A sailor assigned to the Navy’s Rapid Response Team delivers water as part of an extended drinking water monitoring program at a home in Ewa Beach, Hawaii, in May 2024. (Krystal Diaz/U.S. Navy)
FORT SHAFTER, Hawaii — More than 6,000 additional plaintiffs joined a lawsuit against the U.S. alleging they were sickened by the 2021 Navy Red Hill jet fuel spill in Hawaii, according to an amended complaint filed Tuesday in federal court.
The amended complaint, filed in U.S. District Court of Hawaii, also cites a growing number of studies linking the Red Hill jet fuel exposure to protracted health issues.
The firms of Just Well Law of Austin, Texas, and Hosoda Law Group in Honolulu now represent roughly 7,000 individuals claiming injury from fuel-tainted tap water. The fuel spill contaminated water piped into military housing areas on and near Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
The firms have filed three separate lawsuits, one solely representing active-duty personnel. The court subsequently consolidated the three.
The first 17 “bellwether” plaintiffs in the initial case, Feindt vs. United States, went to trial in spring 2024.
U.S. District Court Judge Leslie Kobayashi disallowed expert testimony about long-term illnesses caused by jet fuel, citing a dearth of medical studies involving human subjects.
Plaintiffs testified that they had suffered from rashes, abdominal pains, hair loss, dizziness, vomiting, brain fog and other conditions — with some conditions persisting for years.
In May, Kobayashi awarded each plaintiff amounts between $37,500 and $80,000.
“These families prevailed against all odds against the Government in court, and they helped prove to the world what truly happened when the Navy poisoned the water supply near Pearl Harbor and sickened so many,” Kristina Baehr, an attorney with Just Well Law, said in a news release Tuesday.
“With this filing of thousands more claims, the time has come for the Government to acknowledge the admissions of its own health agencies, stop fighting these families, and finally do what’s right for them,” she said.
The law firms are negotiating with government attorneys for a possible settlement for the remaining plaintiffs using as a baseline the amounts awarded the bellwether plaintiffs, Baehr said by phone Tuesday.
The jet fuel contamination came from a spill at the nearby Red Hill underground fuel storage facility, a World War II-era complex that is now in the process of being permanently closed.
During the trial, the government argued that the jet fuel contamination was so brief and so minute that it could not have seriously affected residents.
Since the trial ended, several studies have found tentative links between the Red Hill contamination and longer-term conditions.
Among them was a Defense Department study released earlier this year that found individuals exposed to Red Hill-tainted water were more likely to experience new migraines and esophageal inflammation than others living nearby but not exposed to the water.
A University of Hawaii study published in January found that roughly 80% of affected residents surveyed reported having new or worsened physical or mental health symptoms after the spill.
Most of that group said their symptoms remained two years after the exposure.
“A year ago, the Government disputed whether military and civilian families were harmed by the Red Hill water contamination,” the amended complaint states. “Today, the Government’s own agencies have acknowledged the truth survivors have long known: the water was toxic, and its effects are lasting.”
