In what a lawyer says is a “monumental admission,” the U.S. government said last year it injured thousands on the Hawaiian island of Oahu when jet fuel leaked from its storage facility to the drinking water system. On Monday, thousands of military and local families are heading to court to seek financial compensation.
Kristina Baehr, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs in the case, said her office has 7,500 customers suing for the leak. Monday's proceedings begin a key trial, meaning it is a smaller consolidation of lawsuits taken from a larger group.
The case dates back to the week of Thanksgiving in 2021, when nearly 20,000 gallons of jet fuel leaked from the World War II-era Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility World and to the water system that serves approx. 93,000 people near Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam on Oahu. Military officials denied for days that there was anything wrong with the water, as seen in recorded testimony and memos sent since then.
By the time the military recognized that there was oil in the water, people had already begun to feel the health impacts, many of which are still being felt today: more than 2 and a half years later.
In May 2023, the government made what Baehr says were “monumental admissions” about the crisis. In addition to admitting liability for negligence at the storage facility, he said the government also “admitted that residents at the water line in November 2021 suffered injuries.”
In a joint stipulation filed with the court on May 10, 2023, Justice Department lawyers said “the United States does not dispute” that the 2021 spill “caused a nuisance to plaintiffs who owned or leased residences.” which were ultimately subject to a state Department of Health advisory.
The DOJ also says in the filing that it “does not deny that … the United States breached its duty of care to the resident plaintiffs to exercise ordinary care in the operation of Red Hill” and that as a result of the “nuisance,” the plaintiffs “suffered compensable injuries under the Federal Tort Claims Act.”
What the Justice Department has not admitted, Baehr said, is the extent of the damage or that the government failed to warn residents.
Baehr told CBS News that many of his thousands of customers experienced the same symptoms at the beginning of the leak: dizziness, brain fog, disorientation, rashes, nausea, vomiting and burning in the esophagus.
Years later, many have spent countless hours in hospitals and are still reeling from the effects.
Caleb Jones / AP
Jet fuel exposure victims say their lives 'drastically changed forever'
Jamie Simic, whose then-husband was a senior chief petty officer in the Navy when the leak occurred, is one of three people specifically named as plaintiffs in the case. Before the water was confirmed to be contaminated, she said her children refused to brush their teeth.
“My daughter's teeth fell out of her head. They were saying we couldn't taste the toothpaste anymore … that they were tasting something wrong,” he said, adding that the day military officials went confirm that there was something wrong with the water. he was “voting while cooking dinner” because of the fumes and wear and tear.
“I went to the fridge to get some ice from my freezer and my ice was pure yellow and had an oily film on it,” she said. “I put it up to my nose and I smelled fuel.”
The smell of fuel was on everything that came into contact with the water, from dishes to laundry, Simic said. At the direction of the military, she and her family went to Tripler Army Medical Center, but she said that while there, they were initially given only “a piece of paper to write down their symptoms.”
“There was no form. There was no doctor. No blood pressure was taken. There was nothing,” he said.
In the meantime, she says she and her sons, now 11 and 10, have suffered from problems with their teeth, incontinence and throat problems, while she has also dealt with reproductive issues. In an amended complaint filed in December 2022, attorneys said her family had to make more than 20 visits to doctors and undergo two biopsies and three surgeries. Some procedures her son needed that year “were thwarted because her son was too traumatized to cooperate,” the complaint says.
When CBS News spoke with Simic on Wednesday, he said the number of procedures and visits is now “well above 300 to 400.” At many of those visits, she said doctors claimed the problems she and her family are experiencing are related to jet fuel exposure.
“We have been diagnosed with more than one exposure to chronic hydrocarbon toxicity,” he said. “My daughter's issues were recently related to her bowels. 'At environmental exposure in Hawaii' is what her records say.”
And the toll isn't just physical, it's an immense financial burden. Simic's grandmother has given the family nearly $40,000 to help with related expenses, he said.
“Tomorrow alone, I'll probably spend $250 to $300 on trips with a specialist appointment, the co-pay, and then the two appointments with my children's primary care director.”
Sgt. 1st Class Richard Lower/DVIDS
Mai Hall, who is a native Hawaiian and a military spouse, was living in military-provided housing with her husband and two children at the time of the fuel leak. Speaking to CBS News in March 2023, he said his family began experiencing symptoms quickly.
“The next day it became apparent with the headaches, the nausea, the bloody stools… The cats were throwing up. I was like, 'Oh my God, we're going to die,'” she told CBS News. … We knew something was wrong. It was like post-apocalyptic.”
When families began notifying military officials that the water had developed a strange taste and odor, their “concerns were not being heard,” Hall said.
“It must have been a week, six or seven days before they said, 'Oh, yeah, by the way, there may have been fuel that leaked into the water,'” he told CBS News. ..And it was just an email. It wasn't even a phone call. It wasn't a knock on the door.”
Records show Navy drinking water supervisor Joe Nehl said on Nov. 28, 2021, that he received confirmation that there was fuel in the water system and said he “called for help” and he agreed that it was clear that people needed to know the situation.
However, it wasn't until a town hall meeting on December 5 that officials publicly stated that there was fuel for the leak in the water. Earlier, they had issued statements saying there was “no indication that the water is unsafe.”
Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam/Facebook
A Nov. 30 communications plan from Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam obtained by CBS News shows officials were told to say, “There appears to be no indication that the water is unsafe” and “No We have heard of no injuries.”
“I just have to trust the system,” Hall told CBS News. “And I trust the system? No, no.”
Baehr and Simic say this ordeal, as damaging as it has been for those affected, is also a story of resilience and hope.
“All we can get from the case is financial compensation. But financial compensation is what brings accountability,” Baehr told CBS News. “…These families stood up to the United States of America and won. And now it's about damages.”
“Our lives have already changed dramatically forever,” Simic said. “…We are already victorious in the Navy by admitting the damage. We just have to be victorious in them by admitting the long-term damage so that families like mine can continue to heal and get better and have the quality of life that was. taken from We”.
Li Cohen
