Navy must face Hawaii environmental contamination claims

A Hawaii judge cleared the path for trial over whether a Navy fuel facility continues polluting Pearl Harbor and nearby waters.

by Jeremy Yurow, Court House News, September 29, 2025

HONOLULU (CN) — A federal judge sided with environmentalists over the U.S. Navy on Monday in case over a 2021 jet fuel leak in Honolulu, ruling the military must face Clean Water Act claims at trial.

Senior U.S. District Judge Leslie Kobayashi's order keeps alive claims by environmental nonprofit Wai Ola Alliance and Native Hawaiian cultural practitioners, who say that the Navy's operation of the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility has resulted in unauthorized discharges of petroleum pollutants into Pearl Harbor and Hālawa Stream on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. 

The decision hinged on conflicting evidence about whether the massive fuel storage complex continues to discharge pollutants and whether past intermittent spills are likely to recur. Kobayashi found that these disputes over material facts cannot be resolved without a full trial.

The plaintiffs' expert, Dr. William Rogers, concluded that "future oil product releases are virtually certain" due to inadequate maintenance and management of the aging facility. He pointed to what he identified as a leaking collar near a truck-fueling station as evidence of continuing contamination.

The Navy disputed this characterization with their own expert, arguing that the substance observed was inhibitor grease used for maintenance rather than fuel, and that its infrastructure is sound. However, Kobayashi noted this argument was premature.

"In ruling on defendants' motion, this court cannot determine whether Dr. Rogers's testimony or Summers's is more credible or which should be given more weight," Kobayashi wrote.

The Clean Water Act's citizen suit provision permits legal action only for ongoing or future violations, not wholly past misconduct. The plaintiffs must demonstrate that violations are either continuous or intermittent with a reasonable likelihood of recurring.

The plaintiffs also presented a spreadsheet documenting spills and discharges at Red Hill spanning from 1997 to 2024. While Kobayashi found this data did not prove continuous violations, she concluded it raised questions about future contamination risk when combined with other evidence.

"The spill spreadsheet is evidence of various intermittent violations, some of which may be relevant to plaintiffs’ argument that prior intermittent violations are reasonably likely to recur," Kobayashi said.

Kobayashi granted the Navy partial victory on one claim, finding that leaks from a defuel line that caused releases near Hotel Pier in Pearl Harbor had ceased by August 2021, before the lawsuit was filed and therefore doesn't fall under the act.

"Plaintiffs admit that DOH concurred with the Navy’s assessment of the source of the Hotel Pier Release, and plaintiffs have not identified any evidence that there was another source of the Hotel Pier Release other than the defuel line," Kobayashi said.

Any ongoing contamination would be the latest in a series of spills from the facility, which has a history of leaking despite Navy assurances of security. Previous incidents included 27,000 gallons of fuel in January 2014 and 1,600 gallons in May 2021.

The facility sits above a major aquifer that supplies drinking water to Oahu. State and federal regulators have ordered the Navy to defuel and shut down the Red Hill facility.

A trial in the case is scheduled for Dec. 17, with Kobayashi presiding.

Representatives for the U.S. Navy and the Wai Ola Alliance did not immediately respond to requests for comment.