy did not respond to Civil Beat’s questions about the defendants’ work histories or current job status and offered no comment on the case. According to Harrison, Floyd is now on administrative leave. Wu now works for a government contractor.

Healani Sonoda-Pale, an environmental activist and self-proclaimed water protector, agreed with Harrison that Floyd and Wu may be the “fall guys.”

“There needs to be accountability, and I hope this goes to trial so that more information can come out,” she said after the arraignment. “The families deserve that. The families deserve some kind of justice from this.”

Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi Executive Director Wayne Tanaka, who also attended the arraignment, said the failures at Red Hill were systemic.

“We have to remember that the fuse to this ticking time bomb was lit years ago, during years of denials, of gaslighting, of misinformation coming from all levels of the Department of Defense,” he said. “And that led to this decrepit facility operating until the catastrophe happened.”