In November, a 14,000-gallon fuel leak at a Navy storage facility contaminated much of the drinking water on the island of Oʻahu in Hawaiʻi, a leak that may cause irreparable damage to the island’s water supplies.
Since the 1940s, the Navy has stored 200 million gallons of fuel in tanks 100 feet above the Southern Oʻahu basal aquifer, the main drinking-water source for Hawaiʻi’s most populous island, which includes Honolulu. Community members have long worried about the storage facility known as Red Hill. For years, Board of Water Supply Manager Ernie Lau has warned that an accident at Red Hill could irreversibly contaminate Oʻahu’s largest aquifer. (We are using the original spellings of place names out of respect for Hawaiians and to normalize the usage of the Hawaiian language, which UNESCO considers a critically endangered language.)
The Navy initially denied reports of the leak, saying the water was safe to drink. Shortly after, military families and residents began reporting a strong smell of fuel in their water. More than 5,000 people reported illnesses, and many families reported that pets had fallen ill or died. Later tests showed contamination that was 350 times above safe drinking levels. The Navy later confirmed the leak, temporarily closed the facility and relocated affected service members to temporary housing — but not civilians affected. Oʻahu’s population is 42.9 percent Asian, 22.8 percent multiracial and 9.6 percent Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander — far higher than the 6 percent, 10.2 percent and 0.2 percent for the United States as a whole.
But the environmental contamination is not an isolated event. U.S. military deployments regularly harm the environment and anger local residents, in Hawaiʻi and around the globe.
Our research on the effects of global U.S. military deployments reveals that incidents such as the one on Oʻahu can exacerbate opposition and mobilize people in ways that can push out U.S. bases. On the one hand, communities are often glad to have the public good of national security, the economic benefits of a local base and community integration of service members. But communities can reject those positive effects when bases do something that causes harm.
A history of environmental harm
The November leak was not the first time the military has harmed Hawaiʻi’s environment. Similar leaks have been happening for decades, including a 1,600-gallon leak in May 2021 and a 27,000-gallon leak in January 2014. The Sierra Club estimates that Red Hill has leaked approximately 180,000 gallons of fuel since its construction in 1947.
Nor are fuel leaks the base’s only form of environmental contamination. For decades, the military conducted practice bombings on Kahoʻolawe, an island that Hawaiian Natives consider sacred, leading to unexploded or inert ordnance and scrap littering the land and ocean. The military has repeatedly dumped hundreds of thousands of tons of toxic waste into the ocean off Hawaiʻi’s shores. For some native residents, such ongoing environmental destruction exacerbates an already deep frustration dating to at least 1893, when the United States overthrew and later illegally annexed the independent kingdom of Hawaiʻi.
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Ethnic minorities often bear the burden of military bases
As with Red Hill, the military’s environmental contamination often harms ethnic minorities. That’s because the United States and host nations often place military facilities in areas that are disproportionately populated by ethnic minorities. Minority groups often have less political power than ethnic majorities, and bases in their midst may face limited pushback.
As part of our research on host communities’ perceptions of the U.S. military, from 2018 to 2020 we surveyed around 42,000 people in 14 countries hosting U.S. military forces, using online surveys that included a nationally representative sample in each area for adults across age, gender and income.
Our forthcoming research finds that those who self-identify as ethnic minorities are less likely than majority groups to view the U.S. military positively, by up to 10 or 12 percentage points in the most polarized areas. While Hawaiʻi is considered part of the United States, its demographics and history are unique compared with other states. While unclean water is bad for everyone, many of the affected civilians belong to racial and ethnic minorities. Hawaiʻi’s defense burden is also disproportionate. The Defense Department holds 21 percent of the land on Oʻahu, and active military members make up 11 percent of its population. By comparison, the department administers only about 1 percent of the land in the entire United States, and active service members make up 1 percent of the population.
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From harm to mobilization
The Oʻahu Water Protectors, a local activist group advocating for clean water, has recently led several in-person protests and online campaigns related to the Red Hill leak. Some military families stationed in Oʻahu have also objected publicly to the unsafe water, since military families and local civilians have been affected by the same problem.
In Hawaiʻi, Native Hawaiians have been involved in organized opposition to the military presence since the 1970s. Activists have managed to end certain military operations, including the bombings on Kahoʻolawe.
Harmful events like the Red Hill leak have prompted anti-basing movements to restrict or remove the U.S. military in South Korea, Guam, Okinawa, the Isla de Vieques in Puerto Rico and Subic Bay in the Philippines.
In a recent hearing, a Hawaiʻi State Department of Health official called the Red Hill tanks a “humanitarian and environmental disaster” that puts the public at “imminent peril.” Following the hearing, the health department upheld its earlier order to “safely defuel” the site. Despite the Navy’s earlier objections, on Monday it agreed to develop a plan to “remediate and restore” the Red Hill shaft well. The Defense Department has increased its emphasis on environmental protection as a security priority.
However, this latest fuel leak will still widen the movement to permanently decommission the Red Hill fuel storage site and further challenge the long-term military presence in Hawaiʻi. That would make Red Hill consistent with what we find elsewhere: When communities mobilize against U.S. military bases, it’s because the base’s positive effects may affect many people but its acute harms intimately affect a small group. That’s when people band together to demand change.
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Andrea Malji (@polisciprofhi) is an assistant professor of international studies at Hawaiʻi Pacific University.
Michael A. Allen (@michaelallen) is an associate professor of political science at Boise State University.
Carla Martinez Machain (@carlammm) is a professor of political science at Kansas State University.