US ordered to pay $600K to families sickened in Pearl Harbor fuel spill
May 8 (Reuters) - A federal judge in Hawaii ordered the U.S. government on Wednesday to pay about $600,000 to six families impacted by a 2021 fuel spill that tainted drinking water at the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam near Honolulu after finding that the tainted water was the cause of their health problems.
U.S. District Judge Leslie Kobayashi's order came after she heard evidence during a 10-day bench trial that began in April 2024 over the families' claims they suffered from nausea, rashes, emotional trauma and in some cases seizures and tremors after they showered in and drank the tainted water.
The trial, which involved claims of 17 people from six different families, was the first trial in the Red Hill litigation. The government and attorneys for the victims have agreed to use the judge's order to help determine the future of the more than 7,000 remaining claims.
Attorneys for the six families had sought a little more than $6.5 million in damages in total for their pain and suffering, mental anguish and other harms, according to court records.
Thousands of people, including active duty members of the military, their families and their civilian neighbors, have brought claims against the U.S. government under the Federal Tort Claims Act over the November 2021 spill, which released 19,000 gallons of jet fuel from Pearl Harbor's Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility into a water system serving both the base and neighboring homes. Those claims total about $156 billion, according to a Navy spokesperson.
Kobayashi said the plaintiffs' experts had proved that the chemicals in the water after the spill had the capacity to cause the families' injuries. She also found that the chemicals had reached all parts of the Navy's water system.
Kristina Baehr, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said the case "sets the precedent that there's no institution that is immune from accountability for poisoning people."
Baehr said she did not know of any other successful environmental contamination cases brought under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which governs lawsuits against the government over injuries caused by negligent or wrongful actions of federal employees.
Representatives for the U.S. Navy directed a request for comment to the U.S. Department of Justice, which did not immediately respond.
Before the trial, the government acknowledged that the incident at Red Hill, which has been in the process of shutting down, occurred when thousands of gallons of jet fuel were incorrectly shunted to a pipe and then released after a vehicle hit the pipe in November 2021.
Although the government admitted that the fuel had reached parts of the water system, it disputed that the entire water system was affected or that the injuries the plaintiffs claimed were caused by the water.
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