The Navy desires to maintain its Pink Hill gasoline facility, together with the 20 cavernous gasoline tanks, surge tanks and pipelines, within the floor after it completely retires the ability from fueling operations, in line with a plan it submitted Tuesday to the Hawaii Division of Well being.
The Navy desires to maintain its Pink Hill gasoline facility, together with the 20 cavernous gasoline tanks, surge tanks and pipelines, within the floor after it completely retires the ability from fueling operations, in line with a plan it submitted Tuesday to the state Division of Well being. Protection officers say in addition they hope to seek the advice of with the group to give you alternate options for utilizing Pink Hill for nonfuel functions.
The closure plan, which should be accepted by DOH, additionally particulars how the Navy intends to scrub sludge and different waste left within the tanks and pipelines after gasoline is drained and the Navy’s plans for remediating the surroundings, together with cleansing up petroleum contamination within the soil and groundwater.
The Navy was required to give you a plan for completely closing Pink Hill underneath a Could 6 emergency order issued by DOH. Choices embrace eradicating the ability, filling it in or leaving it in place with out filling it. The Navy added an alternative choice : closing Pink Hill for gasoline operations however discovering one other use for it.
“If we do pursue a closure in place with helpful reuse, then we’ll work with the group to see what inputs they’ve for the way we’d be capable to reuse the area there, ” mentioned Meredith Berger, assistant secretary of the Navy for power, installations and surroundings, throughout a information convention at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. “We’ll proceed to ensure we’re protecting of the surroundings, of the folks and of the group, and we’re not–I wish to ensure this very clear–we aren’t going to pursue any helpful reuse possibility that may comprise potential contaminants, and not one of the choices that we have now laid on the desk could be a gasoline reuse.”
Protection officers have been hesitant to debate potential makes use of of the Pink Hill facility, although did point out the concept of utilizing it for a hydroelectric plant to offer an alternate power supply, an concept that has been floated up to now.
DOH spokeswoman Kaitlin Arita-Chang mentioned it is not clear whether or not Hawaii administrative guidelines permit for a reuse possibility when completely shutting down underground gasoline tanks.
“It’s not one thing that has ever been proposed earlier than, and it’s actually the Navy’s burden to say what that helpful reuse might and could be, ” she mentioned. “After which we must reevaluate it from there.”
Hawaii Sierra Membership Director Wayne Tanaka mentioned he did not suppose reusing Pink Hill could be protected and even possible given its dilapidated situation and placement immediately above an aquifer.
“We all know that (the tanks ) have been actively corroding for thus lengthy, and we actually haven’t got a good suggestion of the integrity of their metal liners and even the concrete that’s holding them up, ” he mentioned.
Tanaka mentioned the Navy additionally should think about the chance that contaminants from the tanks and pipelines will leach into the surroundings within the coming many years, together with pollution from corroding metallic and the breakdown of protecting coating.
The Pink Hill gasoline facility was constructed between 1940 and 1943, spurred by world tensions main as much as World Conflict II. The 20 huge gasoline tanks, every able to storing as much as 12.5 million gallons of gasoline, have been put in inside cavities mined right into a volcanic mountain ridge east of Pearl Harbor. Three 2.5-mile pipelines run from the tanks via an underground tunnel to Pearl Harbor fueling piers.
The tanks have been constructed out of concrete that was lined with a skinny layer of metal and sit under 100 ft of rock. Every tank is giant sufficient to envelop Aloha Tower.
The Navy says it plans to offer DOH in December with an unbiased evaluation of the out there choices for closing the ability, together with an engineering evaluation, value estimates and timelines for the totally different alternate options. It isn’t clear why that evaluation wasn’t accomplished previous to the Navy submitting its closure plan and its suggestion that Pink Hill stay in place and be repurposed.
Berger mentioned the Navy had obtained enter from inside and exterior specialists in arising with its closure plan and that it submitted it to DOH previous to the extra strong evaluation of closure choices to ensure that it made DOH’s Nov. 1 deadline.
The Navy’s report concludes that leaving the ability in place and filling it in with some form of materials could be dangerous for employees as there is not sufficient room to stage materials and tools. Surrounding residents additionally must cope with elevated visitors from dump vans and vans hauling building tools that may final for about 5 years, in line with the Navy.
The Navy says that attempting to utterly take away the tanks, together with the concrete and metal liners, would pose “excessive security issues ” and will trigger a “catastrophic failure resulting from destabilization of the substrate.” Solely eradicating the metal liners additionally could possibly be tough, posing “engineering feasibility challenges ” and security issues. These two choices additionally could be pricey.
The Navy says the closure-in-place possibility is the best and could possibly be executed in two to 3 years after all of the gasoline is drained from the Pink Hill tanks. Implementing an alternate use for Pink Hill might take an additional 12 months, in line with the Navy’s plan. Below these situations Pink Hill could be completely closed round 2027.
As a part of completely shutting down Pink Hill, the Navy additionally has to scrub up its environmental contamination. Historic data and Navy paperwork point out that there might have been at the least 76 gasoline leaks from Pink Hill totaling 180, 000 gallons of gasoline.
The soil and groundwater under the ability is contaminated with petroleum, in line with soil vapor and groundwater monitoring reviews. It isn’t clear to what extent the Navy will be capable to clear up the entire contamination, significantly if the tanks are left in place.
Navy officers mentioned they’re exploring new applied sciences that would help.
Navy Area Hawaii Commander Rear Adm. Steve Barnett mentioned he would defer to the engineers as as to whether petroleum within the floor beneath the tanks could possibly be cleaned. up. “However I can inform you that there are some issues that I feel we are able to do with soil vapor monitoring … and different new applied sciences that we’re wanting into to see what trade is doing for issues like this.”
Pink Hill was ordered to be shut down earlier this 12 months after leaks from the ability contaminated the Navy’s consuming water system in 2021, sickening army households.
The Honolulu Board of Water Provide, which has civilian water wells which have been affected by the Navy’s gasoline contamination of the aquifer, mentioned closure of Pink Hill was lengthy overdue and that it hoped the timeline could possibly be expedited.
The BWS “stays involved with the size of time steered by the Navy to perform tank closure, the shortage of particulars within the closure plan, lack of significant stakeholder and public involvement, and the Navy’s proposed ‘closure in place’ strategy, ” BWS mentioned in an announcement.
The Navy is nearly completed draining about 1 million gallons of gasoline from the Pink Hill pipeline system, an early step in its plans for defueling Pink Hill. It then plans to embark on in depth pipeline repairs earlier than draining roughly 100 million gallons of gasoline that is still in 14 tanks, work that’s anticipated to be completed in June 2024.
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