Navy finds Hawaii fuel leak made worse by leadership failures

Service officials’ failure to take charge in the days and months after two major fuel leaks last year at a Navy storage facility in Hawaii led to thousands of residents’ drinking water becoming contaminated, a newly released investigation found.

The response from on-site leadership at the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility in Oahu fell “unacceptably short of the Navy standards for leadership, ownership, and the safeguarding of our communities,” Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. William Lescher wrote in an endorsement of the report.