Filtration systems arrive in Oahu to clean up contaminated Navy water; may take 30-45 days to complete

HONOLULU (KHON2) – The Navy will begin its plan to restore potable water to homes that use their water system on Monday, December 20. The first step is to clean the contaminated water using large carbon filtration systems that arrived in Oahu on Sunday. , December 19.

These filtration systems were delivered to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam by the US Air Force. Officials say about 25 million gallons of water will need to be drained.

On Monday, the process will begin first in the military housing district of the Pearl City Peninsula. In order to flush the water, these filter systems must be connected to hydrants. Navy officials said these filters would suck petroleum contaminants out of the water before releasing it.

“From there they either go to an area – if there is a large grassy area – we can land discharge through a diffuser. So basically he’s watering the grass. Again, we are releasing non-toxic effluents that have been filtered, ”said US Navy Lt. Commander John Daly.

The Navy also said the filtered water would be released to sewage systems and eventually to storm sewers. These water filtration systems apparently cost over $ 6 million.

State and county officials are also part of this plan.

If the Pearl City water rinse goes well, the Navy said it would then move to the army housing areas in Red Hill, as well as the Aliamanu military reserve.

Officials said that one thing to note after the flush is complete is that they won’t go to every house to check for clean water. Instead, they will take samples from 10% of the homes in each “flush area” to assess whether the water is safe to drink.

After the first flush and the first tests, the Navy will test the water in some homes every month for three months, and then the tests will be done every six months thereafter.

“We go there methodically and weed out the variables one at a time so that the end product isn’t just houses, but we also have churches and businesses. we have restaurants, all kinds of people hooked up to our water supply system, ”Daly added.

This cleaning process can take around 30-45 days.