A Hawaii military family avoids tap water at home. They’re among those suing over 2021 jet fuel leak
JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii — Richelle Dietz, mother of two and wife of a U.S. Navy officer, often thinks about water.
The family, stationed in Honolulu, spends more than $120 a month on jugs of bottled water for drinking, cooking and cleaning, as well as on showerhead and sink filters. Every evening, the children, ages 13 and 5, carry cups of bottled water upstairs to their bathroom to brush their teeth.
“I hope one day I won’t be able to think about water all the time,” Dietz said. “But right now it’s a constant.”
That vigilance is intended to prevent more vomiting, diarrhea, rashes and other ailments, which they said they began experiencing in 2021, when jet fuel leaked into the Navy water system that serves 93,000 people at and around the Pearl Harbor base. It sickened thousands of people in military housing, including, Dietz says, her own family.
She is one of seventeen relatives of American soldiers who are suing the United States over the leak from World War II storage tanks. She said her entire family – including dog Rocket – continues to suffer from health problems related to the contaminated water. Her husband, a chief petty officer, declined to be interviewed by The Associated Press because he fears retaliation from the Navy.
The 17 are considered “whistleblower” plaintiffs representing more than 7,500 other military family members, civilians and service members in three federal lawsuits. The outcome of their trial, which starts on Monday, will partly determine the success of the other cases and the damages that can be awarded.
Kristina Baehr, one of their lawyers, said she already considers it a success because the U.S. government has admitted liability.
Attorneys for the U.S. Department of Justice wrote in court documents that the government admits that the November 20, 2021 spill at the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility “caused a nuisance” to the plaintiffs, that the United States “breached its duty of care” and that claimants have suffered damage that is compensable.
But they dispute that the plaintiffs were exposed to jet fuel at levels high enough to cause their alleged health problems. Persistent problems faced by the claimants include seizures, memory loss, anxiety, eczema and asthma.
When the Dietz family arrived in Hawaii in February 2021, “we thought we were going to heaven on earth,” Dietz wrote in a criminal complaint filed in the case.
But around Thanksgiving — shortly after the leak — they couldn’t figure out their stomach pain, vomiting and diarrhea. Other families in the area were also sick. Then they developed a rash.
“My throat is burning. I feel like I just drank gas,” Dietz recalled telling her husband on November 27.
The next night, her Facebook timeline was full of neighbors complaining about the smell of fuel in their water. The Dietzes ran to their taps and also smelled fuel. They noticed that the tap water also had an oily sheen.
Attorneys representing the families say the lawsuit will show that Navy officers failed to warn residents after hearing about fuel in the water, even insisting that staff members drank the water.
Navy representatives and government attorneys did not respond to an email seeking comment on the lawsuit.
The fuel storage tanks have long been a flashpoint in Hawaii, with Native Hawaiians and other residents raising concerns over the past decade about leaks that threatened the broader water supply. The tanks are located above an aquifer that supplies water to 400,000 people in urban Honolulu.
Initially, the Navy said it had not determined how petroleum got into the water, but its own investigation ultimately pinned the cause on a series of errors.
On May 6, 2021, a pipe ruptured due to operator error, causing the leakage of 21,000 gallons (80,000 liters) of fuel being transferred between tanks. However, most of the fuel entered a firefighting line and remained there until six months later, when a cart rammed the line, releasing 20,000 gallons (75,700 liters) that eventually entered the water system.
Red Hill workers noticed that one of the tanks was short of that amount, but did not report the difference to upper management.
Dietz did not want to jeopardize her husband’s career by asking to leave Hawaii. So they stayed, vowing to avoid tap water while they figured out their next steps.
“They’re just going to put another family in this house,” she said. “So we have to stay here and we have to try to fight to get this resolved.”
In doing so, Dietz says she has found unexpected allies among native Hawaiians, who revere water as a sacred resource and harbor a distrust of the U.S. military dating back to at least 1893, when a group of American businessmen, with the support of U.S. Marines, overthrew the Hawaiian kingdom.
Kawena’ulaokalā Kapahua — a Native Hawaiian political science doctoral student and one of the activists who pushed for the tanks to be closed — said the water crisis has forged a sense of solidarity with affected military families. It also fostered relationships within a military community of members who often cycle quickly in and out of the islands, he said.
When families felt abandoned by the military, “the people who did show up for them were the indigenous community,” Kapahua said.
Dietz agreed. “They gave us a seat at the table,” she said through tears.
Ultimately, under the pressure of outrage and ongoing protests, the army, on orders from state officials, emptied the tanks.
Dietz’s husband later received new assignments and the family moved to Jacksonville, Florida, this summer. They do not plan to live in military housing there.
As she prepares to move from a home where the ice machine has been turned off since 2021, Dietz hopes the process will renew awareness about what happened to the water.
“Someone’s coming to live with you,” she said, “and I’m afraid they’re going to turn on the ice machine.”