Tag: Water Pollution

So Much For Transparency: Navy Unwilling To Release Report On Red Hill

The slow roll has begun. With transparency thrown out the window, the Navy’s announced on January 26 that it would release only the summary of the report on how jet fuel got into the water supply. “When the review is complete, we expect the Navy to provide a summary of the conclusions in a public release,” the chief of information for the Navy declared. The Navy has released full reports of previous leaks from the Red Hill tanks.

The full report was given to the Commander of the US Navy’s Pacific Command, 12 days ago on January 14 and the completed report was only acknowledged on January 24. The Sierra Club’s attorney David Kimo Frankel said, “The Navy continues to stonewall the public.”

Seven Hawaii Public Schools Still Can’t Use Tap Water

Nearly two months after tests revealed tainted water coming from the faucets at more than a half dozen public schools, health officials say it’s still not safe to use the tap. The schools are all on the Navy’s water lines, which are contaminated with fuel from the Red Hill underground storage facility. There is no timeline for when the taps will be turned back on. To get by, school staff have been hauling bottles of water into classrooms and setting up sanitation stations so students can wash their hands. All the disruption has even the youngest keiki asking questions. “They asked me why did they put the tanks by the water. Didn’t they know it was poison. Who is going to save the water? And how can we save the water,” said kindergarten teacher Malia Rossetti.

Hawaii Schools US military Water Pollution

The Red Hill Disaster

In November, a huge underground naval fuel storage facility at Red Hill near Honolulu burst, leaking 14,000 gallons of jet fuel, contaminating the water supply, poisoning scores of people and driving thousands of Hawaiian families from their homes.

The state’s attorney general, David Day, has alleged that the military has essentially no control over the safety of the enormous depot, which holds 250 million gallons of fuel. Day remarked that the state had a “ticking time bomb” on its hands, and that further contamination of its precious water supply was all but inevitable. The tanks sit just feet above the island’s largest aquifer.

And this incident is merely the latest in a long list showing the American empire’s callous disregard for the civilian population of Hawaii, as it puts military needs before the people or the environment.

Hawaii Red Hill US military Water Pollution

Water Protectors Lead A Movement To Close Navy Fuel Site After Leak

Upwards of 100 water protectors rallied outside the Hawaii State Capitol in Honolulu on Dec. 10. Their greatest fears had just come true. The U.S. Navy had kept decaying fuel storage tanks just 100 feet above a water aquifer that functioned as the main source of drinking water on the island of O’ahu. Those tanks recently leaked jet fuel into the aquifer, poisoning thousands of people and creating irreparable damage to O’ahu’s water supply.

Environment Hawaii Water Pollution Water Protectors

Solidarity Action Rebukes Navy Over Toxic Water Pollution

Activists with CodePink, in solidarity with Hawaii-based water protectors, on Friday projected images on a submarine tower outside the Navy museum in Washington, D.C., calling for a shutdown of a military fuel storage facility associated with contamination of Oahu drinking water.

Messages displayed on the USS Balao Conning Tower included “Shut down Red Hill tanks,” “Demilitarize Hawaii,” and “Navy is poison.”

In a Saturday statement, CodePink said that the “Navy’s failure to protect its sailors, their families, and the broader community is further justification of the need to demilitarize and decolonize Hawai’i and serves as a testament to the military’s prioritization of ‘business as usual’ over the health and wellbeing of the people.”

Fuel US Navy Water Water Pollution

Governor Orders Operations Of Navy’s Massive Jet Fuel Tanks Suspended

On December 6, after all hell broke loose at each of the five town hall meetings held over several days by the U.S. Navy to try to calm military families who have been drinking and bathing in fuel contaminated water, the Governor of the State of Hawai’i issued an order to the Navy to suspend the operation of the massive jet fuel tanks and within 30 days “defuel” or remove the fuel out of the tanks! Governor Ige said the public had lost confidence in the Navy. For the past week, rather than providing accurate information about the drinking water contamination, senior military leadership were caught in their own webs of inaccurate information given to the military families affected by fuel in the water…and given to the State of Hawai’i.

Fossil Fuels Hawaii US military Water Pollution

US Navy Families In Hawai’i Find Fuel In Their Home Tap Water

The long citizen protest underscoring the dangers from the U.S. Navy’s 80-year-old leaking 20 jet fuel tanks at Red Hill each tank 20 stories tall and holding a total of 225 million gallons of jet fuel came to a head over the weekend with Navy families around the large Pearl Harbor Naval Base being sickened by fuel in their home tap water. The Navy’s huge jet fuel tank complex is only 100 feet above Honolulu’s water supply and has been leaking with regularity.

The Navy command was slow to alert the community while the State of Hawai’i quickly issued a notice not to drink the water. Foster Village community members stated that they were smelling fuel after the November 20, 2021 release of 14,000 gallons of water and fuel from a fire suppression drain line a quarter-mile downhill from the fuel tank farm.

Accountability Hawaii US military Water Pollution

Navy’s Underground Leaking 20 Story Jet Fuel Tanks Must Be Closed Down

While the U.S. Navy continues to argue that U.S. national security requires that its 80-year-old leaking 20 story underground jet fuel tanks remain open, I argue the opposite–that for U.S. national security reasons the 200-million-gallon facility be closed down before a catastrophic leak destroys the potable water supply for 400,00 residents of Oahu.

Once the aquifer is contaminated by a predicted major fuel leak, it cannot be flushed out or be rehabilitated. U.S. Navy officials have said that the water from a contaminated aquifer would have to be filtered either by a massive filtration system that does not yet exist or individual households would have to filter the water at home.

The Navy does not have a filtration system on the island of Oahu and citizens do not have sufficient bottled water or individual household filtration systems should there be a catastrophic leak of toxic jet fuel into our water supply.

Environment Hawaii US Navy Water Pollution

Bad News For Chesapeake Bay Seafood Lovers

Testing done in October 2020 showed rockfish containing 23,100 parts per trillion (ppt) of a variety of per-and-poly fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) , crabs containing 6,650 ppt, and oysters having 2,070 ppt of the toxins. See the results here. The rockfish was caught in Cornfield Harbor in the Potomac River and the oyster and crab were collected from St. Inigoes Creek in Saint Mary’s County. Public health officials say people should not be consuming more than 1 part per trillion of these toxins per day.

The seafood was taken from waters that are close to the Webster Outlying Field of the Patuxent River Naval Air Station where the chemicals were used in firefighting exercises over many years.

Maryland Military bases Seafood Water Pollution

Every Purple Dot

Water is Life – it is where we come from, who we are (both in a base physical sense and philosophically as fluid beings in space and time), how we and the ecosystems we depend on survive. And therefore, it is also of prime interest to a capitalist system desperate to commodify everything and everyone. Water is literally a traded commodity on the stock market , perhaps the most prime example of how our system treats finite entities like water as if they were infinitely marketable while treating infinite 1s and 0s on a screen as if they were essential to our survival as a species.

Fracking Water is Life Water Pollution West Virginia

Why Marylanders Must Test The Water Near Military Bases

Last month, independent testing of oysters in the St. Mary’s River and St. Inigoes Creek was performed on behalf of the St. Mary’s River Watershed Association and financially supported by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, PEER.

Oysters in the St. Mary’s River and in St. Inigoes Creek were found to contain more than 1,000 parts per trillion (ppt) of the highly toxic chemicals. Oysters were analyzed by Eurofins, a world leader in PFAS testing.

The Harvard School of Public Health and leading scientific institutions around the world tell us not to consume more than 1 ppt of these substances daily.

Maryland Military bases PFAS Water Pollution

Base Contaminates Maryland Waters With Toxic Chemicals

The Air Force has contaminated the groundwater at Joint Base Andrews with 39,700 parts per trillion of PFAS chemicals according to report released by the Air Force in May, 2018. This is not exactly “Breaking News” although few know about it.

The base pollutes the Patuxent and Potomac rivers. Groundwater from numerous sites on base where PFAS-laden foams were used move east toward the Patuxent as well as west toward the Potomac. Meanwhile, surface water from the base travels to Piscataway Creek, Cabin Branch Creek, Henson Creek, and Meetinghouse Branch, emptying waters to both rivers.

US Foreign Bases US military Water Water Pollution

NATO Poisons Fish In Germany

Throughout much of Europe, NATO military bases have used and carelessly discarded hundreds of thousands of gallons of toxic fire-fighting foams containing a variety of PFAS chemicals during routine fire-fighting exercises. The aqueous film-forming foams (AFFF) have been in use since the early 1970’s and have been allowed to seep into the ground to contaminate groundwater, soil, and surface water. The resulting pollution is responsible for a serious European public health crisis, although few are paying attention.

Germany health NATO Water Pollution

South Pasadena Sues Dow Chemical And Shell Oil

The city of South Pasadena is suing The Dow Chemical Co. and Shell Oil Co., alleging that for more than four decades both firms willfully manufactured a pesticide containing a cancer-causing chemical that has contaminated the municipality’s drinking water supply.

The 25-page complaint, filed last month in U.S. District Court, contends that from the 1940s to 1980s Dow and Shell marketed a pesticide containing the chemical 1,2,3-trichloropropane, also known as TCP.

California Dow Chemical health Shell Oil Water Pollution

Millions Don’t Have Access To Safe Water In The United States

A study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that in 2015 the water supply for about 21 million Americans — more than 6% — violated nationwide health standards, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said it’s fine for people to wash their hands with lead-contaminated water.

“The fact that people don’t have clean water to drink frustrates me tremendously, and the fact that you have to wash your hands through this health crisis is even more frustrating because they don’t have the resources they need to take care of themselves,” Anthony Díaz, the founder of the Newark Water Coalition, told Business Insider.

People of color and low-income residents are more likely to live in municipalities with water contaminants or in older housing that’s prone to lead contamination, according to the US National Institute of Health.

COVID-19 health Water Water Pollution

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