HONOLULU (AP) — The Hawaii Department of Health said Friday that tap water in all residential areas served by the Navy’s Pearl Harbor water system is safe to drink, more than three months after an oil leak from a military fuel tank sickened thousands.
Jet fuel leaked from the Navy’s Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility into a Navy water well and into tap water on and around the Pearl Harbor military base in late November . Nearly 6,000 people sought medical treatment for rashes, headaches, nausea and other ailments. Around 4,000 people have spent months living in hotels just to get clean water.
The Navy has suspended use of the affected well. He spent several months running clean water through his pipes and the pipes of individual houses so that families could live there again.
The Department of Defense announced earlier this month that it would close the nearly 80-year-old fuel storage facility amid an outcry from Hawaii residents and military families.
The health department said it was awaiting more data from two nonresidential areas at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam and Aliamanu Military Reservation before commenting on water safety at those locations.
Authorities tested samples from 10% of homes in each of 19 separate areas before the department gave approval for water in those areas. This follows a plan approved by the Department and the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
The department said it would test water in 5% of homes in a given area in the first three months after declaring the water safe to drink. This would follow by testing the water in 10% of homes every six months for the next two years.
Some families expressed concern that testing a small percentage of homes was not enough and said they wanted the water in all homes to be tested.
The department said 10% of homes provided a representative sample of homes in the areas.
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