US Army to Start Draining Pearl Harbor Pipelines

By AUDREY McAVOY, Related Press

JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii (AP) — The U.S. navy mentioned Monday it is prepared to start draining 1 gallons (3.79 million liters) of gasoline from three pipelines as a part of an preliminary step towards closing a World Warfare II-era gasoline storage facility that leaked petroleum into Pearl Harbor’s faucet water final 12 months.

The pipelines run about 3 miles (4.83 kilometers) from the Purple Hill Bulk Gasoline Storage Facility within the mountains above Pearl Harbor right down to the navy base.

Beginning Tuesday, the navy will spend six days draining the pipelines one after the other. Gasoline is predicted to maneuver by the pipes for a complete of 12 hours in the course of the six days.

The gasoline has been sitting within the pipes because the navy suspended use of the Purple Hill final 12 months after it leaked petroleum right into a consuming water nicely serving 93,000 folks in and round Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.

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Practically 6,000 folks, largely navy personnel and their households, sought medical consideration for rashes, sores, nausea and different illnesses after consuming and bathing with the contaminated water.

Shortly after, the state Division of Well being ordered the navy to empty gasoline from Purple Hill and shut the ability down. The navy says 104 million gallons stay within the tanks themselves. It goals to take away this gasoline by July 2024 after it makes crucial repairs to have the ability to drain the tanks safely.

Navy Rear Adm. John Wade, the commander of Joint Process Pressure Purple Hill, mentioned the state Division of Well being and the U.S. Environmental Safety Company reviewed and permitted the navy’s plan to empty the pipelines. A 3rd-party contractor additionally checked the plans, he mentioned.

Essentially the most harmful side of draining the pipelines is the potential for gasoline to spill and enter the aquifer, Wade advised reporters as a information convention.

“So every little thing that we’ve carried out, each focus of effort for the planning and the rehearsals has been centered on mitigating any probability of a spill,” he mentioned.

The Purple Hill facility sits simply 100 toes (30 meters) above one in all Honolulu’s most essential consuming water aquifers.

Hawaii officers are involved that final 12 months’s spill contaminated the aquifer and are frightened that any future spills would additionally pollute the aquifer, which usually provides greater than 20% of the water consumed in Honolulu.

Wade mentioned representatives from the Division of Well being and the EPA will likely be available whereas navy drains the pipelines.

Process pressure members educated individually and as teams on learn how to reply if gasoline spills whereas the pipelines are being drained, he mentioned.

A Navy investigation discovered a sequence of errors over the course of six months precipitated final 12 months’s spill.

It discovered operator error precipitated a pipe to rupture on Could 6, 2021 when gasoline was being transferred between tanks. This precipitated 21,000 gallons (80,000 liters) of gasoline to spill. Most of it flowed into a fireplace suppression line and sat there for six months, inflicting the road to sag.

Then on Nov. 20, a cart rammed into the sagging line, releasing 20,000 gallons (75,700 liters) of gasoline. A workforce thought they recovered all of this gasoline, however they missed about 5,000 gallons (19,000 liters). Gasoline they missed flowed right into a French drain and from there into the consuming water nicely.

Gasoline from the three pipelines will go to above-ground storage tanks and gasoline barges which can then provide Air Pressure jets and Navy ships on the base, officers mentioned.

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