Red Hill bill action alert: WAI bills

/

2/6 update:

EEP and WAL both passed HB2960 with amendments. EEP votes - Aye: Reps. Lowen, Cochran, Gates, Kahaloa, Perruso, Woodson; excused: Rep. Ward. WAL votes - Aye: Reps. Ichiyama, Poepoe, Chun, Ganaden, Hashem, Mizuno, Morikawa, Takayama, Souza. Watch the hearing here.

EEP and WAL both deferred HB2961. Watch the hearing here.

WTL and AEN passed SB3338 with amendments. Votes - Aye: Sens. Inouye, Elefante, Chang, McKelvey, Fevella; Aye: Reps. Gabbard, Rhoads, Awa; 2 Excused: Sens. Richards and DeCoite. Watch the hearing here.

Last year, Honolulu and state officials established the Red Hill Water Alliance Initiative (WAI) and released a report promising a long-term commitment to Oʻahu’s water security for generations to come.

While the report held some promise, it’s recipe for remediation missed some key ingredients. 

Now, the legislature is proposing bills that would enact parts of the WAI report. While we support efforts for long-term monitoring and environmental remediation, there are critical amendments that must be made to the WAI report bills to ensure that they truly heal our contaminated ʻāina and wai.

Four (!) WAI report bills are being heard next Monday, February 5 and Tuesday, February 6 in the Senate Committees on Water and Land and Agriculture and Environment and the House Committees on Water and Land and Energy and Environmental Protection. Please take a moment to submit written testimony for the bills and attend the hearing in-person or virtually to provide verbal testimony. Details and sample testimony below.

What the bills do

HB2690/SB3338 establishes a WAI policy coordinator and other positions within the Department of Land and Natural Resources and appropriates money for a Red Hill remediation special fund.

HB2691/SB3339 establishes a Red Hill Remediation Authority and creates the Red Hill Remediation Special Fund.

What needs improving

Overall, there is no clear affiliation between the WAI policy coordinator, responsible for policy, health studies, and public information about the WAI initiatives, and the Red Hill Remediation Authority, responsible for the implementation of the WAI report initiatives. It is also unclear why these roles are separated, which experience has shown may only lead to jurisdictional confusion and finger-pointing rather than problem-solving. There should be a single entity tasked with implementing the WAI report’s goals for remediation.   

Moreover, both bills ignore the political realities that gave rise to the current crisis, allowing the current and future governors to largely control whether and how the Navy will be held accountable to cleaning up its mess. As many are acutely aware, the political influence of the Navy and their contractors resulted in multiple administrations ignoring the clear and present threat the Red Hill facility posed to our island and people:

Governor Neil Abercrombie’s administration negotiated a toothless “Administrative Order on Consent” with the EPA and Navy after the major 2014 spill, which remains largely unfulfilled to this day. 

The Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi had to sue Governor David Ige’s Department of Health not once, but twice, simply to have it uphold the law and require the Navy to apply for an underground storage tank permit for its Red Hill facility. Even after thousands of people were poisoned in November 2021, Governor Ige also refused to call for the Red Hill facility to be shut down, stating that the military is “a vibrant part in our economy” as his only excuse.

And Governor Josh Green has not hesitated to sing the Joint Task Force’s praises, announcing that they had “safely removed all the fuel” from the facility’s underground storage tanks, when that was far from the truth - and when we are years away from replacing the Hālawa shaft and decades away from healing our lands, water, and poisoned residents.   

Both approaches effectively give a politically beholden administration the ability to oversee the healing of our contaminated lands and waters. This will all but ensure that the Navy will be able to use its political influence to defer and delay meaningful action to uphold its remediation responsibilities in the years and decades ahead. It was ultimately the community’s tireless demands that has led to the progress we have made, and any agency tasked with holding the Navy accountable must be accountable to the community.   

Sample testimony for SB3338 and SB3339

Aloha Chair Inouye, Chair Gabbard, Vice Chair Elefante, and Vice Chair Richards,

Mahalo for the opportunity to SUPPORT WITH AMENDMENTS SB3338 and SB3339.  

I appreciate that these measures reflect a continued commitment to pursue the full remediation of our lands and waters contaminated by the Navy’s Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility. However, I strongly urge you to amend these measures by:

1) Creating a single entity to work on the implementation of the Red Hill WAI Report’s goals, including through continuous public education and engagement. Creating two separate entities with overlapping roles only risks jurisdictional confusion and could lead to finger-pointing rather than problem-solving, as we have seen in other instances including throughout the Red Hill crisis; 

2) Appropriately staffing this entity with individuals who have the requisite relevant expertise (in public relations, grant writing, remediation technology, community organizing, etc.) to meaningfully hold the Navy accountable and realize the WAI Report’s vision; and

3) Ensuring that this entity is adequately insulated from the military’s political influence over Hawaiʻi’s executive and legislative branches, which led to the governmental inaction that contributed to the poisoning of our ʻāina and wai. As it will take decades to fully remediate the contamination from the Red Hill facility, failing to do so will inevitably allow the Navy to exert its influence to excuse its inactions and ultimately evade the accountability these measures seek. Accordingly, any remediation entity should be governed by a board where the majority of its members are appointed by appropriately independent organizations with a vested interest in the integrity of our ʻāina and wai. For example, the Honolulu Board of Water Supply, the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the University of Hawai‘i Water Resources Research Center, and the Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi, and/or other appropriate entities, could and should be allowed to designate members of this board.

Accordingly, I respectfully but strongly urge you to PASS these measures with the critical AMENDMENTS listed above.

Mahalo nui for the opportunity to testify.   

Sample testimony for HB2690 and HB2691

Aloha Chair Ichiyama, Chair Lowen, Vice Chair Poepoe, and Vice Chair Cochran,

Mahalo for the opportunity to SUPPORT WITH AMENDMENTS HB2690 and HB2691.  

I appreciate that these measures reflect a continued commitment to pursue the full remediation of our lands and waters contaminated by the Navy’s Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility. However, I strongly urge you to amend these measures by:

1) Creating a single entity to work on the implementation of the Red Hill WAI Report’s goals, including through continuous public education and engagement. Creating two separate entities with overlapping roles only risks jurisdictional confusion and could lead to finger-pointing rather than problem-solving, as we have seen in other instances including throughout the Red Hill crisis; 

2) Appropriately staffing this entity with individuals who have the requisite relevant expertise (in public relations, grant writing, remediation technology, community organizing, etc.) to meaningfully hold the Navy accountable and realize the WAI Report’s vision; and

3) Ensuring that this entity is adequately insulated from the military’s political influence over Hawaiʻi’s executive and legislative branches, which led to the governmental inaction that contributed to the poisoning of our ʻāina and wai. As it will take decades to fully remediate the contamination from the Red Hill facility, failing to do so will inevitably allow the Navy to exert its influence to excuse its inactions and ultimately evade the accountability these measures seek. Accordingly, any remediation entity should be governed by a board where the majority of its members are appointed by appropriately independent organizations with a vested interest in the integrity of our ʻāina and wai. For example, the Honolulu Board of Water Supply, the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the University of Hawai‘i Water Resources Research Center, and the Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi, and/or other appropriate entities, could and should be allowed to designate members of this board.

Accordingly, I respectfully but strongly urge you to PASS these measures with the critical AMENDMENTS listed above.

Mahalo nui for the opportunity to testify.  

 Testimony instructions

  1. Register for a capitol website account if you haven’t yet (youʻll need to confirm your registration by responding to an automated email)

  2. Sign in to capitol.hawaii.gov with your registration information and click the "Submit Testimony" button.

  3. Enter "HB2690, HB2691, SB3338, or SB3339" where it says "Enter Bill or Measure."

  4. Input your information and your written testimony, select your testimony option(s)—in-person + written, remotely + written, written only. Please consider providing verbal testimony (in-person or remotely) if you are able! 
    Note: Virtual testimony option may be disabled 24 hours before the hearing.

  5. If you are testifying via Zoom, be sure to review these instructions (page 4)