Above photo: Honolulu Star Advertiser.
Student Art Exhibit at Honolulu Hale Will Encourage All Oʻahu Residents to Take a “Pledge to Our Wai, Pledge to our Keiki”.
Honolulu, Hawaiʻi – In a moment of reflection and commitment, community organizations, government leaders, and water protectors from all walks of life today launched a “Pledge to Our Wai, Pledge to Our Keiki,” in response to the ongoing contamination of Oʻahu’s primary drinking water aquifer, after it was catastrophically impacted by fuel spills from the U.S. Navy’s Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility in May and September of 2021.
The pledge takes note of the ten years that have passed since a widely-criticized 2015 consent order was signed by the Navy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and Hawaiʻi Department of Health, after a reported spill of 27,000 gallons from the Red Hill Facility; based on the demonstrated shortcomings of this document, the pledge recognizes the need for heightened and continual engagement in order to ensure transparency, truth, and action in the healing and protection of water on Oʻahu, and across the islands.
The launch event also featured the debut of a “Tainted Waters: Art for Truth” youth art exhibit, sponsored by the Mayor’s Office of Culture and the Arts, which will be on display outside of the City Council Chambers at Honolulu Hale through the month of October. The exhibit highlights the need for all people to heal and protect wai, or water, as part of their responsibility to care for the foundation of life of both present and future generations.
“Clean water should not be a political issue. Clean air should not be a political issue. A clean environment should not be a political issue,” remarked Sydney Chung, one of the event’s speakers and a high school organizer of the art exhibit. “As a 16-year-old student, I fear for the availability of such basic resources for our children and grandchildren. Everyone has the responsibility and ability to clean and protect wai.”
Other speakers included Honolulu Board of Water Supply Chief Engineer Ernie Lau, Honolulu City Council Chair Tommy Waters, the Red Hill Water Alliance Initiative’s Senator Jarrett Keohokālole, and former Red Hill Community Representation Initiative Chair Marti Townsend.
Speakers noted that the 2015 consent order, known as the Red Hill Administrative Order on Consent, or “AOC,” remains largely unfulfilled with respect to the Navy’s commitments. For example, the ongoing lack of a groundwater flow model and a contaminant fate and transport model, both required under the decade-old document, continues to confound efforts to locate the contamination plume in Oʻahu’s sole source aquifer and the primary drinking water source for an island of over one million residents.
Others expressed frustration over the use of the AOC to downplay concerns leading up to the catastrophic release of fuel from the Red Hill Facility in 2021, which sickened thousands of military and civilian families, and led to the ongoing contamination of the underlying aquifer, located just 100 feet under the now-defueled, 80-year old underground storage tank facility.
“The Red Hill catastrophe was 100% foreseeable and preventable. But the Navy did the least it possibly could to protect us,” reminisced Townsend, who, as the Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi executive director, had led protests and lawsuits against the Red Hill Facility in the years leading up to the current water crisis. “When the disaster did hit, the Navy was completely unprepared. People suffered needlessly and instead of coming clean about it, the Navy did whatever it could to evade accountability.”
Attendees reflected on how the 10-year anniversary of the AOC highlighted the importance of taking the newly launched pledge. Pledge-takers commit to safeguarding Hawaiʻi’s wai and will be informed of critical opportunities to do so – including by ensuring the timely remediation up to 2 million gallons of fuel and other contaminants potentially released from the Red Hill Facility during its nearly 80 years of operation.
“Every week, we find out about yet another act of negligence or outright deception by Navy officials and their contractors prior to and after the 2021 catastrophe,” Healani Sonoda-Pale, a Native Hawaiian organizer with Kā Lahui Hawaiʻi. “Never again can we let empty words and self-serving assurances undermine our kuleana to actively protect our sacred wai, our childrens’ and grandchildrens’ wai. That is what this pledge recognizes.”
In her closing remarks, Chung called for all Hawaiʻi residents to embrace their role as water protectors: “I urge all of you to join us, to use your voice, your skills, your relationships, and take the pledge!”
Individuals and organizations can review and take the pledge at bit.ly/waipledge. Signers will be featured on an upcoming website, www.waipledge.org, and will receive e-mail alerts on opportunities to advocate for Oʻahu’s aquifer, and for clean water throughout Hawaiʻi.
