More than a Thousand Military Families in Hawaii Stuck in Hotels Through the Hol…

The Navy‘s effort to restore clean drinking water to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, gets underway Monday while thousands of military personnel and families prepare to spend the holidays in hotels or in their homes without potable water.

The Navy announced that water line flushing is set to begin at the Pearl City Peninsula military housing area on Monday as a test run for flushing most of the lines that serve the installation.

Should the Pearl City test prove successful, the service will begin flushing the housing areas closest to the well that was found to contain JP-5 jet fuel after families complained Nov. 28 that their water smelled like fuel and was making them sick.

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As of Dec. 17, more than 1,600 military families and other occupants of base housing had been displaced to hotels, while another 2,200 were living in homes without potable water.

The services have each issued guidance to personnel on accessing temporary housing and other provisions, such as laundry services, drinking water and shower availability at nearby facilities.

The Navy plans to pay for temporary lodging for its service members through Jan. 4 and is providing partial temporary lodging allowance to cover meals for sailors who elect to stay in their houses.

The service also announced that it would host virtual daily updates to military families beginning Dec. 20 online and on the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam Facebook page, and it has established a way for families to be reimbursed for expenses related to the exposure, including incidental expenses not related to property loss, such as veterinary expenses, buying water or laundry services.

However, families have expressed frustration over what they see as a lack of answers from officials on the plan for ensuring that the water eventually will be safe to consume.

“As far as our homes go, you are going to just pump filtered water into our PVC pipes that is going to fill my plastic tub, which is going to re-contaminate the water. You want me to put my child in that bath, wash my dishes in it? Trust the refrigerator water for drinking?” a resident asked officials at a Dec. 18 town hall.

“We’re very, very sensitive to this. Our No. 1 commitment is to the health and safety of the community,” said Chris Waldron, an environmental engineer with Navy-Marine Corps Public Health Center. “The plan we put together is a comprehensive and systematic plan. It’s not just a matter of doing one element and saying we are finished.”

The first of more than 20 massive granulated activated charcoal filtering systems began arriving on Oahu last week. They will be used to scrub more than 25 million gallons of water — much like Brita water filters, but on an industrial scale.

The intention is to scrub the water of enough contaminants to bring it in compliance with Hawaii Department of Health…