Sierra Club sues state to get records on fuel leak at Navy’s Red Hill facility

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - The Sierra Club on Tuesday sued the state Health Department, demanding records about a fuel leak into Pearl Harbor last year.

The environment group wants the documents in order to argue that a contested case hearing over the Red Hill fuel storage facility should be reopened.

They want to put Navy officials under oath about what and when they knew about the leak.

“We really need to know what happened, what went wrong, what did the Navy do, did the Navy try to potentially withhold information from the public,” said Sierra Club Director Wayne Tanaka.

Emails leaked to HNN partner Civil Beat suggested Navy commanders did not tell the state about the leak because it was in the middle of the hearings and could have affected the Health Department’s decision on what to do about the tanks. The tanks sit above Oahu’s biggest drinking water aquifer.

The Sierra Club says it had to go to court after the Health Department ignored open records laws and their rights as parties in the case.