Newly released photos show the United States is making progress on constructing a new dry dock at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, to support its nuclear-powered submarine fleet in the Pacific Ocean amid a naval arms race with China.
Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, located within Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, said on Wednesday that Dry Dock 5 was more than one-third complete. It will replace a dry dock built in 1942 and will be used to service Virginia-class attack submarines and larger surface ships.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
While at least 35Chinese shipyards have known ties to the country’s military or national security projects, the U.S. Navy operates only four public shipyards—built in the 19th and 20th centuries—including the one at Pearl Harbor, to maintain its combat ships, making it vulnerable in a conflict with China, the world’s largest navy by hull count.
What To Know
Photos shared by Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard on Facebook show the current progress of the construction of Dry Dock 5. The $3.42 billion project, began in August 2023, is scheduled for completion in 2027 and will support projected fleet maintenance requirements.
“The new dry dock will support the #Readiness and #Lethality of our U.S. Navy Fleet, ensuring our naval strength remains unmatched. [Dry Dock 5] is more than just steel and concrete, it’s a commitment to the future of naval #readiness,” the shipyard said.
A dry dock is designed to service a vessel’s hull. After floating a vessel into a three-sided basin, the seaward end is closed and all the water removed, allowing the vessel to settle on a cradle. When work is completed the basin is re-flooded and the seaward end opened to float the vessel out.
Once completed, Dry Dock 5 will be 657 feet long. It is being built next to the 497-foot Dry Dock 3, the smallest of the four dry docks at Pearl Harbor. Dry Docks 1, 2 and 4 are 1,001, 975 and 1,099 feet long, respectively, according to an official document.
The existing dry docks were built between 1919 and 1943. Dry Dock 5, designed for 150 years of use, is part of the Navy’s Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP), which aims to expand shipyard capacity and improve maintenance capabilities.
Built during World War II, Dry Dock 3 lacks the size and floor strength needed to service Virginia-class submarines, Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard said. It will become “functionally obsolete” once older Los Angeles-class attack submarines are retired.
Both Virginia– and Los Angeles-class submarines are homeported at Pearl Harbor. The former, a next-generation attack submarine, is 377 feet long and has a displacement of 7,800 tons, while the latter, deployed since 1976, is 360 feet long with a displacement of 6,900 tons, according to the Navy.
What People Are Saying
Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard said in a Facebook post on Wednesday: “Dry Dock 5, now over 1/3 complete, is a critical investment in our ability to fix, repair, and maintain ships, keeping them #FitToFight for generations to come.”
The U.S. Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command Pacific said in March 2023: “The Navy is investing heavily in shipyard infrastructure for nuclear-powered warships. The Navy established SIOP to increase throughput at the four public shipyards by updating their physical layout, upgrading and modernizing their dry docks, and replacing antiquated capital equipment with modern tools and technologies.”
What Happens Next
It remains to be seen how the U.S. will further boost maintenance for its Navy. Some American naval vessels have been serviced in U.S. ally South Korea, reducing downtime and costs and enhancing readiness by conducting maintenance in theater.
Unlike the infamous December 7th date that baby boomers would forever be conditioned to remember and respect by their forebears, September 11th is becoming less and less of a date to “revere” and more and more of a “thing” to meme. And, although the attack on the World Trade Center hasn’t even yet reached its twenty-fifth anniversary, it’s already but “fodder” for a generation that was barely coherent, if even born at all, when the calamity occurred. Thus, it’s easy to find “levity” in the incongruous images from that immortal day (including a screen grab of an advertisement for Mariah Carey’s doomed movie, Glitter, against the backdrop of the smoking towers).
And oh, how Gen Z has found quite the substantial amount of levity in 9/11. As a recent article from Rolling Stone characterized this phenomenon, “To be on social media in 2024 is to be swimming in jokes and memes about 9/11. Things that might once have been whispered among friends are now shared by meme accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers. On TikTok, videos contrasting the year 2024 with 2001 (often ending with someone reacting to the planes hitting towers) frequently went viral.” An Instagram account called always_forget_never_remember (a “tasteless 9/11 Meme Dealer”) describes the latest glut of memes about the tragedy as having “the effect of exorcising the event from America’s collective consciousness.” While some might view that as a “positive” form of “healing,” others are aware of the long-term damage it can cause to “forget” (hence, the long-standing 9/11 urging to “never forget”—especially if you still have the non-presence of mind to live in New York).
Germany didn’t make the mistake of “forgetting” about World War II and Adolf Hitler’s dangerous, life-destroying demagoguery. Ergo, the reason why its ratio of neo-Nazis is actually far smaller than the one in the United States, where the history taught in schools is often not exactly “on the level.” Therefore, making it easy to forget the lessons that are theoretically supposed to be imparted by history. If 9/11 was meant to impart any such lesson, it’s that hubris will be the U.S.’ ultimate undoing. And yet, Gen Z has instead seen fit to take up allegiance with Osama bin Laden in the matter after his “Letter to America” went viral on TikTok. Mainly because part of his “logic” for killing thousands of people stemmed from the U.S.’ de facto support of Israel’s occupation of Palestine. But, as the aphorism goes, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” Especially Gen Z—blind to the severity and unprecedented nature of this event that has continued to negatively impact people’s lives to this day.
And not just the lives of those who lost loved ones in the most brutal and unfathomable manner, but to those still living who were subjected to the toxic materials of the aftermath. As the CDC phrases it, 9/11 “created massive dust clouds that filled the air and left hundreds of highly populated city blocks covered with ash, debris and harmful particles, including asbestos, silica, metals, concrete and glass.” Consequently, many people, young and old alike, were subjected to toxins that would result in ongoing health issues or even death.
Indeed, according to the Mesothelioma Center, “more people have now died from this toxic exposure than in the 9/11 attacks [themselves].” But that is of no importance to Gen Z, who could give a goddamn about anything (except looking young and excoriating those who don’t). Perhaps Rue Bennett (Zendaya), the ultimate numb/disaffected Gen Zer in Euphoria, puts it best when she narrates in the series’ pilot episode, “I was born three days after 9/11. My mother and father spent two days in the hospital, holding me under the soft glow of the television, watching those towers fall over and over again, until the feelings of grief gave way to numbness.” In a sense, she’s not just talking about her parents’ numbness, but also referring to the osmosis of those images—played ad nauseam until they meant nothing anymore—contributing to her own eventual numbness. Not just to 9/11 and its “weight,” but to life itself.
While there are those who would take up the defense of Gen Z (including Gen Z itself) by saying it’s not their fault they didn’t live through the catastrophe in order to be “appropriately sad” enough about it (therefore not make totally callous memes about it), others are aware of the growing sociopathy that exists within each new generation—and yes, it arguably started with baby boomers themselves, the generation first accused of being selfish and sociopathic via an illustrious 1976 article by Tom Wolfe for New York Magazine called “The ‘Me’ Decade.” And yet, while boomers might have been quick to join cults and indulge in many a bad acid trip, one can’t imagine them ever creating content that eradicated the entire emotional meaning of December 7, 1941.
Undoubtedly, Gen Z, in contrast, comes across as particularly sociopathic because they are the first generation to “forget” about 9/11. Not, however, the first generation to have the internet-oriented platforms to mock it. That would be millennials. But millennials were in the trenches when it happened, affected by the news coverage and anti-Middle East rhetoric that followed in such a way as to not even dream of poking fun at such a serious moment in the culture. After all, this was when people were still even taking Rudy Giuliani seriously. As for previous generations that were made aware of somber historical events, baby boomers didn’t have the means to mock Pearl Harbor (the event consistently likened to 9/11 because it was the only other large-scale attack on U.S. soil), nor did Gen X didn’t have the means to mock, say, the Kennedy assassination or the Vietnam War. At least not in a manner that could be disseminated to so many thousands of people.
The irony, of course, is that Gen Z is known for being the most “sensitive” generation yet—even though everything about them and their reactions to things connotes the exact opposite. Treating 9/11 like nothing more than a “trend” or meme to fill the internet space is, thus, but part and parcel of this generation’s highly limited capacity for empathy. Oh sure, there’s using humor as a coping mechanism, as many did try to in the wake of the events of September 11, 2001 (which meant being “canceled” before that was a term). But that’s not what it’s about with Gen Z, who has no emotional attachment whatsoever to that day. Nor do they seem to have much of an emotional attachment to anything (again, except to looking hot). Leading some to ask the question: can you blame them? After all, they live in a post-Empire world—how can they trust that it’s even worth it to attach to something, knowing how ephemeral it all is. The decimation of the Twin Towers certainly proves that, if nothing else, to Gen Z, so overexposed to tragedy and trauma at this point that their desensitization can be “justified.” As anything can be when it suits a purpose…sort of like bin Laden justifying the attacks.
Thousands of gallons of jet fuel contaminated the Navy’s drinking water system for Pearl Harbor. Families dealing with health issues sued, alleging they were harmed by negligence at Red Hill.
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This is an updated version of a story first published on April 28, 2024. The original video can be viewed here.
The U.S. military takes pride in protecting its own. That’s why military families we met in Hawaii told us they feel so betrayed.
Two years ago, there was a fuel spill close to the drinking water system at the Pearl Harbor base in Hawaii. As we first reported in April, Navy leadership assured thousands of military families that the tap water was safe.
But nearly two weeks after the spill, parents learned the truth: the water they drank or used to bathe their kids contained jet fuel.
Tonight – you’ll hear from some of the families who say the jet fuel tainted water made them sick. But first – we’ll go to where the water crisis at Pearl Harbor began.
From the air, the historic naval base is easy to spot. Eight miles from Honolulu… sparkling blue waters host battle gray ships…and memorials to those killed by Japan’s surprise attack in 1941.
What you can’t see is the once secret storage site that provided fuel for the Pacific fleet and its planes for 80 years.
Sharyn Alfonsi: It doesn’t look like much from the outside.
Vice Admiral John Wade: Wait ’till you get inside.
Vice Admiral John Wade led us through the Red Hill bulk fuel storage facility…seven miles of tunnels cut through volcanic rock – built to hold 250 million gallons of fuel.
Vice Admiral John Wade
60 Minutes
Vice Admiral John Wade: So this is one of the tanks.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Oh my gosh.
That black hole is a steel lined fuel tank so deep it’s hard to see the bottom 20 stories below.
Vice Admiral John Wade: To just show you how enormous this is, this tank holds 12.5 million gallons. And to give you kind of a reference point, the Statue of Liberty, not the base, but the statue itself, can fit in here with enough room.
And this is just one of the 20 tanks hidden here.
When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, construction was already underway to protect the Navy’s fuel reserves from an aerial attack.
Vice Admiral John Wade: The decision was made to embark on a herculean task to build a bulk storage fuel facility inside a mountain in secrecy.
Sharyn Alfonsi: And how long did that take to do?
Vice Admiral John Wade: It was a little less than three years. At its peak, there were about 4,000 men working here.
But this testament to American resolve became a monumental liability after this…
That’s jet fuel spraying from a cracked pipe. The video was recorded by a worker inside Red Hill on November 20th of 2021.
The fuel…20,000 gallons of it – was trapped in a plastic pipe. The weight caused the pipe to sag…this trolley hit it…
And jet fuel spewed for 21 hours….close to the well that supplied drinking water for 93,000 people on and around the base at Pearl Harbor.
Sharyn Alfonsi:According to Navy investigators, the workers who responded didn’t have the right tools to contain the spill. They also assumed there was no danger to the drinking water. They were wrong. At least 5,000 gallons of jet fuel drained into the tunnel floor and into the navy water system.
The next day the Navy issued a press release about the incident and told the 8,400 families living in military housing “…the water remains safe to drink.” Even though the Navy had not tested the water yet. A week later residents began to notice a problem.
Sharyn Alfonsi: When did you get this sense that there was something wrong with the water?
Brittany Traeger: My husband came into the kitchen and washed his hands and said, “Gosh, the water smells like I just did an oil change like, the water smells weird.”
Brittany Traeger
60 Minutes
Brittany Traeger lived on base…about two and half miles from Red Hill …with her daughter and husband, who is a Navy chief petty officer. Traeger says she began to feel sick a week after the spill.
Brittany Traeger: I had a cough. My tonsils were very swollen. I remember a very distinct moment where I was walking to the car and I had vertigo so bad that I had to hold onto the car.
Sharyn Alfonsi: The smell was that overwhelming?
Brittany Traeger: Uh-huh.
In an email to residents nine days after the spill, the commanding officer of the base reassured residents “…there are no immediate indications that the water is not safe. My staff and I are drinking the water…”
Sharyn Alfonsi: Did you stop using water? Did you stop taking baths?
Brittany Traeger: So, I did, my daughter did…
Sharyn Alfonsi: Just because you had a bad feeling, not ’cause anybody told you to.
Brittany Traeger: Correct. They gave us an email address that we could send an email to if we wanted to have our water tested. So, I emailed those people who then emailed me a phone number that I should call. And I called that phone number for days and it was just busy. They were overwhelmed and inundated with reports.
Ten days after the spill, there were more than 200 reports from six neighborhoods across the base of strong fuel odor coming from kitchen and bathroom faucets. But the Navy said its initial tests did not detect fuel.
Brittany Traeger: It defied logic, you know? Even though there was a leak and even though our water smelled like jet fuel and even though there was sheen on it, they continued to say, ” The tests are coming back negative.”
After 12 days…and four statements assuring residents the water was not contaminated with fuel…the Navy reversed course…on Dec. 2, 2021 it announced more comprehensive tests conducted by the Navy had detected jet fuel in the water.
Three weeks after the spill, tests from Hawaii’s Department of Health revealed jet fuel levels 350-times higher than what the state considers safe.
Richelle Dietz lives on base with her husband, a Navy chief petty officer….and their two children.
Richelle Dietz: Jet fuel’s not something that you would even think could happen to be in your water.
Sharyn Alfonsi: How were people reacting to the news?
Richelle Dietz: I was so sick to my stomach from that news that I actually threw up when I heard.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Because why?
Richelle Dietz: Because my kids had just been poisoned.
Richelle Dietz
60 Minutes
Within a month the Navy set up medical tents for residents. Some complained of stomach problems, severe fatigue and coughing. The military moved more than 4,000 families to hotels.
Small studies of military personnel suggest jet fuel exposure can lead to neurological and breathing problems.
But the long-term impact of ingesting jet fuel is unknown because it’sso unlikely to ever happen.
Richelle Dietz told us days after the spill her daughter’s tonsils became inflamed, and her son started suffering from chronic headaches.
Sharyn Alfonsi: I can hear people saying, “Tonsils, headaches. Kids get that stuff. How do you know it’s related?”
Richelle Dietz: Um, because they never had it before November of 2021. It wasn’t– an issue.
It’s unclear how many got sick. But of 2,000 people who responded to a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – more than 850 sought medical care. The water system was flushed over three months…and bottled water brought in.
Brittany Traeger said her 4 year old now suffers respiratory problems which require hour-long treatments…at least two times a day that includes a nebulizer and this vibrating vest to clear her lungs.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Tell me about your daughter’s health.
Brittany Traeger: Thirteen days after the contamination, after our water smelled like jet fuel, my daughter woke up in a hotel with a cough…and it pretty much never went away.
Three months passed before Pearl Harbor’s drinking water was deemed safe again. The Navy’s own investigations into the spill…described quote “cascading failures” and revealed poor training, supervision, and ineffective leadership at red hill that fell “…unacceptably short of navy standards…”
The primary water supply for the city of Honolulu is 100 feet below the Navy complex.
In March of 2022, the secretary of defense ordered Red Hill permanently closed.
Vice Admiral John Wade was brought in to get the 104 million gallons of fuel out of the tanks and move it safely to sites around the Pacific.
Vice Admiral John Wade: We’ve gotta defuel. That’s the imminent threat. There’s ongoing and will be continued long-term environmental remediation to restore the aquifer, the land and surrounding area. And then there’s also a medical component for those that have been impacted.
Sharyn Alfonsi: You view now this thing that was a lifeline for the fleet is a threat.
Vice Admiral John Wade: That’s right. That’s right.
In six months, Wade’s team in Hawaii successfully removed almost all of the fuel. But it took two years before the Navy issued disciplinary letters to 14 officers involved in the spill response…including, five admirals.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Was anyone fired because of this?
Meredith Berger, an assistant secretary of the Navy
60 Minutes
Meredith Berger: At the time that the accountability came through, uh– we had officers that had already retired. And so uh — they had already separated from service.
Meredith Berger is an assistant secretary of the Navy. We met her at the Pentagon in November. She told us the Navy has been accountable.
Sharyn Alfonsi: We’re talking about 20,000 gallons of– fuel leak, 90,000 people had their water contaminated. It looks like people retired, or were reassigned, and no one was fired. How is that accountability?
Meredith Berger: It’s accountability within the system that we have established. And we have heard that this was too long, um and that maybe it didn’t go far enough.
Two thousand military families agree the Navy didn’t go far enough and are suing the government. The Traegers and Dietzs have joined the lawsuit alleging they were harmed by negligence at Red Hill.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Are you angry that it happened? Or are you angry at what happened after?
Richelle Dietz: It’s a little bit of anger, but it’s also this feeling of betrayal.
Sharyn Alfonsi: What do you mean, betrayal?
Richelle Dietz: So my husband has been in for almost 18 years. We have moved our family cross country, cross oceans. We gave so much of our life to the Navy for them to ignore warnings and then we were directly and blatantly lied to about it.
Navy leadership has apologized for the spill but has not said that the contaminated water is the cause of the ongoing illnesses.
The Navy did set up a clinic on base to collect data and treat anyone who believes they have health issues related to the tainted water.
Sharyn Alfonsi: What happens in five or 10 or 15 years? Will those services still be available to these families?
Meredith Berger: So that’s– that is part of why, um, we are making sure that we’re collecting that information to inform future actions and what the requirements are for those types of uh, needs and care.
Sharyn Alfonsi: That doesn’t sound like a guarantee of care in the future.
Meredith Berger: And I wanna be careful, ’cause I don’t do the health care part of things. And so I– I don’t wanna speak outside of, um, of– of where I have any authority or decision.
So we followed up with the Defense Department…which told us it’s reviewing the question of long term health care for military families…including more than 3,100 children.
Two years after the spill, some residents have reported water with a smell or sheen. The Navy is conducting daily tests at Pearl Harbor and says it is confident there is no fuel in the tap water.
Richelle Dietz is still using bottled water. She and Brittany Traeger along with the other military families are awaiting a judge’s decision in their lawsuit.
Sharyn Alfonsi: What is the remedy that you want?
Brittany Traeger: In our family it’s restoring my faith in our nation.
Sharyn Alfonsi: That’s a big thing to say.
Brittany Traeger: There’s a body of government that failed. They contaminated our water, they lied to us, they did not protect us, and they did not intervene. And accountability looks like a lifelong care plan for me, my family, and the people affected. And that will restore my faith in my nation.
Produced by Guy Campanile. Associate producer, Lucy Hatcher. Broadcast associate, Erin DuCharme. Edited by Michael Mongulla.
Thousands of gallons of jet fuel contaminated the Navy’s drinking water system for Pearl Harbor. Families dealing with health issues are suing, alleging they were harmed by negligence at Red Hill.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Two years after a fuel leak at the Navy’s Red Hill storage complex contaminated drinking water at Pearl Harbor, the city of Honolulu is guarding against contamination to its own water supply.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
The U.S. military takes pride in protecting its own. That’s why military families we met in Hawaii told us they feel so betrayed.
Two years ago, there was a fuel spill close to the drinking water system at the Pearl Harbor base in Hawaii. Navy leadership assured thousands of military families that the tap water was safe.
But nearly two weeks after the spill, parents learned the truth: the water they drank or used to bathe their kids contained jet fuel.
Tonight – you’ll hear from some of the families who say the jet fuel tainted water made them sick. But first – we’ll go to where the water crisis at Pearl Harbor began.
From the air, the historic naval base is easy to spot. Eight miles from Honolulu… sparkling blue waters host battle gray ships…and memorials to those killed by Japan’s surprise attack in 1941.
What you can’t see is the once secret storage site that provided fuel for the Pacific fleet and its planes for 80 years.
Sharyn Alfonsi: It doesn’t look like much from the outside.
Vice Admiral John Wade: Wait ’till you get inside.
Vice Admiral John Wade led us through the Red Hill bulk fuel storage facility…seven miles of tunnels cut through volcanic rock – built to hold 250 million gallons of fuel.
Vice Admiral John Wade
60 Minutes
Vice Admiral John Wade: So this is one of the tanks.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Oh my gosh.
That black hole is a steel lined fuel tank so deep it’s hard to see the bottom 20 stories below.
Vice Admiral John Wade: To just show you how enormous this is, this tank holds 12.5 million gallons. And to give you kind of a reference point, the Statue of Liberty, not the base, but the statue itself, can fit in here with enough room.
And this is just one of the 20 tanks hidden here.
When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, construction was already underway to protect the Navy’s fuel reserves from an aerial attack.
Vice Admiral John Wade: The decision was made to embark on a herculean task to build a bulk storage fuel facility inside a mountain in secrecy.
Sharyn Alfonsi: And how long did that take to do?
Vice Admiral John Wade: It was a little less than three years. At its peak, there were about 4,000 men working here.
But this testament to American resolve became a monumental liability after this…
That’s jet fuel spraying from a cracked pipe. The video was recorded by a worker inside Red Hill on November 20th of 2021.
The fuel…20,000 gallons of it – was trapped in a plastic pipe. The weight caused the pipe to sag…this trolley hit it…
And jet fuel spewed for 21 hours….close to the well that supplied drinking water for 93,000 people on and around the base at Pearl Harbor.
Sharyn Alfonsi:According to Navy investigators, the workers who responded didn’t have the right tools to contain the spill. They also assumed there was no danger to the drinking water. They were wrong. At least 5,000 gallons of jet fuel drained into the tunnel floor and into the navy water system.
The next day the Navy issued a press release about the incident and told the 8,400 families living in military housing “…the water remains safe to drink.” Even though the Navy had not tested the water yet. A week later residents began to notice a problem.
Sharyn Alfonsi: When did you get this sense that there was something wrong with the water?
Brittany Traeger: My husband came into the kitchen and washed his hands and said, “Gosh, the water smells like I just did an oil change like, the water smells weird.”
Brittany Traeger
60 Minutes
Brittany Traeger lived on base…about two and half miles from Red Hill …with her daughter and husband, who is a Navy chief petty officer. Traeger says she began to feel sick a week after the spill.
Brittany Traeger: I had a cough. My tonsils were very swollen. I remember a very distinct moment where I was walking to the car and I had vertigo so bad that I had to hold onto the car.
Sharyn Alfonsi: The smell was that overwhelming?
Brittany Traeger: Uh-huh.
In an email to residents nine days after the spill, the commanding officer of the base reassured residents “…there are no immediate indications that the water is not safe. My staff and I are drinking the water…”
Sharyn Alfonsi: Did you stop using water? Did you stop taking baths?
Brittany Traeger: So, I did, my daughter did…
Sharyn Alfonsi: Just because you had a bad feeling, not ’cause anybody told you to.
Brittany Traeger: Correct. They gave us an email address that we could send an email to if we wanted to have our water tested. So, I emailed those people who then emailed me a phone number that I should call. And I called that phone number for days and it was just busy. They were overwhelmed and inundated with reports.
Ten days after the spill, there were more than 200 reports from six neighborhoods across the base of strong fuel odor coming from kitchen and bathroom faucets. But the Navy said its initial tests did not detect fuel.
Brittany Traeger: It defied logic, you know? Even though there was a leak and even though our water smelled like jet fuel and even though there was sheen on it, they continued to say, ” The tests are coming back negative.”
After 12 days…and four statements assuring residents the water was not contaminated with fuel…the Navy reversed course…on Dec. 2, 2021 it announced more comprehensive tests conducted by the Navy had detected jet fuel in the water.
Three weeks after the spill, tests from Hawaii’s Department of Health revealed jet fuel levels 350-times higher than what the state considers safe.
Richelle Dietz lives on base with her husband, a Navy chief petty officer….and their two children.
Richelle Dietz: Jet fuel’s not something that you would even think could happen to be in your water.
Sharyn Alfonsi: How were people reacting to the news?
Richelle Dietz: I was so sick to my stomach from that news that I actually threw up when I heard.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Because why?
Richelle Dietz: Because my kids had just been poisoned.
Richelle Dietz
60 Minutes
Within a month the Navy set up medical tents for residents. Some complained of stomach problems, severe fatigue and coughing. The military moved more than 4,000 families to hotels.
Small studies of military personnel suggest jet fuel exposure can lead to neurological and breathing problems.
But the long-term impact of ingesting jet fuel is unknown because it’sso unlikely to ever happen.
Richelle Dietz told us days after the spill her daughter’s tonsils became inflamed, and her son started suffering from chronic headaches.
Sharyn Alfonsi: I can hear people saying, “Tonsils, headaches. Kids get that stuff. How do you know it’s related?”
Richelle Dietz: Um, because they never had it before November of 2021. It wasn’t– an issue.
It’s unclear how many got sick. But of 2,000 people who responded to a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – more than 850 sought medical care. The water system was flushed over three months…and bottled water brought in.
Brittany Traeger said her 4 year old now suffers respiratory problems which require hour-long treatments…at least two times a day that includes a nebulizer and this vibrating vest to clear her lungs.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Tell me about your daughter’s health.
Brittany Traeger: Thirteen days after the contamination, after our water smelled like jet fuel, my daughter woke up in a hotel with a cough…and it pretty much never went away.
Three months passed before Pearl Harbor’s drinking water was deemed safe again. The Navy’s own investigations into the spill…described quote “cascading failures” and revealed poor training, supervision, and ineffective leadership at red hill that fell “…unacceptably short of navy standards…”
The primary water supply for the city of Honolulu is 100 feet below the Navy complex.
In March of 2022, the secretary of defense ordered Red Hill permanently closed.
Vice Admiral John Wade was brought in to get the 104 million gallons of fuel out of the tanks and move it safely to sites around the Pacific.
Vice Admiral John Wade: We’ve gotta defuel. That’s the imminent threat. There’s ongoing and will be continued long-term environmental remediation to restore the aquifer, the land and surrounding area. And then there’s also a medical component for those that have been impacted.
Sharyn Alfonsi: You view now this thing that was a lifeline for the fleet is a threat.
Vice Admiral John Wade: That’s right. That’s right.
In six months, Wade’s team in Hawaii successfully removed almost all of the fuel. But it took two years before the Navy issued disciplinary letters to 14 officers involved in the spill response…including, five admirals.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Was anyone fired because of this?
Meredith Berger, an assistant secretary of the Navy
60 Minutes
Meredith Berger: At the time that the accountability came through, uh– we had officers that had already retired. And so uh — they had already separated from service.
Meredith Berger is an assistant secretary of the Navy. We met her at the Pentagon in November. She told us the Navy has been accountable.
Sharyn Alfonsi: We’re talking about 20,000 gallons of– fuel leak, 90,000 people had their water contaminated. It looks like people retired, or were reassigned, and no one was fired. How is that accountability?
Meredith Berger: It’s accountability within the system that we have established. And we have heard that this was too long, um and that maybe it didn’t go far enough.
Two thousand military families agree the Navy didn’t go far enough and are suing the government. The Traegers and Dietzs have joined the lawsuit alleging they were harmed by negligence at Red Hill.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Are you angry that it happened? Or are you angry at what happened after?
Richelle Dietz: It’s a little bit of anger, but it’s also this feeling of betrayal.
Sharyn Alfonsi: What do you mean, betrayal?
Richelle Dietz: So my husband has been in for almost 18 years. We have moved our family cross country, cross oceans. We gave so much of our life to the Navy for them to ignore warnings and then we were directly and blatantly lied to about it.
Navy leadership has apologized for the spill but has not said that the contaminated water is the cause of the ongoing illnesses.
The Navy did set up a clinic on base to collect data and treat anyone who believes they have health issues related to the tainted water.
Sharyn Alfonsi: What happens in five or 10 or 15 years? Will those services still be available to these families?
Meredith Berger: So that’s– that is part of why, um, we are making sure that we’re collecting that information to inform future actions and what the requirements are for those types of uh, needs and care.
Sharyn Alfonsi: That doesn’t sound like a guarantee of care in the future.
Meredith Berger: And I wanna be careful, ’cause I don’t do the health care part of things. And so I– I don’t wanna speak outside of, um, of– of where I have any authority or decision.
So we followed up with the Defense Department…which told us it’s reviewing the question of long term health care for military families…including more than 3,100 children.
Two years after the spill, some residents have reported water with a smell or sheen. The Navy is conducting daily tests at Pearl Harbor and says it is confident there is no fuel in the tap water.
Richelle Dietz is still using bottled water. The lawsuit she joined with Brittany Traeger and the other military families is scheduled to go to trial tomorrow.
Sharyn Alfonsi: What is the remedy that you want?
Brittany Traeger: In our family it’s restoring my faith in our nation.
Sharyn Alfonsi: That’s a big thing to say.
Brittany Traeger: There’s a body of government that failed. They contaminated our water, they lied to us, they did not protect us, and they did not intervene. And accountability looks like a lifelong care plan for me, my family, and the people affected. And that will restore my faith in my nation.
Produced by Guy Campanile. Associate producer, Lucy Hatcher. Broadcast associate, Erin DuCharme. Edited by Michael Mongulla.
The USS Arizona Memorial is seen during a ceremony to mark the 82nd anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Thursday, Dec. 7, 2023, in Honolulu County, Hawaii. Pearl Harbor Survivors, World War II veterans and their families gather in Pearl Harbor to commemorate those who perished 82 years ago. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin)
HONOLULU (AP) — The last living survivor of the USS Arizona battleship that exploded and sank during the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor has died.
Lou Conter was 102.
The Arizona lost 1,177 sailors and Marines in the 1941 attack that launched the United States into World War II. Conter was a quartermaster, standing on the main deck of the Arizona as Japanese planes flew overhead on Dec. 7 that year.
His autobiography recounts how he joined other survivors in tending to the injured.
The Wisconsin native later flew 200 combat missions in the Pacific during World War II and retired in 1967 after 28 years in the Navy.
Conter’s daughter, Louann Daley, says her father passed away at his home Monday in Grass Valley, California.
President Joe Biden sat down with a “diverse” group of scholars and historians earlier this week to discuss the upcoming anniversary of the January 6th riots.
How diverse? White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre mentioned it repeatedly at a press briefing Thursday.
“He’s (Biden) met with historians before ahead of an important national moment, which we’re about to see, certainly, as it relates to January 6th,” she told reporters.
“And he met with these historians — a diverse group of historians to hear … directly from them on their thoughts about our democracy here in this country and abroad,” she added.
Jean-Pierre peppered in the word “diverse” three more times for good measure.
Over Half Of American Voters Either Think The FBI Was Involved In January 6th, Or Aren’t Sure
That diversity likely did not take into account those who do not believe the Capitol riot was on par with the Civil War.
As evidenced by one of those scholars, Sean Wilentz of Princeton, who told the Washington Post about his lunch with Biden and how January 6th reminded him of “what the secessionists were doing in 1860-61.”
“Go back and read what was going on in March 1861: They were worried about possibilities that pro-Confederates would enter the Capitol and actually disrupt the normal process of the succession of power,” Wilentz explained.
Nor does Biden’s meeting with historians take into account recent polling that shows that 25% of Americans believe FBI operatives organized and encouraged the January 6th attack on the Capitol.
Another 26% say there is enough doubt to make them “not sure” if the FBI participated in the events, while 48% believe that the idea that the FBI participated is either “probably” or “definitely” false.
The reason why 25% of Americans (including me) now believe the “conspiracy theory” that FBI instigated Jan 6 is the same reason why we believe that Covid was a man-made virus from China. It’s called reality. The MSM’s lack of self-awareness is astounding.https://t.co/cogkhf027j
Informants for the FBI were undoubtedly a part of the planning stages of the January 6th riot and others have made numerous claims to their activities that very day.
Steven Sund, the chief of the Capitol Police at the time of the January 6th riot, has suggested that the FBI had at least 18 undercover agents in the crowd along with an estimated 20 from the Department of Homeland Security.
Representative Clay Higgins (R-TX) has claimed that there may have been “over 200” undercover FBI agents posing as supporters of Donald Trump inside the Capitol before the riot on January 6th, 2021. Evidence of those numbers has yet to materialize.
Perhaps more alarming to Democrats is another recent poll that shows an increasing number of American voters believe the 2020 election was stolen.
A new Suffolk University poll indicates that two-thirds (67%) of Trump supporters don’t believe Biden was legitimately elected president in 2020.
This all depends on how the question was worded. While former President Trump’s claims of voter fraud have not panned out, there is ample evidence that the media and intelligence communities worked overtime to carry Biden to the White House.
President Biden, according to reports, plans to channel his inner George Washington in a speech commemorating January 6th, a day Democrats put on par with the attack on Pearl Harbor, 9/11, and obviously, the Revolutionary War.
Daily Mail reported that Biden “will speak near Valley Forge, where 250 years ago, the then-General Washington organized the alliance of colonial militias during a bleak winter and ‘united’ them to fight for democracy against the British in the Revolutionary War.”
“Biden will use the birthplace of the American army to accuse Trump of attempting to ‘dismantle and destroy our democracy’ by provoking his supporters to riot when he did not win reelection in 2020,” the publication added.
Aside from Democrats truly believing J6 is the equivalent of Pearl Harbor and 9/11, which is a clear sign of a mental disorder, the dude is literally going to channel the same guy his own party wants to cancel because they don’t understand how times change.… pic.twitter.com/k2ZU77kJGo
The left tries to rewrite history perpetually. They do so when it comes to George Washington, and they certainly have done so when it comes to January 6th.
Thank goodness for those scholars and historians. Oh wait, here’s Princeton scholar Sean Wilentz once again, suggesting that if Trump wins the 2024 presidential elections, he’ll get rid of all the real historians.
“I don’t even want to think about what historians are going to be saying if Trump wins,” Wilentz said. “I just hope there are historians around.”
Weird. Biden is meeting with historians to make sure they’re all on the same page regarding January 6th, not Trump.
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Rusty Weiss has been covering politics for over 15 years. His writings have appeared in the Daily Caller, Fox News, Breitbart, and many more.
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Survivors of the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, which propelled the U.S. into World War II, attended a remembrance ceremony Thursday. There were five survivors at the ceremony. A sixth, a 102-year-old California man, was planning to attend, but was unable to make the trip.
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Ken Potts, one of the last two remaining survivors of the USS Arizona battleship, which sank during the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, has died. He was 102.
Howard Kenton Potts died Friday at the home in Provo, Utah, that he shared with his wife of 66 years, according to Randy Stratton, whose late father, Donald Stratton, was Potts’ Arizona shipmate and close friend.
Stratton said Potts “had all his marbles” but lately was having a hard time getting out of bed. When Stratton spoke to Potts on his birthday, April 15, he was happy to have made it to 102.
“But he knew that his body was kind of shutting down on him, and he was just hoping that he could get better but (it) turned out not,” Stratton said.
Potts was born and raised in Honey Bend, Illinois, and enlisted in the Navy in 1939.
He was working as a crane operator shuttling supplies to the Arizona the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, when the Pearl Harbor attack happened, according to a 2021 article by the Utah National Guard.
“When I got back to Pearl Harbor, the whole harbor was afire,” He said in the interview. “The oil had leaked out and caught on fire and was burning.”
Dozens of ships either sank, capsized or were damaged in the bombing of the Hawaii naval base, which catapulted the U.S. into World War II.
Sailors were tossed or forced to jump into the oily muck below, and Potts and his fellow sailors pulled some to safety in their boat.
The Arizona sank just nine minutes after being bombed, and its 1,177 dead account for nearly half the servicemen killed in the attack. Today the battleship still sits where it sank eight decades ago, with more than 900 dead entombed inside.
Potts recalled decades later that some people were still giving orders in the midst of the attack but there was also a lot of chaos. He carried his memories of the attack over the course of his long life.
“Even after I got out of the Navy, out in the open, and heard a siren, I’d shake,” he said.
Stratton noted that the only remaining survivor from the Arizona is now Lou Conter, who is 101 and living in California.
“This is history. It’s going away,” Stratton said, adding: “And once (Conter is) gone, who tells all their stories?”
Several dozen Arizona survivors have had their ashes interred on the sunken battleship so they could join their shipmates, but Potts didn’t want that, according to Stratton.
“He said he got off once, he’s not going to go back on board again,” he said.
Stratton said many Arizona survivors shared a similar dry sense of humor. That included his own father, who was severely burned in the attack and also did not want to return to the ship as ashes in an urn.
“‘I’ve been cremated once. I’m not going to be cremated twice,’” Donald Stratton joked, according to the younger Stratton, before his death in 2020 at age 97.
“They had that all throughout their lives. They had the sense of humor, and they knew sooner or later they would pass,” Randy Stratton said. “Our job now is to keep their memories alive.”
Potts is survived by his wife, Doris. Information on other survivors was not immediately available.
Sean Spicer, Donald Trump’s first White House press secretary, marked the 81st anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor Wednesday by mistakenly honoring D-Day.
“Today is Dday,” Spicer wrote on Twitter. “It only lives in infamy if we remember and share the story of sacrifice with the next generation #DDay.”
In a Historic investment in Hawaii’s future, the Alexander Gaston Estate is making a significant donation, managed by the Hawaii Community Foundation (managers of the fund) and Bank of Hawaii (investment managers of the fund). This large donation of $7.2 million goes toward the Pearl Harbor Historical Sites Fund.
Press Release –
Oct 25, 2022
HONOLULU, October 25, 2022 (Newswire.com)
– In a Historic investment in Hawaii’s future, the Alexander Gaston Estate is making a significant donation, managed by the Hawaii Community Foundation (managers of the fund) and Bank of Hawaii (investment managers of the fund). This large donation of $7.2 million goes toward the Pearl Harbor Historical Sites Fund.
Mr. Gaston was one of Hawaii’s leading donors to the Pearl Harbor Historical Sites Fund. Now, this foundation will be set up to exist in perpetuity, creating an opportunity to support and educate school-age children.
The Pearl Harbor Historical Sites Fund was started in 2009. The fund is asking the worldwide community, especially individual donors, and companies across Hawaii to support this fund with a 100% tax-deductible donation. All proceeds will support the PHHSF so that all the children of Hawaii, regardless of their financial ability, will have an opportunity to visit, learn and enjoy all there is to know about Pearl Harbor with a school field trip or daylong or overnight stay visit to Pearl Harbor historical sites. The funds raised support school visits, school tours, and are for children attending from all Hawaiian Islands. With these programs, the students have an opportunity to visit all four sites including the USS Arizona Memorial, the USS Battleship Missouri, the USS Bowfin Submarine, and the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum.
This foundation was inspired by Sandy’s long-time friend Jay Dunn, who was a volunteer running the flight simulators at the Pacific Aviation Museum. A child told him that a classmate couldn’t come to the museum that day with the class.
Jay asked, “Why did your friend not come today?” and the child replied, “His mom didn’t have the $30.00 for transportation, admission, lunch.” Jay met with Sandy and his other brother-in-arms, Lee Collins, and the three decided to start a foundation specifically designed to address this problem for Hawaii’s families.
While Sandy Gaston, Jay Dunn, and Lee Collins initially served as the advisors to the fund, with Sandy’s passing, these responsibilities have now passed to representatives of the beneficiary museums and memorials, who will work directly with HCF to advise on the fund going forward. As co-trustees of the Gaston estate, they’ll continue to promote the program to the world and invite more people and corporate sponsors to become donors so that the fund may continue to grow and provide free access to Hawaii’s students in perpetuity. All three, having served in the military and having been veterans of war, agreed that all Hawaii’s school children should have an opportunity to enjoy and learn from the importance of all the Pearl Harbor Historic Sites. To make a tax-deductible donation visit www.PearlHarborFund.org
WHAT: PRESS CONFERENCE, USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park
WHEN: October 25, 2022, 11am speakers from all historic sites
