A federal judge granted a total of more than $ 680,000 to 17 families who say they were disgusted by a 2021 jet fuel leak in a Navy drinking water system in Hawaii. Bellwether’s cases have established the legal tone for another 7,500 members of the military family, civilians and service members whose processes are still awaiting resolution.
US District Judge Leslie Kobayashi handed over the decision on Wednesday, granting $ 5,000 to more than $ 104,000 to each plaintiff. In his order, Kobayashi wrote that it was clear that while contaminated water could have caused many of the types of medical problems that military families experienced, there was not enough evidence to prove a direct bond.
The amount granted to each plaintiff was significantly lower than the $ 225,000 to $ 1.25 million than one of his lawyers, Kristina Baehr, requested during the two -week trial at a Federal Court in Honolulu.
Like the complainants, the 17 were chosen because they were seen as representative of the thousands of others whose cases are still pending.
Baehr called the disappointing damage awards, but said families “prevailed against all probabilities against the US government.”
“These families can be proud of helping to prove to the world what really happened when the Navy poisoned the water supply near Pearl Harbor and got sick so,” Baehr said in a press release. “The court rejected the government’s argument that thousands of our clients were just psychosomatic and that there was not enough fuel to leave someone sick.”
Baehr said the legal team was reviewing the options to solve the thousands of remaining cases.
The government admitted responsibility for the spill before the trial began, but its lawyers contested whether the plaintiffs were exposed to sufficient aviation fuel to cause vomiting, rash and other negative health effects.
The spill took place on the fuel storage facilities for Red Hill bulk, a giant installation built in the early 1940s to provide the planes and ships that cross the Pacific Ocean. The installation includes a series of massive tanks-of a 25-story building height, capable of performing 12.5 million seated gallons inside caves that the military excavated from a mountain range above Pearl Harbor.
Underneath everything, there is an aquifer, equipped with wells that provided drinking water to the Navy and the city of Honolulu.
In May 2021, a broken tube allowed more than 20,000 gallons of fuel to spill on a fire suppression line. He remained unnoticed within the sagging line for six months until a cart hit the line, releasing the fuel stuck. On Thanksgiving Day, much of this fuel flowed into a drain well and drinking water that provided 90,000 people on the base of Pearl Harbor-Hickam base.
An investigation report by the following year found that military officers did not immediately notify the State Health Department, that the Navy lost four separate opportunities to activate emergency response plans to respond to water contamination and that the Navy told residents that drinking water was safe without doing any laboratory analysis to confirm that it was the case.
Within a week after spilling, military families began complaining about health problems – including peeling the skin, stomach pain, vomiting and diarrhea and other problems.
The plaintiffs said they had health problems in progress, including seizures, asthma, eczema and vestibular dysfunction.
The spill caused protests from legislators, environmental groups and residents, and the military eventually agreed to drain the tanks and close the installation. The tanks were drained last year.