[1] As of March 7, 2022, the Department of Defense announced the planned closure of the Red Hill facility, due to reduced military need and water contamination issues.

The Red Hill tanks are connected to three gravity-fed pipelines that run 2.5 miles inside a tunnel to fueling piers at Pearl Harbor.

[6] Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said: "Defueling and closing Red Hill is the right thing to do – for our service members, our families, the people of Hawaii, the environment, and our nation.

[8] Before the United States entered World War II, the Roosevelt Administration became concerned about the vulnerability of the many above-ground fuel storage tanks at Pearl Harbor.

Federal, local government and contracted engineers and geologists performed many surveys of the Koolau Range and eventually reached a consensus on Red Hill as the best choice because it is mostly homogeneous basalt.

[9]: 183–185  This was possible because a vertical shaft drilled through the centerline of the tank would allow excavated rock to funnel down onto a series of conveyor belts in the lower access tunnel.

When finished, the tanks were tested by slowly filling them with water while laborers in boats inspected the entire surface area of the steel liner.

Red Hill operators first assumed the alarm system was malfunctioning or producing false positives because the tank was recently overhauled and should not have been leaking.

As a consequence, the Navy, in accordance with the Administrative Order on Consent, significantly improved the tank inspection, repair, and maintenance processes in their report submitted on October 11, 2016.

[citation needed] While all test results for contamination at the Navy drinking water shaft have come back well within safe drinking water standards and results from the Halawa shaft have shown no jet fuel related contaminants, the Navy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Hawaii Department of Health conducted studies to evaluate groundwater conditions and any potential impacts to groundwater resources in the area.

[11] In December 2021, more than 1,000 military families stationed in Hawaii had been forced from their homes after apparent jet fuel contamination in the water supply at Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam.

Residents had complained about foul-smelling tap water bearing an oily sheen, as well as symptoms such as nausea, diarrhea and intense headaches.

Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro told residents, “I deeply apologize to each and every one of you and to the people of Hawaii that this incident may have been destructive to your lives.

[11] Creation of Joint Task Force Red Hill On September 30, 2022, Joint Task Force Red Hill was officially stood up for the purpose of safely and expeditiously defueling the facility through coordination with State and Federal stakeholders in order to set conditions for closure while continuing to rebuild trust with the State of Hawaii and the local community of Oahu.

If a tank level decreases by as little as half an inch, alarms will sound in Red Hill's control room, which is continuously staffed.

[citation needed] Timeline of actions taken by the U.S. Navy: It included the following provisions: The Administrative Order on Consent is a binding legal agreement administered by the Environmental Protection Agency.

It acknowledges the shared responsibility to protect Oahu's drinking water supply and maintain Red Hill as a strategically vital resource.

The Environmental Protection Agency and Hawaii Department of Health hired a team of world renowned subject matter experts to assess the entire Red Hill facility and went on record to say that all aspects—to include infrastructure, security measures, and operation practices—currently meet or exceed industry standards.

Each technique will be evaluated in terms of feasibility of implementation and effectiveness in detecting light non-aqueous phase liquid, which refers to fuel floating on top of the groundwater.

On January 5, 2017, the Navy submitted a new version of the Section 6 & 7 Scope of Work, available below, that addressed all of the issues noted in the Conditional Approval letter.

[17] The Environmental Protection Agency says millions of gallons of fuel stored in a military facility under Red Hill is unlikely to reach the water supply.

[18] The Sierra Club of Hawaii launched a "Fix it up or shut it down" petition and has also demanded that the Hawaii Department of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Navy: According to military contracting announcements, Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam has contracted with two corporations to address environmental problems at Red Hill: AECOM has been in charge of investigating and remediating releases, as well as protecting and evaluating groundwater,[20][21][22] while APTIM (known as CB&I prior to 2017) has been in charge cleaning, inspecting, and repairing fuel storage tanks.