Distrust remains after Navy report on tainted Hawaii water
HONOLULU (AP) — Lauren Wright continues to be leery of the water coming out of the taps in her family's U.S. Navy home in Hawaii, saying she doesn't trust that it's safe.
Wright, her sailor husband and their three children ages 8 to 17 were among the thousands of people who were sickened late last year after fuel from military storage tanks leaked into Pearl Harbor’s tap water.
The family has returned to their military housing after spending months in Honolulu hotels, but they continue taking safety measures including taking short, five-minute showers. They don’t drink their tap water or cook with it.
A Navy investigation released Thursday blamed the fuel leak and the water crisis that followed on shoddy management and human error. Some Hawaii residents, including Native Hawaiians, officials and military families said the report doesn't help restore trust in the Navy.
“I was at least hoping for some sort of remorse for the families and everybody involved in this," Wright said.
She said the ordeal has changed her view on the military from a decade ago when her husband first joined.
“I was the proud Navy spouse, you know, stickers and T-shirts,” she said. “I feel like the Navy has failed at what they promised every service member. They failed at a lot of things. And I’m not so proud.”
It's difficult to trust the Navy partly because Hawaii residents and officials for years have questioned the safety of the giant fuel storage tanks that have sat above an important aquifer since World War II, said Kamanamaikalani Beamer, a former trustee of the Commission on Water Resource Management.
“Releasing a report saying that they were lying to us is not a step towards building trust,” he said. “De-fueling and getting the tanks out permanently, setting aside funds to remediate the...