Last Friday I spent an hour and a half with three senior members of the Honolulu Board of Water supply, Ernest Y.W. Lau, P.E.; Manager and Chief Engineer, Erwin Kawata; Program Administrator, Water Quality Division and Tracy Burgo; Information Specialist.
Here’s what I learned. There are 20 WWII era tanks with a combined fuel storage capacity of 250,000,000 gallons which have been leaking irregularly since built. The leaky tanks are 100 feet above the aquifer that provides drinking water to Oahuans from Moanalua to Hawaii Kai. Even though it was April 1st, none of them were fooling.
Tomorrow Lau and Kawata will go over some staggering data. Join us at 3pm HST. on Think Tech Hawaii for livestreamed coverage. If YOU have a question, tweet us @ThinkTechHI. If you can’t watch live, I will post the YouTube video within 24 hours here at KauiLucas.com
Hawaiʻi Is My MainLand 
Aloha Kaui,
Thank you for an informational interview On April 9, 2016, with Ernest Lau and Erwin Kawata of the Board of Water Supply about the Red Hill fuel tanks. I have been researching Red Hill, and visited the site a few weeks ago. The size is staggering, and one cannot get a feel from photos for the enormity of the problem of a catastrophic leak. The Navy admits that cleaning up a big leak would be next to impossible. Our once pristine water would be poisoned and undrinkable. We would have to get our water from somewhere else. Where? One person with the Navy tells me that much of Oahu’s water could be affected, not just Halawa aquifer. I was glad to get the information. Unlike many Navy studies I have read, it is actually understandable to us lay people. Colleen, csoares48@gmail.com