Aia i hea ka wai a KÄne?
The Red Hill Crisis, Emerging Fluidarities, and the Radical Relationality of Water
Kyle Kajihiro
E ui aku ana au iÄ Ê»oe:
Aia i hea ka wai a KÄne?
Aia i lalo, i ka honua, i ka wai hƫ,
I ka wai kau a KÄne me Kanaloa,
He wai puna, he wai e inu,
He wai e mana, he wai e ola.
E ola nĆ a!
A question I ask of you:
Where is the water of KÄne?
Below, in the ground, in the gushing spring,
in the rising water of KÄne and Kanaloa,
A spring of water, water to drink,
Water to give strength, water to live,
To live indeed!
âExcerpt from âHe Mele No KÄneâ (Traditional)
On Saturday evening, November 20, 2021, 911 dispatchers in Honolulu received calls from residents of Foster Village and the Äliamanu Military Reservation reporting a strong odor of gasoline. Unable to locate the source, the responding firefighters chalked it up to nearby refueling operations and closed the case.1
Unbeknownst to the residents, deep beneath their neighborhood, in an underground access tunnel linking the Red Hill Underground Fuel Storage Facility with Pearl Harbor, a worker crashed their cart into a drain line that released approximately nineteen thousand gallons of jet fuel on the floor of the tunnel. This fuel, which was left over from a previous spill in May 2021, had been suctioned into the elevated drain line without anyoneâs knowledge. Once liberated, the fuel escaped down a long-forgotten floor drain directly into the navyâs water system. The navyâs Red Hill Shaft water-pumping station then distributed the fuel-tainted water to ninety-three thousand people on the navyâs water system.2 Valerie KaÊ»ahanui, a resident of military housing reported, âMy kids have been sick, respiratory issues, headaches. Iâve had a headache for the past week. . . . My kids have had nosebleeds, rashes, weâve been itchy after we get out of the shower. It feels like our skin is burning.â3 But the navy continued to deny that there was a crisis. Captain Erik Spitzer, commander of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam told concerned military families, âI can tell you at this point that there are no immediate indications that the water is not safe.â4
The deteriorating and leaking eighty-year-old Red Hill facility has been the target of protest, litigation, and political pressure since a leak in 2014 first raised public alarm. But the navy has maintained that the Red Hill facility was safe and vital to national security. The latest leaks in May and November 2021 contaminated drinking water for navy water users and threatened the water supply for all of Honolulu. The incident sparked intense activism and the emergence of new water-protectors groups that brought together a diverse coalition demanding that Red Hill be shut down. But the navy fought to keep the facility operating.
Then, on March 7, 2022, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III directed the secretary of the navy, in coordination with the commander of the United States Indo-Pacific Command, âto take all steps necessary to defuel and permanently close the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility.â5 After the State Department of Health rejected the navyâs incomplete defueling plan in July 2022, the navy submitted a supplemental plan on September 7, which projected completion of defueling by July 2024.6 As of this writing, approximately 104 million gallons of fuel remain in the tanks and pose an existential threat to ecosystems, aquifers, and residents of OÊ»ahu. Community groups and local government officials continue to apply pressure to ensure that the military follows through with the directive without delay. After adamantly insisting that Red Hill was crucial for national security, the Pentagonâs sudden about-face decision to close the facility came as a surprise to many observers. It was certainly an important win for the new water-protectors movement.
In the history of HawaiÊ»i, there has never been such a diverse and broad front of opposition to the U.S. military. Even the pathbreaking Protect KahoÊ»olawe Ê»Ohana, which successfully stopped the bombing of KahoÊ»olawe island after decades of struggle, often met strong opposition from veterans, business leaders, politicians, and even other KÄnaka Ê»Ćiwi (Native Hawaiians).7 The military-industrial-political complex in HawaiÊ»i has so thoroughly imbricated itself into the political-economic and social fabric of HawaiÊ»i that it often makes opposition to military projects seem quixotic. The shut down Red Hill water-protectors movement helped to build an unprecedented political alignment of community activists, government officials, corporate figures, religious organizations, and labor unions, with members from a diversity of ethnic, class, and ideological positions. A Honolulu Star-Advertiser poll found that 80 percent of HawaiÊ»i residents supported the permanent shut down of the Red Hill fuel tanks.8 What caused this realignment of political forces? What caused the military to reverse its position? Will this realignment of political forces hold in future struggles to confront military environmental impacts? Will the military-industrial-political complex be able to remake itself in the wake of Red Hill to reestablish its hegemonic political, economic, and ideological position in HawaiÊ»i?
There are many factors shaping the social and cultural conditions of possibility and political forces that led to the Pentagonâs decision to shutter Red Hill. If only for a brief historical moment, the ruptured fuel lines created a break in the military-political-economic apparatus and their ideological hegemony in HawaiÊ»i. The hubris and negligence of military officials, multiple cascading technological and bureaucratic system failures, growing activist pressure from different sectors, and the inexorable corrosive power and fluid properties of water and time all combined to unsettle what were previously relatively stable political-economic assemblages. Intersecting crises of environmental and public health, far-reaching economic fallout, and the erosion of political legitimacy created an opportunity for the formation of new activist relationships between KÄnaka Ê»Ćiwi and settlers. A full discussion of these multiple factors, however, is beyond the scope of this article.
Instead, I examine the recent history of the Red Hill crisis and the emergence of two new groups that led the grassroots water-protectors movement: OÊ»ahu Water Protectors, a multiethnic group of settlers and KÄnaka Ê»Ćiwi activists, and KaÊ»ohewai, a Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi coalition of organizations and individuals committed to protecting OÊ»ahuâs water. I draw upon my experiences as a yonsei nikkei (fourth-generation settler of Japanese ancestry) in HawaiÊ»i who has worked on demilitarization issues since 1996, first as the staff person for a nonprofit peace and social justice organization and more recently as an activist-scholar and participant-observer in the organizing to shut down Red Hill. In this article, I consider how the assertion of Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi ontologies of water in framing the issue opened the political space for new political alignments to form. The basic biological necessity of water, its unique fluid physical properties, and the assertion of a Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi ontology of water as an akua (deity), or âelemental energies of the environment,â9 facilitated the emergence of what Oceania scholar Teresia Teaiwa calls âfluidarities.â10 The term fluidarity is an Oceanic play on the concept of solidarity. It refers to personal and political relationships of care, mutual aid, and collective political action across diverse and dynamic cultures, subjectivities, and positionalities, connected by the medium of water.
The first passage in the epigraph is a stanza from the chant âHe Mele No KÄne,â which describes the many forms, transformations, and movements of the akua KÄneikawaiola (KÄne of the life-giving waters).11 This chant became a standard at different actions in the shut down Red Hill campaign. It is structured as a series of queriesââI ask you a question: Where is the water of KÄne?â Each stanza in response describes a different manifestation of KÄne, as heat and sunlight, atmospheric and oceanic phenomena, clouds, rains, rainbows, mists, streams, underground aquifers, and springs. The chant ends with an affirmation of water as a source of power and life. By returning to the question âWhere is the water of KÄne?â the chant implies that KÄne is immanent in all things, including ourselves. The question forces listeners to search for and recognize KÄne within their own lives.
As Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi law professor Kapua Sproat observes, âWater is a connecting force. . . . If we look at things like the hydrologic cycle, all of us throughout this paeÊ»Äina are connected through our freshwater resources.â12 Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio (Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi) examines how people and Ê»Äina are interrelated in what she calls an ââupena of pilinaâ (a net or web of intimacies).13 I understand fluidarities and Ê»upena of pilina to resonate with what Melanie Yazzie (DinĂ©) and Cutcha Risling Baldy (Hoopa) refer to as âthe radical relationality of water.â14 I argue that this radical relationality of water is a key factor in the emerging fluidarities between KÄnaka Ê»Ćiwi and settler activists in the water-protectors movement on OÊ»ahu. A second claim of this article is that the Red Hill crisis brought to light and enabled a public denunciation of the hidden power, and violence, of military logistics and infrastructure.15 This has important implications for political praxis: in an age of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change, the prospects for life on this planet will hinge on our ability to form radical political relationships with and through water. And, since the U.S. military is the single largest fossil fuel consumer and greenhouse gas emitter in the United States and the world, addressing the climate crisis necessitates confronting the environmental violence of militarization.16
In the next section, I examine the ethics and politics of water as a trans-Indigenous conversation and describe the significance of wai, the Hawaiian word for fresh water, in the context of water protectors organizing on the Red Hill issue. Next, I provide a brief overview of the social and environmental impacts of U.S. militarization in HawaiÊ»i, which are antithetical to wai. I go on to examine the unfolding chaos of the recent Red Hill crisis and consider how two groupsâOÊ»ahu Water Protectors and KaÊ»ohewaiâframed the issue by invoking the sacred life-giving properties of water. The insistence on a Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi ontological politics of water in the struggle to shut down Red Hill created new ways to conceptualize and organize around this environmental justice issue that are broadly inclusive while centering Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi claims. Throughout the article, I consider how Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi ontological politics of water expose and disrupt the hidden military infrastructures of U.S. imperial formations. I conclude with some preliminary thoughts about the future of (de)militarization in HawaiÊ»i.
Toward a Trans-Indigenous Ontological Politics of Water
Ontological difference is a ground of political struggle. In this section, I consider different trans-Indigenous perspectives on the ontological politics of water. Enacting Indigenous ontologies through moÊ»olelo (stories, histories) and cultural practices has been an effective strategy in numerous Indigenous struggles, from KahoÊ»olawe, MÄkua, and Mauna a WÄkea to Standing Rock and Red Hill.
Nicole J. Wilson and Jody Inkster (Kaska Dena [Wolf Clan] and Tahltan) observe that many water conflicts between Indigenous and settler societies are ârooted in ontological differencesâ between radically different humanâwater relationships.17 In settler societies, water has typically been regarded as a resource or commodity for human consumption, exploitation, and accumulation. Conflicts have arisen when settler capitalist projects threaten to harm or deplete waters that Indigenous peoples rely on for their lifeways and regard as kin. For example, in the OÄhĂ©thi Ć akĂłwiĆ resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock, the expression âmnĂ wiÄĂłniâ (water is life) was raised as a rallying cry, connecting the #NoDAPL struggle to a much larger constellation of trans-Indigenous water-protectors movements, with stakes that exceed conservation, law, property claims, or finances. When water and land are regarded as kin, it opens the political field to different ethics of respect, reciprocity, and care. Glen Coulthard (Yellowknives Dene) and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg) describe this sense of mutual respect and responsibility as âgrounded normativity,â ethical frameworks based on âIndigenous place-based practices and associated forms of knowledge . . . based on deep reciprocity, that are inherently informed by an intimate relationship to place.â18 Mary Tuti Baker (Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi) argues that the Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi concept of aloha Ê»Äina (a deep love for the land, seas, and skies) is a form of âgrounded normativity expressed in the Kanaka Maoli political context.â19 This deep reciprocity with a place moves with and through the fluid actions of water.
In many KÄnaka Ê»Ćiwi schools of thought, all emergent forms of freshwater are revered as manifestations of KÄneikawaiola, the procreative principle that moves through hydrological cycles. In some moÊ»olelo, KÄne and his sibling/companion, Kanaloa, the deity of âdeep consciousness of the sea,â who is associated with underground forms of water, travel through the Hawaiian Islands to find new sources of wai.20 In order to quench Kanaloaâs thirst for Ê»awa, the ceremonial drink extracted from the root of the Ê»awa plant (Piper methysticum), KÄne thrusts his Ê»ĆÊ»Ć (digging stick) into the ground to create new springs.
Drawing on the work of the KÄ«hoÊ»ihoÊ»i KÄnÄwai research group, Candace Fujikane describes the kÄnÄwai (laws) governing the vertical relationships between different wao (stratified realms) of the Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi cosmos.21 Three in particular pertain to the underground realms traversed by water:
- KÄnÄwai Pahulauâthe edict of 400 chambers; concerning the care of aquifers and their relationship to ocean health & reef ecosystems
- KÄnÄwai Pahukiniâthe edict of 4,000 chambers; concerning the care of aquifers, water tables, glaciers, snow caps, caves, watersheds; recognition of all manner watersheds in all stratums
- KÄnÄwai KÄnemilohaeâthe edict of passage; ability for groundwater & underground water to have uninterrupted passage; for the health of ocean creatures in the freshwater areas; for health of island as fresh cool waters deter hurricanes from decimating islands.22
The kÄnÄwai governing these wao suggest a profound appreciation for the pilina (relationality) of water between and across realms.
In a recent Red Nation Podcast, Shelley Muneoka (Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi), a leader with KAHEA: The Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance, a kiaÊ»i (protector) of Mauna a WÄkea, and a member of the OÊ»ahu Water Protectors, marveled at the ânature of the aquifer and the water itself. . . . Itâs like porous rock below, and water, which I think is really beautiful, which is an akua for us, a god for us. This akua can move through rock. But we cannot move through the rock.â23 Muneoka conveys a sense of awe and respect for the miraculous powers and agency of water. As Marie Alohalani Brown (Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi) notes, âWater is a shape-shifter.â24
In addition to KÄne and Kanaloa, the genealogy of wai includes a multitude of other akua. According to Brown, âIn the Keaomelemele tradition, Moâoinanea is sister to KÄne and Kanaloa, and she and KÄne are indicated as nÄ mÄkua (parents) of the moâo clan and their large family.â25 MoÊ»o akua are powerful reptilian water deities who can assume different forms and can protect, as well as destroy, life. Fujikane opens her book Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future with a vivid account of the great migration of moÊ»o akua from their home islands in the clouds to the Hawaiian Islands as told in the moÊ»olelo of Keaomelemele.26 MoÊ»oinanea, the matriarch of all moÊ»o akua, arrives first in Waialua, OÊ»ahu. She summons legions of moÊ»o, who, marching in pairs, cover the lands of OÊ»ahu with their gigantic bodies, an image suggestive of OÊ»ahuâs topography of long serpentine ridges.27 The procession of moÊ»o reaches all the way across the island to KapĆ«kaki, where the Red Hill facility is located. One of MoÊ»oinaneaâs offspring, KÄnekuaÊ»ana, is the moÊ»o akua associated with the fishponds and resources of Ke Awalau o PuÊ»uloa (also known as Pearl Harbor). MoÊ»oinanea herself comes to reside on Mauna a WÄkea at lake Waiau, along with other water deities:
PoliÊ»ahu, the woman wrapped in the snow mantle of Mauna a WÄkea; LÄ«lÄ«noe of the fine mist that gently meanders across the mauna; Waiau of the swirling waters; and KahoupokÄne, master kapa maker who beats the brilliant snow-white bark cloth.28
When we think about wai through Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorioâs understanding of pilina as intimacies, other water relationships come to mind: the exchange of wai in sex; pregnancy and birth as life emerging from wai; waiĆ« (milk) exchanged between mother and infant.29 Her figure of an Ê»upena of pilina (a net or web of intimacies) suggests a matrix of relationships, interactions, accountabilities, and collaborations that forms a map of relationalities.
The image of water and procreation also compels us to consider Haumea, the great female akua whom Fujikane describes as âthe consciousness of the earth.â30 Haumea can transform herself into multiple kinolau (many body forms) and is reborn in each generation of her progeny, like the unbroken chain of maternal mitochondrial DNA. One of her kinolau is the akua PapahÄnaumoku (the foundation who births islands). As discussed in Fujikane, Kalei NuÊ»uhiwa describes Haumea as potentiality, who weaves a hei (to ensnare or a string figure) to map space and time, past and future events, in order to secure desired outcomes.31 According to NuÊ»uhiwa, the hipuÊ»u (knot) in Haumeaâs hei (or Osorioâs Ê»upena of pilina) âis the imagery of potential . . . the honua [earth] thatâs being created for the proper thing to happen.â32 In other words, Haumeaâs potentiality is realized through the creation (and manipulation) of relationalities.
Drawing on the work of Indigenous feminists, Yazzie and Baldy conceptualize radical relationality as âa vision of relationality and collective political organization that is deeply intersectional and premised on values of interdependency, reciprocity, equality, and responsibility.â33 In this view, âwater is a relative with whom we engage in social (and political) relations premised on interdependency and respect.â34 Yazzie and Baldy argue that an Indigenous politics of water requires âa struggle for decolonization premised on the accountabilities we form in lively relation to each other. The act of (re)making our accountability in relationship to water and (re)claiming our relational theories of water culture remind us that we are water based, that we have water memory.â35
The praxis of âinter-reflexivityâ requires adopting a âwater view,â engaging in political action not simply for people but also for water.36 It means that oneâs ethics and actions should align with âhow water views the world, or even how water views us.â37 Crucially, the authors argue that in addition to individual practices of cultural reclamation and healing, a radical relationality of water calls on Indigenous peoples to âbuild the kind of mass movements that are necessary for staging a serious counterhegemonic challenge to the status quo of death that currently structures our existence.â38
If, as Annemarie Mol insists, realities are not given but rather are enacted and, therefore, multiple, then choosing which realities to enact is inherently political.39 Molâs concept of ontological politics offers a way to think about the ethics of choosing between settler and Indigenous ontologies. In the HawaiÊ»i context, the politics of water pivots on the ontological difference between water and wai. After the U.S. occupation of HawaiÊ»i in 1898, and gradual transformation of HawaiÊ»i by Western law, water came to be governed as a property right, which led to the exclusion or termination of many traditional practices. In contrast to water-as-commodity, wai refers to a vital elemental force that structures and orients much of Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi sociality. Doubling the root word produces waiwai, which means wealth or abundance. KÄnÄwai means law or rule and derives from the management of water.
The Ê»Ewa district, where KapĆ«kaki/Red Hill is located, fans out like a broad-veined leaf around the waters of Ke Awalau o PuÊ»uloa. Over millions of years, wai carved the KoÊ»olau and WaiÊ»anae volcanoes into deep valleys converging at the shores of Ke Awalau o PuÊ»uloa. KÄnaka Ê»Ćiwi named many of the ahupuaÊ»a (a type of land division typically extending from the mountaintop to the edge of the reef) for their waters: Waiau, Waimano, Waimalu, Waiawa, WaipiÊ»o, Waipahu. These place-names speak to the importance of water in the creation and vitality of these landscapes. Wai condenses as mists, clouds, and rain on mountaintops. It settles as precipitation, saturates the spongy ground of the cloud forests, runs down waterfalls into deep valleys and streams until it arrives at the sea or slowly percolates through layers of rock, soil, and sand, and, after twenty-five years or more, finally reaches the aquifer. Wai bubbles up as punawai (springs) to create biologically generative wetlands. As it flows downstream, wai carries nutrients into the shallow estuaries of Ke Awalau o PuÊ»uloa, where sunlight energizes limu (algae), the foundation for an entire web of life, including crustaceans, mollusks, fishes, and humans.
Prior to the U.S. occupation of HawaiÊ»i, Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi leaders implemented a legal and a land title system that attempted to codify Indigenous values and practices related to Ê»Äina, wai, and kai (sea water).40 The first Western-style constitution of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1840 included strong public trust provisions, establishing that the monarch did not own all of the land but was instead a steward of the land. It specified that when farmers diverted wai from a stream for agricultural use, they must return the water to the stream after it had flowed through their fields, thus sharing wai with other users downstream and maximizing the systemâs ecological services.41
After the U.S. occupation of HawaiÊ»i, Western capitalist property relations dictated land and water use. Plantation owners exploited water as if it were their property and diverted much water from wet regions to irrigate their sugar plantations in the dry leeward plains. Springs, streams, and fisheries dried up as a result of this enclosure and contributed to the displacement of KÄnaka Ê»Ćiwi, who could no longer sustain their food production.42
Ironically, it was only after HawaiÊ»iâs admission as a state in 1959 that locally selected judges replaced federal appointees and brought a deeper appreciation of HawaiÊ»iâs historical, cultural, and political context to their interpretation of the law.43 The HawaiÊ»i Supreme Court under Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi Chief Justice William S. Richardson ruled in McBryde Sugar Company v. Robinson (1973) that private water users may have certain use rights to water but did not have property interests in water.44 Reaching back to precedents in Hawaiian Kingdom law, the court affirmed that wai is a public trust under the stewardship of the government. While this legal definition of water as a public trust may reference certain Western legal concepts, in HawaiÊ»i, the practice also has roots in the traditional Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi management of wai as a shared and sacred resource.45
âFuel Is Deathâ
The Red Hill crisis is a story of two liquids. One is essential for life. The other, an extract of death. In a personal communication, Shelley Muneoka shared these reflections:
The phrase âola i ka waiâ . . . is often translated as âwater is lifeâ or âin life there is waterâ or âlife is possible through water.â . . . This phrase points us to anotherâfuel is death. . . . While we need to drink water to live, guzzling fuel will plainly kill you. . . . Fossil fuels themselves are the fossilized remains of plants and animals that lived and died millions of years ago. Wars are fought, people killed, countries invaded over access to the crude oil that becomes jet fuel. And once secured, that fuel goes into planes and boats and tanks that bomb and occupy âenemy territory.â . . . And the emissions from such missions are huge contributors to global warming that is hurtling us toward a climate crisis which threatens to make this planet increasingly uninhabitable. Fuel is the antithesis to life.46
Muneokaâs quote resonates with what Neta C. Crawford calls the âdeep cycleâ of imbricated military policies, war, fossil fuel dependency, and environmental consequences.47
The Red Hill crisis is also the story of the military partitioning, enclosure, containment, and weaponization of land and people.48 During a contested case hearing on the navyâs application for a permit to continue operating the Red Hill facility, deputy assistant secretary of the navy James B. Balocki was asked whether he would prioritize water over fuel in a humanitarian crisis. He replied rather smugly, âThere are times when water is certainly the most important thing. There are times when fuel is essential as well. So I donât choose one over the other.â49 His response, which was derided on social media, seemed to express what Deborah Cowen calls âthe deadly life of logistics.â50 It is a political order collateralized by the instrumental disposability of human and nonhuman lives.
The Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility is located on the island of OÊ»ahu within KapĆ«kaki, a ridge of the KoÊ»olau mountain range dividing the Moanalua and HÄlawa ahupuaÊ»a. Numerous moÊ»olelo and wahi pana (legendary places) are associated with this area. One of the most sacred sites in this vicinity, Leilono, is said to be located on the upper rim of the Äliamanu crater. KÄnaka Ê»Ćiwi consider it to be a leina a ka Ê»uhaneâa leaping site for spirits of the deceased to enter PĆ, the primordial darkness.51
Fujikane describes southern OÊ»ahu as a landscape shaped by a subterranean network of caves and lava tubes connected by wai.52 KÄnemilohae (also known as KÄnemilohaÊ»i) and KĆ«haÊ»imoana are brothers of the volcano akua Pele. According to Pualani KanakaÊ»ole Kanahele, they represent the vertical and horizontal tunneling of magma underground and breaking through the earth.53 Taking the form of sharks, they join other manĆ akua (shark deities) who navigate through underground karst caverns, lava tubes, and water caves of southern OÊ»ahu, including KaÊ»ahupÄhau, the famous shark guardian of Ke Awalau o PuÊ»uloa.54 Fujikane describes the construction of the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility as the invasion of âsubterranean monstersâ that âviolates the KÄnÄwai of Pahulau, Pahukini, and KÄnemilohae concerning the protection of aquifers and watersheds, as well as the free passage of underground waters to the sea.â55
In 1938, during the tense years preceding the U.S. entry into World War II, planning began for an underground fuel storage facility at Pearl Harbor that would be hidden and protected from attack.56 According to navy legend, the Red Hill tanks âbegan as a crude sketch on a cocktail napkin and evolved into one of the most remarkable engineering feats of World War II.â57 Construction of the tanks began in 1940 and was completed in 1943. âShrouded in secrecy and constructed during the darkest days of World War II, it was known simply as âthe Underground.ââ58
Constructed during a wartime state of emergency, Red Hill is an example of the state of exception becoming permanent.59 In February 1941, the federal court approved the navyâs condemnation of 344.91 acres of land from the Samuel Damon Estate and the Queen Emma Estate.60 Approximately 3,900 workers worked around the clock in shifts to complete the project within three years. Even after the Pearl Harbor attack, during the three-year period of martial law, work continued. Seventeen people died in the construction of the facility.61 After the war, Red Hill became a strategic fuel reserve for the U.S. military.
Red Hill consists of twenty enormous underground storage tanks constructed within cavities excavated from the solid rock. Each tank is 250 feet tall by 100 feet in diameter and has a capacity of 12.5 million gallons.62 The facility can hold a total of 255 million gallons of fuel. Underground tunnels, pipelines, and rail tracks connect the tank farm to the pump house and distribution points at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, 2.5 miles away. The tanks are constructed out of welded quarter-inch-thick steel plates clad in concrete and are aligned vertically in two parallel rows. The vertical orientation was an engineering innovation that expedited its excavation and construction.
However, this supposed engineering marvel was built a mere one hundred feet above the Pearl Harbor Aquifer, which supplies 77 percent of the drinking water on Oʻahu. The location of the tank farm was selected for the suitability of its rock structure, its proximity to Pearl Harbor, and its favorable elevation. But navy engineers apparently did not anticipate challenges due to the complex hydrogeology. The navy used the same access tunnels as the fuel tanks for constructing its Red Hill Shaft water-pumping station, a mere 2,500 feet away and hydraulically downgradient from the fuel tanks.
For a top-secret facility, Red Hill received a surprising amount of media coverage over the years. In its utter banality, this massive logistic infrastructure was âhidden in plain sight.â63 A Honolulu Advertiser article in 1947 announced that the âexact location of the âUndergroundâ cannot be disclosed because of military security restrictions, but giant pipes run from it to the center of Pearl Harbor, so that Pacific Fleet vessels can be quickly refueled.â64 It was as if the navy wanted to draw attention to the siteâs secrecy in order to enhance the mystique surrounding the national security state. This secrecy, which shielded the navy from public scrutiny and regulatory oversight, continued long after the facility was formally declassified in 1995.65
The Red Hill crisis is the inevitable result of the U.S. transformation of Ke Awalau o PuÊ»uloaâdesired for its protected bays, deep channels, and strategic locationâinto âPearl Harbor,â the center of U.S. military power. The disfiguration of Ke Awalau o PuÊ»uloa first began in the imperial imagination. General John Schofield, who in 1873 led a secret military survey of the Hawaiian Islands masquerading as a tourist, reported, âThe value of such a harbor to the commerce of the world and especially to that of the United States is too manifest to require discussion. It is the key to the Central Pacific Ocean, it is the gem of these islands.â66 Yet, in the same passage, he dismisses the sophisticated Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi food system at Ke Awalau o PuÊ»uloa as âvalueless.â67 This devaluation of Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi lifeworlds in order to expand the logistic infrastructure of imperial formation is at the heart of the Red Hill conflict. As Max Liboiron (Red River MĂ©tis/Michif) argues, âPollution is not a manifestation or side effect of colonialism but is rather an enactment of ongoing colonial relations to Land. That is, pollution is best understood as the violence of colonial land relations rather than environmental damage, which is a symptom of violence.â68
After the 1887 Bayonet Constitution, the United States acquired exclusive rights to use Ke Awalau o PuÊ»uloa as a coaling station.69 In 1893, when Queen LiliÊ»uokalani attempted to rescind the Bayonet Constitution, U.S. troops intervened to support a settler coup dâĂ©tat. It was the first regime change by the United States of another sovereign country.70 Despite successful organizing by Hawaiian independence organizations to defeat two treaties of annexation, the SpanishâAmerican War in 1898 provided the justification and opportunity for U.S. imperialists to seize the Hawaiian Islands as a wartime military necessity by a simple joint resolution of Congress.71 Boiled down to its essential logic, the United States occupied HawaiÊ»i in order to have a fuel depot in the Pacific with which to build its empire.
The U.S. military has created an enormous toxic footprint in Hawaiʻi. There are approximately one thousand military contamination sites at 115 installations and former installations in Hawaiʻi, including the Superfund site at Pearl Harbor.72 Today, most of the productive ecosystems and abundant fisheries of Ke Awalau o Puʻuloa have been destroyed. In place of the pipi (Hawaiian pearl oyster, Pinctada galtsoffi) which once thrived there, today visitors are greeted by fossilized oyster shells and signs warning the public not to eat the toxic marine life.73
According to Captain Kenneth Epps, commanding officer of the Fleet Logistics Center at Pearl Harbor, Red Hill is âthe primary gas station for the Pacific.â74 The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM), which is headquartered at Camp Smith, overlooking Ke Awalau o PuÊ»uloa, is the oldest and largest of the United Statesâ unified commands. Its area of responsibility covers half the surface of the earth and a majority of the worldâs population. If USINDOPACOM is âthe core of the nationâs global power,â then Red Hill represents its sclerotic, failing mechanical heart, pumping the petroleum death-blood of the U.S. war machine.75
The Red Hill Water-Contamination Crisis
âThree Small Holesâ: The 2014 Spill
The recent history of the Red Hill crisis began in January 2014, when twenty-seven thousand gallons of jet fuel leaked from the newly repaired Tank 5. The culprit: three small holes. Despite a history of chronic leaks, this was the first time that a fuel-release incident was publicly reported. It sparked widespread concern from residents.
Grassroots efforts to close Red Hill began in 2014, with the Sierra Club of HawaiÊ»i leading litigation, education, and organizing efforts on Red Hill. The Sierra Club has a checkered history with racism. Its founder, John Muir, disparaged Black and Indigenous peoples and initiated the preservation model of âwildernessâ without people. Many of the organizationâs earliest leaders were notorious proponents of eugenics.76 Unlike the national organization, which has only recently begun to confront its racist past, the Sierra Club chapters in HawaiÊ»i have been engaged in environmental justice campaigns with Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi and people of color, such as efforts to protect Mauna a WÄkea, water-restoration cases on Maui, and the campaign to shut down Red Hill. Despite a growing chorus demanding that Red Hill be permanently shut down, the navy, the chamber of commerce, and powerful politicians killed numerous attempts to legislate stronger regulations for the Red Hill Underground Fuel Storage Facility, according to Marti Townsend, an attorney with Earthjustice and the former executive director of the Sierra Club of HawaiÊ»i.77
Instead, an administrative order on consent (AOC) was initiated in 2014. The AOC, which includes the navy, the Defense Logistics Agency, the State of Hawaiʻi Department of Health, and the Environmental Protection Agency as signatories, is a regulatory agreement that requires the navy to improve inspection and repair procedures, complete a comprehensive study of tank upgrade alternatives, develop better groundwater flow and contaminant models, and produce a risk/vulnerability assessment.78 The AOC gave the navy twenty-two years to implement a secondary containment solution. The crisis became a technical matter for experts to solve without public involvement or transparency.
Senator Brian Schatz praised the AOC as a âpragmatic step forward to protect Oahuâs drinking water.â79 However, it has proven to be a weak instrument for holding the navy accountable. The navyâs tank upgrade alternative plan in 2019 proposed to keep the existing single-wall design with periodic inspections while funding research and development of a new tank liner solution by 2045, completely ignoring the AOC deadline of 2037. The proposed fix would not even satisfy the double-containment design required by regulators. And the technology proposed by the navy was purely speculative. Furthermore, the navy required all parties to the AOC to sign nondisclosure agreements.
In 2014, as a political pressure-release valve, the Hawaiʻi State Legislature established a Red Hill Task Force consisting of representatives of various federal, state, and county entities.80 In 2016, the legislature amended state law and created a Fuel Tank Advisory Committee to succeed the Red Hill Task Force.81 However, both of these entities are merely advisory and lack the power to make decisions or enforce regulations on the navy.
Despite the navyâs intransigence on Red Hill, since the rise of the environmental movement in the 1970s, the U.S. militaryâs culture of sovereign exceptionalism has come under pressure to change. The militaryâs environmentalism is more than simply âgreenwashing.â82 While the military as a whole has been a bad environmental actor, it would be a mistake to write off military environmentalism as simply cosmetic. At some military sites, such as MÄkua and PĆhakuloa, military conservation programs follow a logic of counterinsurgency, which aims to pacify dissent and exercise biopolitical control of ânature and natives alike.â83
These environmental reforms within the government began to produce cracks in the navyâs wall of sovereign exceptionalism at Red Hill. In 1984, the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments Act required federal agencies to comply with state and county regulations on underground storage tanks and delegated some federal regulatory authority to state and county governments. In accordance with federal law, HawaiÊ»i Revised Statute Chapter 342L, passed in 1992, required the HawaiÊ»i Department of Health (DOH) to regulate the safe operation of underground storage tanks. However, the DOH excluded large field-constructed underground storage tanks from the rule, an exemption designed specifically for the benefit of Red Hill.
In 2018, the Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi successfully sued the DOH to compel the agency to amend its rules to include Red Hill within their scope.84 Under the new rules, in May 2019, the navy submitted an application to the DOH for a permit to operate the facility. At that point the Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi and the Honolulu Board of Water Supply (BWS) petitioned to intervene in a contested case proceeding.
Through the contested case proceedings, the navy was forced to release documents that revealed shocking facts about the dangerous condition of the facility. We now know that the Red Hill tanks have leaked from the start. In their lifetime, the navy has documented approximately seventy-three leaks, resulting in the release of an estimated two hundred thousand gallons of fuel into the environment. Nineteen of twenty rock cores taken from beneath the tanks were stained with petroleum.85 An invasive examination of the steel plates revealed extensive corrosion on the back side; what was once quarter-inch-thick steel had corroded to the thickness of a dime in some spots.86 The navyâs own 2018 risk analysis study predicted that the probability of a leak of between one thousand and thirty thousand gallons is 80.1 percent over the next five years, and 96 percent over the next ten years.87 Revelations of the shockingly poor condition of the tanks intensified the community opposition. On November 19, 2019, hundreds of people packed a hearing on the navyâs proposed tank upgrade alternative study, with the majority of testimonies calling for complete closure of Red Hill.
A System-of-Systems Failure: The 2021 Disaster
The long-awaited contested case hearing for the navyâs Red Hill permit application took place in February 2021. Around this time, an oil sheen appeared on the water near Hotel Pier in Pearl Harbor, but the navy withheld key information about the spill during the hearing.
A few months later, around May 6â7, 2021, an âoperator errorâ at Red Hill caused a pressure surge to burst a pipeline in the lower access tunnel. The navy initially reported that 1,618 gallons of fuel were released, all of which it claimed to have recovered. But, as OÊ»ahu residents learned several months later, the fuel spill was much larger than initially reported.
By September 2021, the contested case hearings officer issued a proposed decision and order that the Department of Health should issue a five-year permit to the navy for operation of the Red Hill facility on the condition that the navy inspect and repair all tanks to specified standards by December 31, 2024. It was a controversial half-measure that left no one satisfied.
Emails leaked by a whistleblower and reported in October 2021 revealed that the navy had covered up the Hotel Pier spill during the contested case hearing.88 The navy also withheld other crucial information about tank corrosion studies.89 In light of these new revelations, the state considered reopening the contested case proceedings.
Oʻahu Water Protectors
In addition to the Sierra Club of HawaiÊ»i, another group peripherally involved in the Red Hill issue was HawaiÊ»i Peace and Justice, an organization based in Honolulu that engages in research and education, organizing, mobilization, and international solidarity on a range of peace and social justice issues, with a particular concern for the environmental and social impacts of militarization.90 As an organization of settlers and KÄnaka Ê»Ćiwi working in the context of a settler colonial state, HawaiÊ»i Peace and Justice practices accompaniment in solidarity with Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi organizations and struggles. It functions as an activist and organizing center, offering political education and training, supporting local groups engaged in active campaigns, and occasionally initiating and incubating new groups.
On September 25, 2021, HawaiÊ»i Peace and Justice and the Sierra Club of HawaiÊ»i jointly embarked on a more systematic organizing effort to shut down Red Hill. They convened an initial organizing committee of key leaders and activists from different parts of the island, representing different organizations and sectors, including Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi, environmentalists, labor, interfaith, and peace and social justice groups. This organizing committee became the OÊ»ahu Water Protectors (OWP), which initially united around three points of unity: water is life; Red Hill is a threat to OÊ»ahuâs water and must be shut down; and public officials must take urgent actions to protect OÊ»ahuâs water.91 Centering their politics on the life-giving qualities of water enabled the group to move fluidly between decentralized and flexible tactics without losing focus.
Fluidarities form in the swift currents of social change. The November 2021 accident mentioned in the introduction triggered a chain of events that prompted OWP to step up actions. On November 24, OWP held a press conference and rally at the Board of Water Supply building calling for the shutdown of Red Hill. At the time they did not know that contaminated water was silently coursing through the navyâs water system. The navy had claimed that the November leak was contained and that the drinking water was safe to consume. But by November 28, residents of military housing began complaining on social media that their homes smelled âlike a gas stationâ and that they were experiencing severe rashes, headaches, diarrhea, and vomiting from drinking or bathing in the tap water.92 Some were hospitalized with severe reactions. Pets vomited, and one dog died. Videos on social media showed tap water with an oily sheen or foamy film. In one video, a flame put to the waterâs surface sparked and crackled. The contamination threw schools, businesses, and the lives of thousands of families into turmoil as their water turned into poison. For five months, more than four thousand military families were displaced to temporary housing. At a December 6, 2021, press conference on the Red Hill crisis, secretary of the navy Carlos Del Toro set Twitter ablaze with the remark, âItâs not the fuel itself thatâs making them sick, itâs the fuel in the water thatâs making them sick.â93 The comment epitomized the callousness of top navy officials toward the victims of the water-contamination crisis.
The conflict between the navy and the state over regulatory authority tore apart the normally aligned interests of the state, the military, and businesses. The poisoning of military families changed the political dynamics of the situation, generating a crisis of authority and trust. Suddenly, the hypothetical disaster that water protectors had warned about became a reality, with survivors dramatically confronting officials. The coolly bureaucratic and defensive responses from military leaders came across as gaslighting and stoked public anger. Military family members organized through social networks to share information, solicit aid for those in need, and organize themselves into a political force.
As these families searched for information, they found activist resources from the Sierra Club and the OÊ»ahu Water Protectors to be more helpful than the navyâs information resources. The impact on affected families was a stark reminder of the fragility of life on these islands and a warning about the much larger catastrophe looming over OÊ»ahu. Through the realization of our shared vulnerabilities, new fluidarities emerged.
While publicly claiming that its water was safe, the navy had quietly shut down its Red Hill water shaft on November 28 without informing the Board of Water Supply or the public. On December 3, when navy officials finally revealed that after detecting contaminants, it had stopped pumping water from the Red Hill Shaft, the BWS immediately shut down its HÄlawa Shaft and two other nearby wells as a precautionary measure to prevent drawing the contaminated groundwater toward its wells. This effectively shut down the largest sources of drinking water for four hundred thousand residents of Honolulu, placing a strain on other aquifers where pumping was increased to compensate for the loss of the HÄlawa Shaft and precipitating a water shortage on OÊ»ahu. At a press conference to announce these actions, BWS chief engineer Ernie Lau choked back tears as he said, âWe cannot wait any longer. The water resource is precious. Itâs irreplaceable. Itâs pure. There is no substitute for pure water.â94 The water in Lauâs eyes and the emotion in his normally measured voice raised the affective intensity of the crisis.95
As the crisis unfolded, the ranks of OWP began to swell. On December 3, 2021, with a dayâs notice, several hundred protesters gathered at the Prince Jonah KĆ«hiĆ KalanianaÊ»ole Federal Building chanting, âOla i ka wai! Water is Life! Shut down Red Hill!â
As each day brought horrifying new developments, on December 6, 2021, the HawaiÊ»i Department of Health and Governor David Ige issued an emergency order calling on the navy to immediately suspend operation of the Red Hill facility, implement drinking water treatment measures, safely defuel the tanks, and conduct an independent investigation and certification of the systemâs integrity before operations may resume.
This emergency order coincided with the eightieth anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro was in HawaiÊ»i at the same time to dedicate a new warship and participate in the Pearl Harbor commemorative events. But Pearl Harbor was completely overshadowed by the Red Hill crisis. When asked about the stateâs emergency order, Del Toro blithely dismissed the stateâs regulatory authority: âItâs not an order. Itâs a request thatâs being made.â96 Again, the navyâs hubris helped to stoke public anger.
While the navy suspended operations of the tanks and attempted to flush the contaminated water from its water system, it requested a contested case hearing to challenge the Department of Healthâs authority to issue the emergency order to suspend operations of the facility. This move may have been calculated to prevent any legal precedent for a state having the authority over military fuel operations. During the contested case hearing on the emergency order, Assistant Secretary of the Navy James Balocki was asked whether he considered the Red Hill situation to be a crisis. He replied, âAn urgent and compelling situation perhaps. Not a crisis.â97 The condescension in his response sparked a backlash on social media. The gaffes by Balocki and Del Toro exemplify the arrogance of the navy in its efforts to maintain control of the situation. One can hear echoes of Schofieldâs contempt for âvaluelessâ Indigenous land use practices in Del Toroâs and Balockiâs casual disregard for the urgency of the disaster.
On December 27, 2021, the hearings officer for the emergency order contested case issued a scathing proposed order in which he described the tanks as a âticking time bombâ and an imminent threat to OÊ»ahuâs water. Based on these findings, the Department of Health affirmed the emergency order, which prompted the navy to appeal in state and federal courts. These cases were later dropped after Austin issued his order to permanently close Red Hill.
The Red Hill crisis exposed a central contradiction of the militaryâs presence in HawaiÊ»i: contrary to the dominant national security discourse that the U.S. military protects HawaiÊ»i and the Pacific region, Red Hill epitomizes the military occupation of HawaiÊ»i that threatens people and the environment. The crisis also gave the lie to the image of the power and infallibility of the U.S. military. Military power depends in part on a complex assemblage of relations, including environmental relations, social relations with local communities, the support of political and economic elites, and complex and surprisingly fragile logistic and infrastructural systems, all of which can come apart in moments of crisis. Because of the âoperational arrogance and lackadaisical managementâ of the military leadership in HawaiÊ»i, a national security writer warned, âthe underpinnings of Americaâs Indo-Pacific strategy are coming apart.â98
Kaʻohewai: The Bamboo Water Carrier
While a number of prominent Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi activists were visible in the growing OÊ»ahu Water Protectors movement, Andre Perez, a Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi cultural practitioner and organizer with the HawaiÊ»i Unity and Liberation Institute (HULI), felt that the movement needed stronger leadership and cultural grounding from KÄnaka Ê»Ćiwi.99 He reached out to several key Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi leaders, âpeople who got people.â100 After scouting suitable locations and drawing up plans under tight operational security, their first action was a nonviolent direct action to confront military power and reframe the debate through the Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi ontological politics of wai.
Before dawn on December 12, 2021, a group of approximately eighty kiaÊ»i, most of them KÄnaka Ê»Ćiwi from different parts of OÊ»ahu, gathered in a parking lot near the Aloha Stadium. After receiving initial instructions from the organizers, they proceeded by car caravan to the entrance of the Pacific Fleet Command headquarters about a mile away.
Before the military police and security guards knew what was happening, large pickup trucks, loaded with pĆhaku (stones), rolled up on the grassy area fronting the base. In a circle of car headlights, the group formed several lines to pass pĆhaku, hand to hand, to the designated area. The pĆhaku came from all parts of the island, brought by participants from their Ê»Äina.
Kalehua Krug, a Native Hawaiian public charter school principal, led the construction of the koÊ»a (a type of shrine) and serves as its main caretaker. Large, well-formed pĆhaku were set down first to anchor the structure. Then subsequent pĆhaku were fitted to form interlocking stacks. Smaller pebbles and sand were poured into the crevices to stabilize the structure. They erected a kiÊ»i laÊ»au (carved wooden image) of the akua KÄne carved by hui KĆ«pÄÊ»aikeÊ»e. Pieces of coral and small pebbles finished the paving on top, and a carved stone basin was set on the structure to receive offerings of wai. KoÊ»a is also the word for âcoral,â one of the first forms of life to appear in the cosmogonical creation chant âKumulipo.â The presence of koÊ»a on an altar typically signifies the sacred function of the structure. Hinaleimoana Wong Kalu, Mehana Hind, Vicky Holt Takamine, and other kumu hula (hula masters) held vigil and recited KÄne chants during the entire construction process, which took about an hour. A menâs ceremonial group led by KamanaÊ»opono Crabbe conducted an Ê»awa ceremony, which involved preparing the Ê»awa and propitiating KÄne and Kanaloa with their sacred drink. A procession of groups recited oli (chants) and performed hula to consecrate the koÊ»a. Many brought hoÊ»okupu (offerings) of wai from different water sources around the islands, which they fed to the koÊ»a from diagonally cut segments of Ê»ohe (bamboo).
According to Perez, in a planning meeting days before the action, Krug recommended that the structure be a koÊ»a instead of a kuahu (religious shrine). A koÊ»a is a type of shrine with a specific function of attracting resources, such as fish. Krug envisioned this koÊ»a as an attractor for the clean, healing waters of KÄne. Perez imagined it to be an aggregator for the lÄhui (the nation). The structure embodies this âdual connotation, the spiritual and the political side.â101
According to Perez, the core group that planned the action decided that they needed to form an entity. They chose the name KaÊ»ohewaiâthe bamboo water carrierâfor their new coalition. The choice of Ê»ohe (bamboo) is significant because bamboo is one of KÄneâs kinolau. Sometimes, young Ê»ohe stalks may contain wai within their segments. This water is considered especially sacred because it has not yet touched the ground. On the Island of HawaiÊ»i, the ahupuaÊ»a in which Mauna a WÄkea is located is named KaÊ»ohe (the bamboo), which suggests that the mountain is a vessel for water. Importantly, the segmented form of Ê»ohe suggests the visual motif of moÊ»oâa succession of connected segments, a lineage or genealogy.102
Kaʻohewai leaders announced that the koʻa would remain as a site for ceremony and other gatherings for as long as it was needed, until the Red Hill tanks were no longer a threat to the wai. While organizers of the action anticipated possible arrests, the police never intervened. In their reconnaissance, organizers had learned that the land where the koʻa was to be built was actually city-owned land. Since the Red Hill crisis was adversely affecting the city and county of Honolulu, Kaʻohewai organizers correctly wagered that the city would be sympathetic, or at least neutral, to the activists.
By the end of the first day, the base commander Admiral Samuel Paparo contacted Perez and asked to meet with KaÊ»ohewai leaders to open a line of communication. After KaÊ»ohewai leaders educated the commander about the history of U.S. military abuses in HawaiÊ»i, Paparo promised that the navy would not disturb the koÊ»a and that people could use the parking lot across the street to visit the site. The navyâs outreach to Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi leaders is quite remarkable and indicates the level of concern the military has about the radical potential of KÄnaka Ê»Ćiwi protest. KÄnaka Ê»Ćiwi have historically been the most militant in confronting militarization in HawaiÊ»i, for example in KahoÊ»olawe and MÄkua.
The koÊ»a is a concrete cultural statement about Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi responsibilities to mÄlama i ka wai (care for the water). As Perez explains, âWe have to put the ecosystem before humans. Itâs not just about our health and well-being. Itâs about the health and well-being of the Ê»Äina, of the kai, the birds and the bees and the fish, âcause theyâre all going to be impacted too. And thatâs the priority.â103 The koÊ»a also demonstrates the value of militant nonviolent direct action, within a repertoire of tactics, for its ability to expose and disrupt the militaryâs sovereign power and create kÄ«puka (openings, oases, islands) of Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi countersovereignty. KaÊ»ohewai and OÊ»ahu Water Protectors began to meet together to strategize. The emergence of KaÊ»ohewai changed the political dynamics of the struggle. The assertion of Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi leadership enabled others to realign their strategies in ways that unequivocally supported an ontological politics of wai.
At the ceremony to build and dedicate the koÊ»a, a reporter asked Kalehua Krug what he would like to say to military families poisoned by the navyâs fuel. Krugâs reply captures the radical relationality that becomes possible with and through kinship with water:
Join us. I feel for them. Our aloha is for everyone and everything. Our teachings from our ancestors is that everything, human and non-human, gets a place in the ecosystem. Everybody has mana. Everybody has spirit. Everybody deserves respect. For them, drinking the water, weâre sad for them. We feel for those Ê»ohana. Join us. Come be a part of our Ê»ohana, our family.104
The koÊ»a has become a gathering place for different groups of water protectors to meet and build pilina.105 On Wednesday afternoons, KaÊ»ohewai members lead Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi ceremonial pule (prayers) at the koÊ»a for anyone interested in learning these cultural protocols. A group of military spouses began to attend these and other activities. Another group of local Okinawan women who call themselves Shimanchu Wai Protectors have participated in nearly every action and outreach activity. Mikey Inouye, an independent filmmaker and member of OÊ»ahu Water Protectors, reached out to some of the affected military families and civilians. He organized the Shut Down Red Hill Mutual Aid collective to solicit donations and distribute mutual aid to affected communities. Friendships formed between these different communities. Some of the affected military families engaged in acts of solidarity, such as participating in cultural access activities at MÄkua Valley and drafting a statement in support of Hawaiian sovereignty and demilitarization.106
From July 1 to 10, 2022, KaÊ»ohewai organized an action called the Anahulu at the KoÊ»a to gather the kiaÊ»i and maintain pressure on the navy. An anahulu is a ten-day period of time, often to focus on a specific purpose. Planned to coincide with the navyâs Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) multinational naval exercises held in HawaiÊ»i every two years, the Anahulu at the KoÊ»a attracted about one thousand participants over the course of the week. There were information tables, arts and crafts activities, workshops and presentations on various topics, films, and concerts by some of the hottest Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi musical artists. Donations of water were collected at the anahulu and distributed to affected families. Many military personnel and family members attended the anahulu, where they were welcomed, fed, and shown compassion.
In September 2022, a group of affected military families and a delegation of OÊ»ahu Water Protectors joined a series of actions in Washington, D.C., to demand that the Environmental Protection Agency âdo your job!â107 They visited with members of Congress to request more pressure on the navy to expedite the defueling and decommissioning of Red Hill.
Conclusion
Due to the complex volcanic hydrogeology of the Hawaiian Islands, the movement of groundwater is difficult to detect, predict, and control. The navy has historically hidden behind this uncertainty when externalizing environmental risks, but with the actual poisoning of families, uncertainty has turned against them. The subterranean movements of KÄnemilohae and KĆ«haÊ»imoana have broken through the navyâs wall of secrecy and forced us to respond.
Residents of military housing remain skeptical that their water is safe to use. After months of flushing the navyâs water system, the Department of Health gave approval for residents to return to their homes in March. But military water users still complain that they can smell, taste, and see foreign substances in their water; the human nose can detect fuel even when levels are below the environmental action levels. Dozens of families have filed lawsuits seeking damages from the military and their private housing contractors.
Fluids, like water and fuel, resist containment. The navyâs rigid stance could not contain the shifting political currents of fluid events. As the crisis spread, it became impossible for politicians and civic leaders to avoid having to choose water over fuel. Many politicians who previously blocked attempts to shut down Red Hill scrambled to be first in line to pose for the media as champions of the water. John David WaiheÊ»e III, the former governor of HawaiÊ»i from 1986 to 1994, observed, âAt this point I think everybody is coalescing around the same message. . . . Itâs clear that the status quo cannot continue to exist.â108
Although Secretary of Defense Austinâs decision to permanently decommission the Red Hill facility may be considered a significant win, the struggle is not over. The decision may have been calculated to defuse growing protest and reorient its base logistics strategies in the future. The navy fired Captain Albert Lee Hornyak, the commanding officer of the Naval Supply Systems Command Fleet Logistics Center, for failures in leadership and oversight. But Hornyak, who was new in his position and who raised concerns about the condition of the tanks when he first arrived, seems to have been a fall guy for leadership failures higher up the chain of command.
Meanwhile, HawaiÊ»iâs congressional delegation reported that it secured $250 million for defueling Red Hill, while the Pentagon requested another $1 billion for this task. It is clear that the military-industrial-political complex is still robust and able to benefit from military appropriations, whether it be for the closure of a military facility or the construction of a new one.
As the Oʻahu Water Protectors and Kaʻohewai continue to pressure the navy and regulators to defuel the tanks, activists are working to draw connections between the Red Hill crisis and other military environmental impacts in Hawaiʻi. Growing trans-Oceanic networks are challenging the environmentally destructive RIMPAC exercises. Groups are also preparing to fight for the return of more than thirty thousand acres of Hawaiian trust lands, leased by the military for one dollar for sixty-five years, which expires in 2029. Whether a water-protectors coalition will hold together and take on other military-affected sites depends on how members have embraced the radical relationality of water as it connects these different struggles.
On December 10, 2021, the OÊ»ahu Water Protectors and KaÊ»ohewai staged a die-in demonstration at the state capitol. Instead of holding signs, chanting, and picketing, or even engaging in a disruptive direct action, organizers decided to dramatize the future tragedy they hoped to prevent and model the care and responsibility water requires. It was street theater as prophesy, a hei to secure a desired outcome. At the designated signal, the crowd of over a hundred people dropped to the ground, our bodies splayed out around the statue of Queen LiliÊ»uokalani. The chilling symbolism of âdeadâ bodies surrounding the queen made the stakes of the struggle immediately recognizable. The same forces that overthrew the queen in 1893 have poisoned OÊ»ahuâs drinking water and threaten everyone on OÊ»ahu.
As a flock of Manu-o-KĆ« (white terns, Gygis alba candida) circled above, Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio sang a hauntingly beautiful a cappella rendition of âAloha Ê»Oe,â one of the queenâs most beloved songs. After several minutes of stillness and silence, Kamanamaikalani Beamer (Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi), a professor of Hawaiian studies at the University of HawaiÊ»i, stood up and began to chant, âOla i ka wai! Ola i ka wai!â gesturing for others to rise. One by one, we stood up and joined in the chant. âOla i ka wai! Ola i ka wai!â As the entire crowd rose to its feet and our voices reached a crescendo, I and others felt a wave of goose bumps move across our bodies. In our shared vulnerability and our collective power, we experienced fluidarity as the embodied potentiality and radical relationality of wai. Ola i ka wai. Indeed, living because of water.
Kyle Kajihiro is assistant professor of ethnic studies at the University of HawaiÊ»i at MÄnoa. His work focuses on processes of militarization and imperial formation in HawaiÊ»i and the Pacific region and the decolonial social movements that arise in response. He is active with a number of groups seeking the return of Hawaiian lands from the U.S. military and leads the HawaiÊ»i DeTours project.
Notes
1. Sophie Cocke, âOdor from Red Hill Fuel Release Sparks 911 Calls,â Honolulu Star-Advertiser, November 23, 2021, https://www.staradvertiser.com/2021/11/23/hawaii-news/odor-from-red-hill-fuel-release-sparks-911-calls/; Honolulu Fire Department Incident Report 2021â71784, November 20, 2021; 911 Dispatch recording 19:44:10, November 20, 2021; 911 Dispatch recording 19:44:39, November 20, 2021.
2. âAbout Red Hill Fuel Releases,â U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, accessed December 10, 2023, https://www.epa.gov/red-hill/about-red-hill-fuel-releases.
3. Christina Jedra, âState Tells Pearl Harbor Navy Families Not to Drink or Use Tap Water,â Honolulu Civil Beat, November 29, 2021, https://www.civilbeat.org/2021/11/navy-investigating-chemical-smell-in-military-housing-drinking-water/.
4. Wyatt Olson, âComplaints of Tainted Tap Water Flow from Residents at Joint Base in Hawaii,â Stars and Stripes, November 30, 2021, https://www.stripes.com/theaters/asia_pacific/2021-11-29/water-quality-joint-base-pearl-harbor-hickam-hawaii-3800222.html#.
5. Lloyd J. Austin III, Memorandum to Senior Pentagon Leadership, Commanders of the Combatant Commands, Defense Agency, and DOD Field Activity Directors, âImmediate Actions to Permanently Close the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam and to Redistribute Fuel in Accordance with INDOPACOM Plans for Strategic Fuel Storage in the Pacific Region,â March 7, 2022, https://media.defense.gov/2022/Mar/07/2002951821/-1/-1/1/IMMEDIATE-ACTIONS-TO-PERMANENTLY-CLOSE-THE-RED-HILL-BULK-FUEL-STORAGE-FACILITY-AT-JOINT-BASE-PEARL-HARBOR-HICKAM-AND-TO-REDISTRIBUTE-FUEL-IN-ACCORDANCE-WITH-INDOPACOM-PLANS-FOR-STRATEGIC-FUEL-STORAGE-IN-THE-PACIFIC-REGION.PDF.
6. On May 16, 2023, the navy announced that it would move up its timeline to begin defueling operations as soon as October 2023. U.S. Department of Defense, Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility, Oahu, HawaiiâDefueling Plan Supplement 2âMay 15, 2023, May 15, 2023, https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23814532/dod-red-hill-defueling-plan-supplement-2.pdf.
7. Davianna PĆmaikaÊ»i McGregor, âKahoÊ»olawe: Rebirth of the Sacred,â Amerasia Journal 28, no. 3 (2002): 68â83; Jonathan KamakawiwoÊ»ole Osorio, âHawaiian Souls: The Movement to Stop the U.S. Military Bombing of KahoÊ»olawe,â in A Nation Rising: Hawaiian Movements for Life, Land, and Sovereignty, ed. Noelani Goodyear-KaÊ»Ćpua, Ikaika Hussey, and Erin KahunawaikaÊ»ala Wright, 137â60 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2014).
8. Sophie Cocke, âShut Down Red Hill Fuel Facility, Most Hawaii Voters Say,â Honolulu Star-Advertiser, February 7, 2022, https://www.staradvertiser.com/2022/02/07/hawaii-news/shut-down-red-hill-fuel-facility-most-hawaii-voters-say/.
9. KuÊ»ulei Kanahele, âKa PapakĆ« Makawalu: He Inoa No HiÊ»iakaâ (PhD diss., University of HawaiÊ»i at Hilo, 2021), ii.
10. Teresia K. Teaiwa, âSolidarity and Fluidarity: Feminism as Product and Productive Force for Regionalism in the Pacificâ (presentation, Gender, Globalization, and Militarism Conference, University of HawaiÊ»i at MÄnoa, February 5, 2005); Teresia Teaiwa and Claire Slatter, âSamting Nating: Pacific Waves at the Margins of Feminist Security Studies,â International Studies Perspectives 14, no. 4 (November 2013): 447â50; Margaret Jolly, âEpilogue,â Oceania 74, no. 1â2 (September 2003): 134â47.
11. This refrain comes from a Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi chant, âHe Mele no KÄneâ (Song of KÄne) as compiled and translated by Nathanial B. Emerson, Unwritten Literature of Hawaii: The Sacred Songs of the Hula (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1909), 257â59, available at Project Gutenberg, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20299/20299-h/20299-h.htm. The chant poetically describes the many forms of wai (fresh water) that are manifestations of KÄne, one of the major akua in Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi religious traditions. The term helps to evoke the fluid properties of water, which, in the case of Red Hill, helped to connect diverse constituencies into a political force. In the epigraph, I excerpt an alternative orthography and translation by Kealohi Reppun, Runners website, accessed December 10, 2023, https://2027runners.weebly.com/uploads/2/9/3/5/29351789/he_mele_no_kÄne.pdf.
12. McKenna Maduli, âTalk Story: Ola i Ka Wai,â posted on Facebook by K5, December 26, 2021, https://fb.watch/oOcoWqhaWr/.
13. Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio, Remembering Our Intimacies: MoÊ»olelo, Aloha Ê»Äina, and Ea (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2021), 10.
14. Melanie Yazzie and Cutcha Risling Baldy, âIntroduction: Indigenous Peoples and the Politics of Water,â Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 7, no. 1 (August 31, 2018): 3.
15. Deborah Cowen, The Deadly Life of Logistics: Mapping Violence in Global Trade (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014); Keller Easterling, Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space (New York: Verso, 2014).
16. Neta C. Crawford, The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War: Charting the Rise and Fall of U.S. Military Emissions (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2022).
17. Nicole J. Wilson and Jody Inkster, âRespecting Water: Indigenous Water Governance, Ontologies, and the Politics of Kinship on the Ground,â Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space 1, no. 4 (December 2018): 517.
18. Glen Coulthard and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, âGrounded Normativity / Place-Based Solidarity,â American Quarterly 68, no. 2 (2016): 254.
19. Mary Tuti Baker, âGardens of Political Transformation: Indigenism, Anarchism, and Feminism Embodied,â in Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies, ed. J. Kehaulani Kauanui (Victoria, B.C.: First Choice Books, 2021), 153.
20. Candace Fujikane, Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future: Kanaka Maoli and Critical Settler Cartographies in Hawaiʻi (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2021), 146.
21. Fujikane, Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future, 145.
22. Pualani KanakaÊ»ole Kanahele et al., KÄ«hoÊ»ihoÊ»i KÄnÄwai: Restoring KÄnÄwai for Island Stewardship (Hilo, HawaiÊ»i: Edith KanakaÊ»ole Foundation, 2016), 16, available at Ê»O Maunakea, He Piko KamahaÊ»o, accessed December 10, 2023, http://nomaunakea.weebly.com/uploads/1/0/2/2/102246944/kanahele_kihoihoi_kanawai_final.pdf.
23. David UahikeaikaleiÊ»ohu Maile, âShut Down Red Hill, Ola I Ka Wai w/Shelley Muneoka,â December 11, 2021, in Red Nation Podcast, podcast, https://therednation.libsyn.com/website/shut-down-red-hill-ola-i-ka-wai-w-shelley-muneoka.
24. Marie Alohalani Brown, Ka Poʻe Moʻo Akua: Hawaiian Reptilian Water Deities (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2022), 42.
25. Brown, Ka Poʻe Moʻo Akua, 50.
26. Moses Manu, The Legend of Keaomelemele: He moolelo kaao no Keaomelemele, ed. Puakea Nogelmeier, trans. Mary Kawena Pukui (Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 2002); Fujikane, Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future, 1â2.
27. Fujikane, Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future, 1â2.
28. Fujikane, 88.
29. J. H. Osorio, Remembering Our Intimacies.
30. Fujikane, Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future, 147.
31. Fujikane, 148.
32. Kalei NuÊ»uhiwa, âHaumea: Establishing Sacred Space, Female Ceremonies and Heiau,â Ê»Ćiwi TV, February 13, 2012, https://oiwi.tv/oiwitv/haumea-establishing-sacred-space/.
33. Yazzie and Baldy, âIntroduction,â 2.
34. Yazzie and Baldy, 2.
35. Yazzie and Baldy, 2.
36. Yazzie and Baldy, 2.
37. Yazzie and Baldy, 2.
38. Yazzie and Baldy, 2.
39. Annemarie Mol, âOntological Politics: A Word and Some Questions,â Sociological Review 47, no. 1_suppl (May 1999): 75.
40. For further reading about the evolution of Hawaiian Kingdom law, see Jonathan KamakawiwoÊ»ole Osorio, Dismembering Lahui: A History of the Hawaiian Nation to 1887 (Honolulu: University of HawaiÊ»i Press, 2002). For further reading about the MÄhele, see Donovan Preza, âThe Empirical Writes Back: Re-examining Hawaiian Dispossession Resulting from the MÄhele of 1848â (masterâs thesis, University of HawaiÊ»i at MÄnoa, 2010); Jon M. Van Dyke, Who Owns the Crown Lands of Hawaii? (Honolulu: University of HawaiÊ»i Press, 2008).
41. D. KapuaÊ»ala Sproat, âA Question of Wai: Seeking Justice through Law for HawaiÊ»iâs Streams and Communities,â in A Nation Rising: Hawaiian Movements for Life, Land, and Sovereignty, ed. Noelani Goodyear-KaÊ»Ćpua, Ikaika Hussey, and Erin KahunawaikaÊ»ala Wright, 199â219 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2014).
42. Sproat, âA Question of Wai.â
43. Sproat.
44. McBryde Sugar Company, Ltd. v. Robinson 504 P.2d 1330 (1973).
45. Lawrence H. Miike, Water and the Law in HawaiÊ»i (Honolulu: University of HawaiÊ»i Press, 2004), 127â29.
46. Shelley Muneoka, personal communication, April 20, 2022.
47. Crawford, Pentagon, Climate Change, and War, 9â14.
48. Fujikane, Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future, 164; Laurel Mei-Singh, âAccompaniment through Carceral Geographies: Abolitionist Research Partnerships with Indigenous Communities,â Antipode 53, no. 1 (January 2021): 74â94, https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12589.
49. HawaiÊ»i State Department of Health, â12/20/21 Part 2 of 2âEvidentiary Hearing, DOH v. Navy, Docket. No. 21-UST-EA-02,â December 22, 2021, YouTube video, 1:35:44, https://youtu.be/IqXYFovQTHA.
50. Cowen, Deadly Life of Logistics.
51. Kelley L. Uyeoka et al., âHÄlau o PuÊ»uloa: The Many Breaths of PuÊ»uloaâÊ»Ewa Ê»Äina Inventoryâ (Kamehameha Schools, 2018), 53, available at University of HawaiÊ»i System Repository, https://dspace.lib.hawaii.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/9eb2b2b1-3ada-4cba-84c7-ec16ae8d12b3/content.
52. Fujikane, Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future, 160.
53. Pualani KanakaÊ»ole Kanahele, Ka Honua Ola: Ê»EliÊ»eli Kau MaiâThe Living Earth Descend, Deepen the Revelation (Honolulu: Kamehameha, 2011), 6.
54. Fujikane, Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future, 161â62.
55. Fujikane, 163.
56. Historic American Engineering Record, National Park Service, âHistoric American Engineering Record U.S. Naval Base, Pearl Harbor, Red Hill Underground Fuel Storage System,â 2015, available at Library of Congress, https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/master/pnp/habshaer/hi/hi1000/hi1016/data/hi1016data.pdf.
57. Historic American Engineering Record, âHistoric American Engineering Record,â 4.
58. Historic American Engineering Record, 4. See also David O. Woodbury, Builders for Battle: How the Pacific Naval Air Bases Were Constructed (New York: Dutton, 1946).
59. Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1998).
60. âNavy Takes Red Hill Site to Store Fuel,â Honolulu Star-Bulletin, February 14, 1941. The United States has utilized eminent domain to take tens of thousands of acres of land in HawaiÊ»i for military purposes. Military landholdings swelled to their greatest extent during World War II.
61. Historic American Engineering Record, âHistoric American Engineering Record,â 12.
62. U.S. Fleet Forces Command, âRed Hill Video Referred from Adm. J. C. Harveyâs BLOG,â December 12, 2011, YouTube video, 14:39, https://youtu.be/lIz8IstwnWU?si=drivV-DztoYxcYSL.
63. Kathy E. Ferguson and Phyllis Turnbull, Oh, Say, Can You See? The Semiotics of the Military in Hawaiʻi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999).
64. âRed Hill Gives T. H. A-Bomb Proof Plant,â Honolulu Advertiser, August 27, 1947.
65. Grace Gibson, âHawaiÊ»iâs Red Hill Water Crisis Isnât Over,â Georgetown Environmental Law Review (blog), April 28, 2022, https://www.law.georgetown.edu/environmental-law-review/blog/hawai%ca%bbis-red-hill-water-crisis-isnt-over/.
66. M. John Schofield to William Sherman, February 15, 1873, DSO-11472â49951-Hawaiian Islands (1872â93), Library of Congress.
67. M. John Schofield to William Sherman.
68. Max Liboiron, Pollution Is Colonialism (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2021), 6â7.
69. J. K. Osorio, Dismembering Lahui.
70. Stephen Kinzer, Overthrow: Americaâs Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq (New York: Times Books/Henry Holt, 2006).
71. For further reading, see Noenoe K. Silva, Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2004).
72. Lena Groeger, Ryann Grochowski Jones, and Abrahm Lustgarten, âBombs in Your Backyard,â ProPublica, November 30, 2017, https://projects.propublica.org/bombs/.
73. Keoki Stender and Yuko Stender, âHawaiian Pearl Oyster, Pinctada galtsoffi,â MarinelifePhotography.com, July 28, 2019, https://www.marinelifephotography.com/marine/mollusks/bivalves/pinctada-galtsoffi.htm.
74. Vicki Viotti, âFuel Feud,â Honolulu Star-Advertiser, October 25, 2015, https://www.staradvertiser.com/2015/10/25/editorial/insight/fuel-feud/.
75. Bruce Cumings, Dominion from Sea to Sea: Pacific Ascendancy and American Power (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2009), 420.
76. Michael Brune, âPulling Down Our Monuments,â Sierra Club, July 22, 2020, https://www.sierraclub.org/michael-brune/2020/07/john-muir-early-history-sierra-club.
77. Marti Townsend, personal communication, September 23, 2022.
78. U.S. EPA Region 9 and Department of Health State of Hawaii, âAdministrative Order on Consent in the Matter of Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility, Oahu, Hawaii,â EPA DKT NO. RCRA 7003-R9-2015-01, DOH DKT NO. 15-UST-EA-01, September 28, 2015, available at Hawaii State Department of Health, http://health.hawaii.gov/shwb/files/2015/09/Red-Hill-AOC_Final_29SEP151.pdf.
79. Anita Hofschneider, âU.S. Navy Has 20 Years to Fix Leak-Prone Red Hill Fuel Tanks,â Honolulu Civil Beat, October 1, 2015, http://www.civilbeat.com/2015/10/u-s-navy-has-20-years-to-fix-leak-prone-red-hill-fuel-tanks/.
80. HawaiÊ»i State Senate, âRequesting the Director of Health to Convene a Task Force to Study the Effects of the January 2014 Fuel Tank Leak at the Red Hill Underground Fuel Storage Facility,â S. Con. Res. 73, H.D. 1, 27th Cong. (2014), available at Hawaii State Department of Health, https://health.hawaii.gov/ust/files/2014/08/SCR73_HD1_.pdf.
81. â2016 HawaiÊ»i Revised Statutes: Title 19. Health. 342L. Underground Storage Tanks. 342L-61 Fuel Tank Advisory Committee; Established; Composition,â HI Rev. Stat. 342L-61 § (2016), available at Justia: U.S. Law, https://law.justia.com/codes/hawaii/2016/title-19/chapter-342l/section-342l-61/.
82. Robert F. Durant, The Greening of the U.S. Military: Environmental Policy, National Security, and Organizational Change (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2007).
83. Kyle Kajihiro, âKahoÊ»olawe Is Not an Island: Political-Ecological Assemblages, Spaces of Indigenous (Re)Emergence, and the Logic of Counterinsurgencyâ (PhD diss., University of HawaiÊ»i at MÄnoa, 2020), ix.
84. Sierra Club v. Department of Health, and Virginia Pressler, Director of Health, Order Granting Plaintiffâs Motion for Summary Judgement, 17-1-1350-08 JPC (Environmental Court Circuit Court of the First Circuit March 23, 2018).
85. Erwin Kawata, âRed Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility Briefing by the Board of Water Supply, City and County of Honolulu,â April 16, 2015, https://www.boardofwatersupply.com/bws/media/redhill/briefings/red-hill-ocr-briefing-bws-pearlridge-public-meeting-2015-04.pdf.
86. Erwin Kawata, âRed Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility Update,â September 24, 2018, https://www.boardofwatersupply.com/bws/media/Board/board-meeting-material-2018-09-24_1.pdf.
87. ABS Consulting, âQuantitative Risk and Vulnerability Assessment Phase 1 (Internal Events without Fire and Flooding) â Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility NAVSUP FLC Pearl Harbor, HI (PRL) (INTERNAL REPORT NOT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE),â Naval Facilities Engineering Command Pacific Division, November 12, 2018, https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2019-06/documents/red_hill_risk_assessment_report_redacted-2018-11-12.pdf.
88. Christina Jedra, âAmid âPolitical Concerns,â Navy Kept Quiet about Red Hill Pipeline Leaking into Pearl Harbor,â Honolulu Civil Beat, October 8, 2021, https://www.civilbeat.org/2021/10/amid-political-concerns-navy-kept-quiet-about-red-hill-pipeline-leaking-into-pearl-harbor/.
89. Christina Jedra, âWhistleblower Says the Navy Gave False Testimony about Red Hill Fuel Facility,â Honolulu Civil Beat, November 10, 2021, https://www.civilbeat.org/2021/11/whistleblower-says-the-navy-gave-false-testimony-about-red-hill-fuel-facility/.
90. The author is a board member of Hawaiʻi Peace and Justice and is active with the Oʻahu Water Protectors.
91. OÊ»ahu Water Protectors, âOla I Ka WaiâWater Is Life,â December 8, 2021, in the authorâs possession.
92. Sophie Cocke, âMilitary Families Living near Red Hill Blame Sickness on Tainted Water,â Honolulu Star - Advertiser, November 29, 2021, https://www.staradvertiser.com/2021/11/30/hawaii-news/military-families-living-near-red-hill-blame-sickness-on-tainted-water/.
93. Kevin Knodell (@KJKnodell), âI asked the SecNav if itâs a readiness issue if Red Hill, which fuels planes and warships in the Pacific, is also poisoning the water of troops the who operate them. He replied: âItâs not the fuel itself thatâs making them sick, itâs the fuel in the water thatâs making him sick,ââ Twitter, December 6, 2021, 7:11 p.m., https://x.com/KJKnodell/status/1468085806061424645?s=20.
94. Sophie Cocke, âHonolulu Board of Water Supply Shuts Down Halawa Well to Protect against Navyâs Fuel Contamination,â Honolulu Star-Advertiser, December 3, 2021, https://www.staradvertiser.com/2021/12/03/breaking-news/honolulu-board-of-water-supply-shuts-down-halawa-well-to-protect-against-navys-fuel-contamination/.
95. Lee Cataluna, âLee Cataluna: The Red Hill Water Crisis Is a Wake-Up Call for Oahu,â Honolulu Civil Beat, December 8, 2021, https://www.civilbeat.org/2021/12/lee-cataluna-the-red-hill-water-crisis-is-a-wake-up-call-for-oahu/.
96. Christina Jedra, âNavyâs Opposition to Governorâs Red Hill Order Raises Question of State versus Federal Power,â Honolulu Civil Beat, December 8, 2021, https://www.civilbeat.org/2021/12/navys-opposition-to-governors-red-hill-order-raises-questions-of-state-versus-federal-power/.
97. HawaiÊ»i State Department of Health, â12/20/21 Part 2 of 2: Evidentiary Hearing, DOH v. Navy, Docket No. 21-UST-EA-02,â December 22, 2021, YouTube video, 5:10:06, https://youtu.be/IqXYFovQTHA.
98. Craig Hooper, âNew U.S. Pacific Defense Crisis as Navy Missteps Threaten Hawaii Fuel Depot,â Forbes, December 7, 2021, https://www.forbes.com/sites/craighooper/2021/12/07/new-us-pacific-defense-crisis-as-navy-missteps-threaten-hawaii-fuel-depot/.
99. The acronym HULI means âto turn, reverse, or overturn.â It can refer to revolutionary social change or the overturning of a particular social order. In the 1970s, HULI was the name of another radical Kanaka Ê»Ćiwi organization that helped to lead the antieviction direct action protests at Kalama Valley, a struggle that has been described as the birth of the modern Hawaiian movement.
100. Interview with Andre Perez, September 23, 2022.
101. Interview with Andre Perez.
102. NÄ Puke Wehewehe Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i, s.v. âmoâo,â https://wehewehe.org/gsdl2.85/cgi-bin/hdict?e=q-11000-00---off-0hdict--00-1----0-10-0---0---0direct-10-ED--4--textpukuielbert%2ctextmamaka-----0-1l--11-haw-Zz-1---Zz-1-home-mo%ca%bbo--00-4-1-00-0--4----0-0-11-00-0utfZz-8-00&a=d&d=D13733.
103. Interview with Andre Perez.
104. Mike Prysner, Michael Inouye, and Abby Martin, âNative Hawaiians Fight US Navy for Polluting Islandâs Water,â Empire Files, December 30, 2021, YouTube video, 11:35, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mMsGi11F-U.
105. J. H. Osorio, Remembering Our Intimacies.
106. Families Affected by the Navyâs Red Hill Fuel Contamination Crisis, âStatement in Support of the Restoration of Hawaiian Sovereignty,â January 18, 2023, in the authorâs possession.
107. ââDo Your Jobâ: Families Sickened by Red Hill Fuel Contamination March on DC to Demand Clean Water,â Hawaii News Now, September 20, 2022, https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2022/09/20/dozens-affected-by-red-hill-contamination-crisis-march-dc-calling-clean-water/.
108. Nick Grube, âRed Hill Has Changed the Politics around the Military in Hawaii,â Honolulu Civil Beat, December 9, 2021, https://www.civilbeat.org/2021/12/red-hill-has-changed-the-politics-around-the-military-in-hawaii/.