Report: Navy’s Hawaii fuel tanks need repair before draining – Hawaii Tribune-Herald

HONOLULU — A contractor employed by the Navy is recommending a sequence of structural repairs to an enormous gas tank farm in Hawaii to verify the power doesn’t leak petroleum when its tanks are drained, a report launched Friday mentioned.

The suggestions for the Purple Hill Bulk Gas Storage Facility come after the advanced’s pipes leaked gas into Pearl Harbor’s faucet water final 12 months, sickening 1000’s of navy households. The Pentagon has since agreed to adjust to a state order to empty the tanks and completely shut them down.

The best precedence restore recognized within the report from the engineering firm Simpson Gumpertz & Heger, Inc. is designing piping to resist a repeat of a Might 2021 occasion that prompted a pipe leak. The report indicated this work was already underway.

Corroded piping, broken coating, broken and reconfigured pipe helps and lacking bracing may also have to be addressed, it mentioned.

“This report describes in depth and important repairs which can be wanted to soundly defuel and decommission Purple Hill,” Kathleen Ho, the state’s deputy director of environmental well being, mentioned in a press release.

The Navy has a June 30 deadline to tell the state Division of Well being when and the way it plans to empty the gas.