HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES	H.B. NO.	1511
THIRTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE, 2023		H.D. 1
STATE OF HAWAII		S.D. 1

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

 

RELATING TO WATER RESOURCES.

 

 

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

 

     SECTION 1.  The legislature finds that protection of the environment and underground sources of drinking water is in the best interest of public health and safety and a requirement of section 7 of article XI of the Hawaii State Constitution.

     The Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility is a field-constructed underground storage tank system on Oahu that is owned and operated by the United States Department of the Navy and located approximately 2.5 miles northeast of Pearl Harbor.  The Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility consists of twenty underground storage tanks that are located one hundred feet above Oahu's sole-source groundwater aquifer -– the southern Oahu basal aquifer -– which is the principal source of drinking water for the island.  Twenty underground storage tanks, as well as pipelines and other infrastructure, were constructed during the early 1940s, and since then, multiple fuel releases have occurred, impacting the environment and threatening public health.

     The legislature further finds that the location of the twenty-seven thousand gallons of fuel released from tank No. 5 in January 2014 into the rocks and groundwater beneath the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility is still unknown.  In May 2021, the department of health found that approximately one thousand six hundred gallons of jet fuel from supply piping were released into the environment.  Additionally, on November 20, 2021, a reported fuel release and recovery of approximately fourteen thousand gallons of a mixture of fuel and water occurred.  This fuel release flowed from the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility to occupied structures, including the homes of residents in military housing through their water pipelines.  The department of health conducted an analysis on the amount of fuel contaminants at different points in time and different locations that showed the fuel contamination could travel away from the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility toward different geological locations and existing city and county of Honolulu board of water supply wells.  The total petroleum hydrocarbon in the Navy's Red Hill monitoring well 2 and other monitoring wells exceeded existing department of health environmental action limits for gross contamination and drinking water toxicity.  Furthermore, the lack of data collected by the Navy's sparse monitoring well network makes it inadequate to evaluate the possibility that fuel releases from the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility could migrate to and impact critical drinking water receptors like the city and county of Honolulu board of water supply's Halawa shaft and Aiea and Halawa wells.

     The legislature also finds that on November 29, 2022, a reported one thousand one hundred-gallon spill of polyfluorinated alkyl substance containing aqueous film forming foam at the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility occurred.  The persistence of polyfluorinated alkyl substance in the environment poses undesirable health effects and a serious risk to Oahu's drinking water aquifer.

     The purpose of this Act is to appropriate funds as a grant-in-aid to the city and county of Honolulu board of water supply to:

     (1)  Site and install monitoring wells, after consultation with the department of health and the commission on water resource management, to collect important data needed to understand the condition of the groundwater aquifer underneath and surrounding the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility and its implications to Oahu's drinking water supply; and

     (2)  Design and construct an exploratory well to meet future potable water requirements for the metropolitan area on Oahu.

     SECTION 2.  There is appropriated out of the general revenues of the State of Hawaii the sum of $           or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2023-2024 and the same sum or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2024-2025 as a grant-in-aid to the city and county of Honolulu board of water supply to plan, design, and construct, after consultation with the department of health and the commission on water resource management, seven monitoring wells and an exploratory well on Oahu.

     The sums appropriated shall be expended by the city and county of Honolulu board of water supply for the purposes of this Act.

     SECTION 3.  This Act shall take effect on June 30, 3000.

 

 

 

Report Title:

Honolulu Board of Water Supply; Drinking Water; Construction; Wells; Appropriation

 

Description:

Appropriates funds as a grant-in-aid to the City and County of Honolulu Board of Water Supply to plan, design, and construct, after consultation with the Department of Health and the Commission on Water Resource Management, seven monitoring wells and an exploratory well.  Effective 6/30/3000.  (SD1)

 

 

 

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