Hawaii Department of Health announced on the 27th that it imposed a fine of $8.8 million on the U.S. Navy, due to the Navy's repeated discharge of untreated or partially treated sewage from the Pearl Harbor-Hickham Joint Base to Hawaiian waters.
The Hawaii Department of Health said in a press release that the department recorded 766 incidents of over-standard pollutants in the U.S. Navy. The sewage was discharged from the Hawaiian wastewater treatment plant operated by the U.S. Naval Facilities Engineering Command between January 2020 and July 2022. The state health department found 212 operating and maintenance records of violations in the sewage plant.
The US Navy's "Ali Burke" class missile destroyer docked at the Pearl Harbor Pier in Hawaii, USA, photographed on September 10, 2013. (Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Cha Chunming)
U.S. Navy has not responded to the statements of the Hawaii State Department of Health for the time being. "The Navy's failure to properly operate and maintain the sewage treatment plant has caused contamination of Hawaiian waters," Katerin Ho, deputy secretary of the state's health department, said in a statement. The state Department of Health asked the Navy to take key repair measures to prevent catastrophic accidents in the sewage plant.
The state health department ordered the Navy to close the Red Mountain bulk fuel storage facility near Pearl Harbor earlier this year. The air fuel stored in the underground oil depot leaked last year, seeping into drinking water sources in Pearl Harbor base and surrounding areas. The US Department of Defense requires that the fuel transfer operation of the Hongshan Oil Depot be completed no later than July 2024.
Source: Xinhua News Agency
