Red Hill water contamination victims accused the federal government last year of tainting fuel samples which they say would’ve been key to their pending lawsuit, but a federal judge on Wednesday rejected those claims.
The case stems from consecutive fuel spills at the U.S. Navy’s World War II-era storage complex that contaminated the drinking water used by thousands of Pearl Harbor residents in 2021.
Samples from the pipeline that leaked could have revealed the chemical makeup of the fuel people drank, plaintiffs’ attorneys argued.
Meredith Wilson (left), Ariana Wyatt (right) and Wyatt’s daughter are suing the federal government over the harms they say they suffered during and after the Red Hill water contamination crisis in 2021. (Civil Beat photo 2022/Hawaii News Now screenshot 2023)
They said the federal government didn’t inform them that residual fuel still existed. By the time plaintiffs found out, fuel had already been drained into drums that would’ve tainted the test results, effectively destroying its value as evidence.
In a hearing on Jan. 7, plaintiffs attorney Chris Nidel compared the government’s actions to smudging a fingerprint at a crime scene. He called on the court to sanction the federal government for ostensibly hiding and contaminating the samples.
He asked the court to assume the samples, had they been tested, were “both capable of causing and did cause Plaintiffs’ injuries,” — a finding that, if the judge had agreed, could have meant more money for his clients.
U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Kenneth Mansfield was not convinced.
In a written ruling on Wednesday, Mansfield said the plaintiffs have not proven the samples are unreliable. Even if they were, the federal government would have to have had a “culpable state of mind” while destroying the evidence, the judge wrote, and that was not established.
“There is no evidence in the record demonstrating that defendant caused the samples to be destroyed or altered, or that Defendant failed to preserve the evidence, in bad faith or even negligently,” Mansfield wrote. “The samples are still available.”
Civil Beat has been reporting on the leaking tanks, water contamination and political debate over Red Hill since 2014. Read our full coverage here.
A Testy Court Hearing
During the court hearing, Department of Justice attorney Eric Rey said samples still exist today and can be tested. But Nidel said the samples have essentially expired due to the passage of time and have been contaminated by other material.
If the samples were tested now, he said, some chemicals that used to be present may no longer be detectable. And alternatively, chemicals that were not part of the fuel spill might show up, perhaps from a dirty storage drum. Either way, he said, the sample is unreliable.
He cited one of the government’s own officials who said, under oath, that the existing samples have limited value.
Plaintiffs’ attorney Chris Nidel asked the judge to sanction the federal government. The judge was not persuaded. (Courtesy photo)
The judge pushed back on Nidel’s assertions and criticized Nidel for not presenting an expert witness to support his claims. The judge also pointed out that the federal government did disclose the existence of residual fuel years ago and indicated its intention to drain it.
“Their argument is that they told you about it, and you, until now, have not done anything about it,” Mansfield said.
Nidel acknowledged this but noted his three-member legal team had been buried under millions of discovery documents, which included “irrelevant information.”
Mansfield chastised Nidel for filing a legal motion that says the government did not disclose the information.
“That appears to be false,” the judge said. “Words are important.”
The plaintiffs’ attorney said his team should’ve been invited to observe the draining of the fuel from the pipeline and participate in the sampling. But Rey said the government had no legal obligation to do that.
By that logic, Rey argued, Nidel should’ve informed the government when his clients were going to undergo a blood draw, the results of which might have pointed to causes of their illnesses unrelated to Red Hill.
Ruling May Limit Awards To Victims
The decision deals a blow to the case filed by two women and a child who say they were sickened by the contamination disaster.
Plaintiff Meredith Wilson, an Air Force musician at the time, experienced vertigo and disorientation. Air Force spouse Ariana Wyatt suffered neurological issues, gastrointestinal distress and severe skin irritation that she told Hawaiʻi News Now felt like chemical burns.
Wyatt’s daughter, then four years old, became incontinent and her teacher noticed behavioral changes, remarking she seemed “more of a shell of a person,” according to the lawsuit complaint. The child was later diagnosed with a thyroid condition.
Ariana Wyatt’s daughter Indy Rose became sick after drinking water tainted by Red Hill fuel. She was diagnosed with a thyroid condition and became lethargic and withdrawn, according to a federal lawsuit. (Courtesy photo)
The federal government already admitted to negligence in causing the contamination, and the victims will almost certainly see some compensation, but exactly how much is still in question.
A 2024 trial that set the compensation standard for thousands of victims resulted in payout amounts that were much smaller than expected. The legal team in that case had hoped for $225,000 to $1.25 million per person, but Judge Leslie Kobayashi granted $5,000 to $100,000 each.
Nidel’s clients may not fare much better.
His motion for sanctions said the allegedly destroyed samples would have been “the cornerstone evidence required for proving Plaintiffs’ claims for serious, long-term injuries from USA’s negligence.”
Without a ruling in their favor, Nidel told Civil Beat on Thursday the legal team is assessing its options.
“The sick thing that’s going on is that the Navy has stipulated to their own negligence,” he said. “They’ve admitted to bad conduct that resulted in people being poisoned. And yet they’re being given every benefit of the doubt.”
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