A Navy team that has been investigating the cause of ongoing water quality complaints around Pearl Harbor is allegedly made up of experts in the field, but the Navy won’t say who they are.

Concerns about the water stem from the 2021 fuel leaks at the Navy’s Red Hill storage facility. The fuel contaminated the drinking water of 93,000 people, sickening thousands, including some that are still experiencing symptoms today.

In the past two years, the Navy has maintained the water is safe, citing the results of water tests. But more recently, the Navy has cast doubt on its own monitoring program. It announced the formation of a so-called “swarm team” to investigate why residents on the water line continue to report water problems and health issues they believe to be connected.

Despite repeated requests by community members and Civil Beat, the Navy is refusing to say on whose expertise it is relying.

In a statement on Friday, Lt. Cmdr. Pat Foughty cited a Freedom of Information Act provision that shields “personnel and medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”

Foughty would only share the names of the senior members of the team, including:

• Milt Johnston, director for environmental compliance, Red Hill Navy Closure Task Force
• Cmdr. Ben Dunn, deputy for environment and remediation, Red Hill Navy Closure Task Force
• W. Brock Durig, environmental programs director, Navy Installations Command 
• Chris Waldron, president of the U.S. Pioneer Technologies Corporation, which is contracted to the Navy and Marine Corps Force Health Protection Command

“The Navy established this interagency team in late January 2024 to ‘swarm’ the root cause analysis of the detections of total petroleum hydrocarbons in the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam distribution system, and since that time, additional professionals have joined,” Foughty said.

The group continues to meet on a daily basis and regularly engage with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Hawaii Department of Health, according to Foughty.